Before I go to bed, I feel compelled to post some thoughts about Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles. I just finished watching the first two DVDs, and I consider them money well spent - or, anyway, I would if I hadn't been given them as gifts.

It would be unfair to say that Roughnecks was what Starship Troopers the film should have been. ST had its own internally consistent aesthetic as far as the universe dynamic went, and I think it served the script's purposes admirably. And Heinlein's actual vision of how Mobile Infantry fought would be very difficult to film - how do you make a film about infantry in a universe where one man in an armored suit is good to cover forty square miles of terrain? I mean, how would you ever get anything on screen?

That said, I think Roughnecks strikes an admirable balance between the dictates of the camera and the feel of the universe that science fiction geeks everywhere have always wanted to see brought to the screen. Granted there's no power armor (what Roughnecks substitutes as "power suits" pales in comparison to what we know real Mobile Infantry suits can do), but there are the following in keeping with the book:

1). A focus on the small unit. The operational unit of the Mobile Infantry has been changed from platoon to squad, but the basic idea of "very small numbers of men are required to get the job done" is still there.
2). Mobile Infantry troopers ... well, they rock the house. They may not have Marauder suits (and as we all know, the Roughnecks version of the "Marauder suit" is nothing at all like the real Marauder) but this is real heavy infantry, with armor that actually protects them, and an enormous amount of firepower at their disposal. Those automatic rifles that Casper Van Dien and Dina Meyer wielded in the movie - you know, the ones that apparently fired paper clips? They're back, but this time they tear warrior bugs to pieces. As it should be.
3). If the humans have the firepower, it's the bugs that have the tactics. Human technology is insufficient to truly protect against a bug ambush. Again, as it should be - the bugs are supposed to be better coordinated than the humans, who have to rely on the individual superiority of their troopers to win through.
4). The Mobile Infantry is actually mobile. Roughnecks makes up for the MI's lack of power armor by providing them with all sorts of nifty locomotive gadgets for getting into, around, and out of battle. MI troopers are dropped by the individual man from orbit. They have rough and tumble low-gee vehicles. They have jet skis. They have personal jet gliders.
5). The feel of the weapons is pretty close to what we know Heinlein's MI used. No atomic rockets yet, but we do toss nuclear bombs around like they're nothing. The preoccupation with fire is there, translated into a variety of nifty plasma gadgets. And the Morita smart rifles that are standard issue for Roughnecks MI even manage to skirt Heinlein's statements to the effect that the MI don't use rifles anymore by giving them guided ammunition.

So, from a technological standpoint I give Roughnecks major props for translating everything about Starship Troopers' tech establishment onto the screen except for the power armor. Which is darn well good enough for me to be just undeniably cool.

The bugs? Well, I admit that I was not immediately scared of the bugs like I was in the movie. I mean, this was a TV cartoon, which means having people get ripped in half while begging their mates to help them is a big no-no. But after a few episodes I bought into what the characters were telling me: that these were big, scary bugs (never mind that I'd never actually seen them kill anyone). And we're seeing the bugs adapt their strains to the various interstellar battlegrounds just like the humans adapt their equipment, which means lots of new and icky bugs to fit the occasion. Perfect!

Plot? Oh, I was skeptical at first. But the plot has turned out to be quite good - and, amazingly, stay focused on the basic point of Starship Troopers: namely, what it's like to be an infantryman, in any time period. This is a series that is meant to be taken seriously, not with tongue in cheek like the movie. And that, too, is in keeping with the basic point of Starship Troopers.

And lastly, you ask, what about the characterization? Although this is an action-oriented series, I find myself liking the characters quite a bit. Lt. Razak (with his new, simplified spelling) is such the consummate leader that you can't help but like him, and the guy who does his voice is really good - he's at once terrifying and fatherly and so utterly in charge that you just have this sense that no matter how bad things get he'll pull you out of it. He is precisely Heinlein's image of the Old Man. Sgt. Brutto is a somewhat less-than character so far - not at all a model sergeant and a bit of a jerk, but he's getting more rounded as the series moves on so I have hope.

Johnny Rico's back, and a pleasant mix of Van Dien's war hero and Heinlein's unimportant everyman who happens to be MI. The true role of observer and liason between Mobile Infantry and Joe Audience has been taken by the reporter, Higgins, who does an admirable job of filling those shoes. Ace is notably absent but replaced by the colorful Corporal Gossard, who's a more interesting character anyway. Carmen Ibanez is back, and (while not as pretty as Denise Richards) far more believable than her big-screen counterpart as the genius superstar who was born to be a starpilot and represent all that the infantryman is deprived of: mother, home, comfort, safety. And, much to my delight, Dina Meyer's Dizzy Flores is back in all of her her sexy, no-nonsense, pining-over-the-hero, tough-as-nails glory. I'm not sure what Dizzy adds to the point of the story, but she's a great foil to Rico and Jenkins (who have a much-needed best-friend thing going on) and is just in general fun to watch. I understand that the character was crafted to appeal to the lonely adolescent sci-fi geeks who are the primary audience of all things Starship Troopers - but knowing that doesn't stop her from appealing to me!

So, that's my quick little dissection of Roughnecks. If you happen to know Dizzy Flores, or someone remotely like her, send her my way.

Well, it's been a while. But I suppose I can spare a bit before lunch to update, now that I have some things to talk about that are worthy of updating.

To begin with in chronological order, then, the Jennifer Knapp/Jars of Clay concert. I am not a Jars fan, and I am a [nominal] Jennifer Knapp fan. Naturally I went primarily to see the guitar girl whose music graces my speakers. I can't say that I was impressed, but then again I don't like her new album all that much. She did perform "Undo Me" ... kind of ... in one of those medleys of old stuff that artists seem to be using nowadays as a way to satisfy their fans' desire to hear the old stuff. Both she and Jars were fun to watch; these are clearly instrumentalists who have mastered the fine art of playing in a visually engaging way and having a blast doing it. Both performances were hampered by the rock concert sensibility (which I dislike intensely) of having the background just as loud as the vocals, if not louder. Especially in a situation like this, where every last decibel you hear comes from the speakers and not the instrument directly, this seems like an entirely avoidable disaster in my opinion. Granted, I'm a vocalist who gets a lot more significance out of the poetry of the lyrics and the artistry of their delivery than I do from the accompaniment (and that's really the rub; groups like this don't view the instrumentals as accompaniment so much as co-equal with the solo) ... but it seems that the heart of the music, particularly in Christian music, is in the lyrics rather than the arrangement.

I do give both performances kudos for having the sense to make the event more than a fun concert. And Jars' encore was particularly tasteful. But all in all, I think the Avalon\\Zoe Girl\\Joy Williams concert at the beginning of the year was better.

Then there was Star Wars II with my Greek class, which was ultimately cool. Even if you don't know that Twilight and I used to quiz each other on the model numbers of various components on Star Wars starships, you can tell I'm a Star Wars geek by the fact that I refer to all of the movies (and always have) by number instead of subtitle. What follows will not be the end of the post, but will be (I expect) a long digression into the relative merits of Star Wars II. If you are not interested in getting an ex-hardcore fan's take on the movie, skip down.

To begin with, you should know that an appreciable part of my enjoyment was due to the fact that I was seeing it with friends. Star Wars is a social milestone in the history of my life; if not for Star Wars I would literally have no crew. We bonded first over Star Wars, and I think everybody who knows him will get a warm feeling of nostalgia if I just recall Kharmak asking "what's a wookiee?" So the fact that I saw the midnight show with my Greek class ... well, it was a symbolic statement of the fact that I am acquiring real friends up here. And any event associated with that must necessarily be remembered fondly.

However, I thought the movie was good anyway. Yes, I thought it was on par with IV, V, and VI. Before I respond to specific criticisms of the movie, allow me to postulate the following:

Film critics view Star Wars II in one of two ways. Either they come to it like any other movie, with their favorite critical theory (whatever that may be) and grade it, or they come to it with the assumption that it must be good and then try to explain away its faults on the grounds that "the fans will like it anyway," tacitly implying that the critic himself thinks it's kind of weak but hey, it's a sacred cow.

What I would like to suggest to you is that Star Wars II ought not to be viewed as primarily cinema, but primarily science fiction. World-building science fiction, in particular (hereafter "science fiction"). Science fiction demands that the audience make critical connections forwards, backwards, or laterally in time. It's a critical part of what makes science ficiton art. If you can't do that, you're no more prepared to critique the movie than someone who knows nothing of instrumental music is prepared to critique an operetta. The corollary to that is that nothing in science fiction is silent. Everything the author tells you or the director lets you see has significance to the plot or the theme. This is just a maxim of the genre; you may accept it or not. I think that most critics don't. So they see the fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi's Aethersprite looks like a Star Destroyer crossed with an A-wing is not and shrug their shoulders. Cute visual storytelling. But it's not; it's a multilayered statement of any number of things. It [should] immediately call to mind Obi-Wan's critical role in the Rebellion, the fact that the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire come out of the same entity, the fact that Obi-Wan helps create the Empire. And that in turn creates dramatic tension in the beholder just the same as a clever piece of dialogue or great scoring does.

With that in mind, a fan's response to several specific critiques. I hope you will not find any spoilers in what follows, and will understand that "you" refers to film critics directly and not you, the reader of this blog:

1). The movie is preoccupid with politics and has too much exposition. In the first place, Star Wars I-III are political history. They're docudrama. If that's not what you were looking for, sorry, but that's what they are. This is why we're cycling through characters like there's no tomorrow: Qui-Gon, Jar-Jar, Darth Maul, Jango Fett, Nute Gunray ...they played their part on the historical stage and then they disappeared into the background. History is not always the story of characters, and in the case of the history of the Clone Wars and the fall of the Republic, it won't do to focus on individuals the way it did for a study of the Galactic Civil War and the fall of the Empire. In point of fact, the unifying theme of I-III has nothing to do with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, or Padme Amidala. It has to do with Palpatine. All of this is nothing more than a footnote to explain how Palpatine singlehandedly destroyed the Republic and created the Empire. As for the idea that there's too much exposition ... I disagree. It seems to me that the phrase "too much" implictly invokes a ratio. 70% talking, 30% showing, or something like that. But in fact all of the exposition given here connects to at least one other fact the movie assumes its audience will be intelligent enough to pick up on. And that means that the ratio of told:shown drops dramatically.

2). The romance is awkward and unbelievable. Well, maybe maybe not. We're talking about someone who's been in politics since she was 14 (she's now 24) and someone who's been in Jedi training since he was 9 (he's now 19). Both, in all likelihood, skipped the part of life where you learn how to deal with the opposite gender. Both are insanely skilled overachievers and know it. Both lack parent figures (Obi-Wan, as you know from IV-VI and just watching him, hardly cuts it as a father figure whatever Anakin says). I happen to know that late-teenage overachievers who know they're in the 99th percentile of humanity and are starving for intimate relationships say and do impossible things in romantic situations. I go to an entire school full of such individuals and have done such things myself. I know girls who get wooden and artificial when they're straining to stay rational in the face of tidal-wave emotions. In short, I argue that Lucas isn't out of touch with the realities of young romance so much as too in touch with it - this is a romance I find entirely believable, but not a kind that is particularly photogenic. And that I think is what people are actually complaining about.

That's enough about Star Wars II for now. I can give you a more complete analysis of the movie if you want, but you'll have to ask me.

Finally, as to going home ... ahhhh, going home. How delightful! We saw Star Wars II with the crew and Twilight's dad and had a rousing discussion about it afterwards while agreeing we did actually enjoy the movie quite a bit. Then we went to my place and had the second ever Classical Phoenix Earth session. The DM called it "really really cool," which sentiment others have echoed. Twilight even said I was "born to do this," and even Cloud (who was not there, of course) said that just the character sheet looked incredibly cool. This was all incredibly gratifying, of course, and we had some innovations too which went off as "mind-numbingly cool," in The DM's words. One was the introduction of the literary cutscene: short short stories about what's going on elsewhere, to allow me to vividly describe the world and even tease the players with plot development. And the other was the straight-faced opening, narrated from the perspective of a real character in the world. All of this is new and experimental but went off great.

And the session was just really cool, too ... nothing went as planned, but that's the essence of Phoenix Earth and I apparently improvised without a hitch. And now the players have brought great misfortune on their heads and it's not my fault! And even more importantly, the party was tougher and more wily than I could have anticipated. This campaign is going to be great fun.

The IG session was great fun too. Our new party, with Kathelia included, finally got somewhere in Antarctica (yes, Antarctica) and had a good old-fashioned dose of horror. The session was a little rushed but that's ok, and ironically enough both sessions ended in cliffhangers. Oh, it's going to be fun when I get back!

And to top it all off I have the first four campaigns of Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles and my own DVD of Moulin Rouge! Ahhhh ... sure there's no time to watch 'em, but at least they're there! Just get to the end of the week ...

Yet again in Social Dance I avoided dancing with Miss Lodge. This is a courtesy on my part, as I strongly suspect that I am to her as Brown Sweatshirt Guy is to Blue Rose - and if the BSG voluntarily avoided Rose when politely possible, I expect she would thank him. Not that I think I'm an awful dancer or an obnoxious partner, but I see no reason to inflict myself upon her if she'd rather I not.

Fortuitously enough, this put me in the company of Miss Tokyo, with whom I have only previously danced waltz and (I think) a little bit of swing. Today we were doing cha-cha and mambo\\salsa, so dancing with Tokyo was a very different experience from our previous times. She's as good a partner in the Latin dances as she is in the others, so dancing with her was quite the pleasure. I also got to come back from social dance hiatus (i.e., I sat out last class due to sickness and missed the class before that) with the English Goth as my first partner. I've danced with her so often by now that we have adjusted to each others' idiosyncrasies quite well, and we have a fun time chatting during class too. Oh, and early in the class I got to dance with the Apple Senior, who has a very interesting handhold (unusually high) with her right hand but is really quite the smooth follow. If something doesn't work with other girls it usually will with her, and that makes me feel good.

As you may or may not know, a little while ago I was, like poor Simba, feeling rather down on social dance. It just didn't seem fun. Much to my surprise, the Latin dances we are learning now (previously the bane of my existence) have quite revived the pasttime for me. I am sad that I will be missing a large portion of Big Dance in two weeks - but it's for a good cause (namely, going home).

I will also be going on the Campus Crusade for Christ spring retreat this weekend. I am excited about this. To be sure, it's a bit risky to miss three weekends in May in a row. But I feel like my Sweet One has been quite clear that he wants me to go. I am not sure precisely why, but that is good enough for me. CCC is slowly bringing me around to the fellowship establishment. In some ways it still feels silly and unnatural to me, but I believe enough good is coming of it that I can forgive those faults. To be sure, the teaching there is not (in my opinion) of the caliber that one receives at InterVarsity (speaking of the Stanford chapters, now). But I do not lack for good teaching - and the fellowship at CCC is, for me, superior to that at IV. Perhaps it is because I know people coming in, via Testimony. And it is good to again be at a place where Antilles leads worship, as I feel he has a particular gift for that and annointed worship leaders are rare. I feel comfortable saying that because of course it is no praise of him (I feel sure that he would not want me lauding him too highly in a public space such as this).

There is, as well, the presence of the Soprano. I consider this important enough to mention because I begin to suspect that my path has been crossed with hers so that she may fill in the role of the Caryatid. I had not realized it until now, but I miss not having contact with any pillar-women (that is, women who are pillars to me, as I can think of a number of sisters I know whom I am sure are pillars to other men). As the psalmist says,

Then our sons in their youth
will be like well-nurtured plants,
and our daughters will be like pillars
carved to adorn a palace. (Psalm 144:12).

It has recently come to my attention that my sphere is positively saturated with beautiful women (whatever Trent says about Moorpark, Stanford suits me just fine!) But a daughter like a pillar carved to adorn a palace is a rare and beautiful thing - something that I think all believing men should have.

At 2241 Pacific yesterday I turned twenty-one years of age. I did nothing particularly 21-ish, although when the waiter at Max's asked if he could get me a cocktail to start with I did stop and think about it for just over half a second.

The day was not precisely replete with festivities, but it was an agreeable day all the same. I began the day at midnight, when Shanah had the brilliant idea of giving me a birthday dance in Otero lounge. Neani was there, along with a fellow Berkeley-ite from For Christ's Sake, which is Testimony's counterpart group at Cal. For this reason my birthday dance consisted of swing (courtesy of Archimedes), which is of course not my favorite dance but the one that included the largest number of people. I am afraid that my ability to follow swing is lacking, although I hope to have largely remedied that problem by this time next year. I feel certain that Neani's follow was not as good as most of my Stanford partners' have been, despite the fact that her knowledge of swing is in some ways far greater. I attribute this to the influence of the Dance Master on the Stanford campus and am grateful for it.

So I began my birthday surrounded by beautiful girls, all of whom were pleasantly attractive in their own special way. I woke up in plenty of time to go to church at The River and was again pleasantly surprised to find myself in especially attractive female company, although I am sure that their attractiveness was not in celebration of my birthday. The "happy birthday Eric!" that made me jump halfway out of my skin probably was, though, and although it was a small thing it made me smile. Also fun was the fact that church was on the San Jose State campus for the first time, and the service was rather good. The River is of course lacking in certain key areas of what I think a good church should be, but it is a decent place all the same ... and certainly the place that I belong right now. And after all, all churches are lacking in certain key areas of what a good church should be.

Upon returning to campus I commenced the dismembering of my music midterm, which was not a task I enjoyed but not a task that I despised or made me feel shriveled and worthless, either. And that's an improvement. After that my Sweatshirt Girl took me out to dinner at Max's and then to Lane by way of Blockbuster to watch The Music Man. This made me smile, and it seemed to me that the sky on our way to Ginger (her car) was a pleasant mix of the ebon blackness of the Los Angeles night sky and the stars of the Stanford night sky. The symbolism in that struck me as God's way of saying "happy birthday."

The astute among you will have noticed by this point that pretty girls featured large in my birthday. Andrea and Lindsey (although I now prefer Nikki) did not make an appearance, which was probably all for the good as I enjoyed being me yesterday. In two weeks' time I will engage in guy-heavier festivities, namely Star Wars II, Phoenix Earth, and Infernal Gaslamp. All in all, a reasonable balance. Except for the lack of family. I am afraid that I will be spending precious little time in the cove this time around ... but I suppose that couldn't be helped.

The show went well. In point of fact, I thought it was fantastic. I have decided that our pre-show routine needs work, though. I actually resorted to doing some of the stuff that the Director had us do before shows ... and darned if it didn't work in calming my nerves and getting me ready to go up there and pour myself out to the audience. That's pretty much all I'm going to say about that, but you should know that the show went very well indeed.

I know the race of the week is coming up on becoming the race of the month, but I'm afraid there just isn't enough time to update it. You'll just have to wait.

As he has done a number of times in the past, Dad has demonstrated what may be a certain amount of Spirit-led foresight in predicting the next major issue of policy I will have to deal with. Namely, how do I deal with friends when they do things I don't think they should? And as usual, M'lakMavet has phrased the answer to that question (which I formulated as far back as middle school) in away that reminds the twenty-year old me what the thirteen-year old me had already figured out. If you think that this paragraph refers to you or someone you know, you may be right. However, it refers to nothing and nobody specifically.

It is good to have the Cardinal and Ish around, even if they're only "around" in a digital sense. My relationship with them is a pretty clear example to me that the Internet can be a very, very good thing - and a clear example that God keeps pace with the developments of human civilization.

I was encouraged this week to run into the Soprano at Campus Crusade. I don't know her very well but I suspect that she's one of those women, like the Caryatid (who's getting married on Memorial Day weekend! *squeal*) and the Fiance (who's getting married on July 27! *squeal squared*) who is a veritable pillar in her spiritual community. The kind of woman who epitomizes what it means to be a woman of God, and by extension to be female. This was encouraging to me not only because I think I needed such a woman to convince me to give this "fellowship" institution another try (thereby demonstrating that my Sweet One still has my back) but also because it reminded me that such women do exist. There is such a thing as a woman who is "all fair" and in whom "is no spot" (Song 4:7). If I demand such a woman to marry my search will not be in vain. Do I consider myself worthy of such a woman? Ha! It is to laugh. But I will be. Wait and see.

Star Wars II will be coming out on May 16, as many of you know. Remarkably, I will be home, and it is therefore possible that I could see it. This will be the first Star Wars movie that I have not seen in the theaters with Thea and Princess. I find that thought somewhat sad. Princess still goes to Northwestern of course, so she won't be available (even if it were possible to contact her without an act of God, which I don't think it is) ... but Thea might be. Maybe I should contact her and see if we can arrange to get together for lunch and a movie, for old times' sake. I had planned to see it with the crew, but I bet they'd understand if I could swing another date with Thea. I wonder if she's still going with the Historian.

Testimony's spring show is on May 4, which is the day before my twenty-first birthday. I have thoughts about that but it's late and I should go to bed. Good night, ladies and gentlemen.

Back home it's prom time, and Mr. Clean has gone and acquired himself a girlfriend - or, at any rate, she's acquired herself a boyfriend who happens to be him, which makes it pretty safe to assume that he's acquired himself a girlfriend who happens to be her. What with the time of year, and my birthday, I'm kind of being immersed in thoughts about boys and girls and what happens when they meet. In honor of the occasion I'm listening to my favorites from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, which is my favorite movie musical of all time even if the commercial soundtrack was a bitter disappointment.

The comment about my birthday refers to the only way in which I actually feel old. I would not describe myself as old (except in jest, but my friends do that often enough that I rarely feel the need), but I am somewhat old for my grade and older than all but two of my friends up here. I do not feel old, and I don't expect to feel old for a good long time. However, there is one way in which I "feel my age," if you will:

I want a family.

Now, generally speaking I consider statements like that to be a warning alarm for character flaws, so in all fairness to my own heuristic I should qualify that. I do want a family - just a wife at first; kids later - but I do not truly want a family right now. I am not done with school. And I would say the fact that I clearly have no romantic prospects at the moment is a fairly clear sign from God that I shouldn't be moving on yet. That will do as good as any segue for a brief monologue on dating, which I feel has been due for a while.

To begin with, let me answer the Great Question: do I believe in love at first sight?

The short answer to that is no, but the real answer is that in Natalie that is a null question. The Natalian definition of love (courtesy of Mr. Lewis) is to seek another's good. That is, seek//pursue//create. The phrase "at first sight" here has the connotation of "pre-interaction," and it is therefore logically impossible to have love at first sight on the Natalian conception.

So on to the second Great Question: do I believe in The One?

The short answer to that is yes, but the real answer is rather more complicated. I believe that God has created a single woman whom he plans for me to marry. I cannot back that belief up with any sort of verifiable truth, though, so my belief doesn't count for much. It's essentially something I hope because I think it would be nice. In point of fact I challenge//defy any of you to prove to me that the "One" hypothesis is the only one justified by a sensitive reading of Scripture. For all I know M'lakMavet is right and God doesn't have one person specially in mind for me; only certain standards that a girl must meet to be my wife (as I must meet for her, of course). The short answer to this question is yes because logic and our knowledge of physics necessitates that God exists independent of the dimension we label "time," and therefore it seems reasonable to assume that God already knows who I will marry.

So, with the formalities out of the way, what did I actually want to talk about?

First, let me revise my earlier comment that "if you're not in a life position to marry a girl, don't bother dating her," followed by the comment that "this is, of course, something that I already believe." I do believe//affirm that statement. No, I don't think that you should only date a girl if you have the financial capacity to support a household. Yes, I think you should only marry a girl if you two can provide for your own household, but that's another issue.

What I do mean by that statement is that you both ought to be in a position personally to marry. This is necessitated by the idea of Christians only dating to evaluate each other for marriage. If you aren't ready for marriage, then there's nothing to evaluate - and if you try, your instruments probably won't be calibrated correctly. What do I mean by ready? For starters, both people should be emotionally whole - free from any glaring emotional deficiencies - and have proven character. Are they self-controlled? Are they patient? Are they kind? Are they gentle? Do they seek others' good? Do they love the Lord in a way that transcends mere emotions? Do they also love the Lord in a way that transcends mere intellect? And are these things true of them not just often, but almost always?

Perfect? Of course not. But growing, consistently. If you are not already becoming more perfect before you date somebody then I don't think you will be loving your significant other. In my view dating absolutely must not have anything to do with fixing either person. If either needs fixing, terminate the romantic part of the relationship - in deed, not in word - and get fixed.

The other salient point in my dating philosophy is that God should tell you both to date one another. This is essentially an extension of my romantic nature. If you don't mind generalizing, I think every decision a Christian makes can be divided into Little Deals and Big Deals.

For Little Deals, you assume God is okay with it unless he tells you otherwise. I confess that I don't inquire of the Lord whether I should eat a hamburger or pizza for lunch (shocking ...). Things like that. If a Little Deal can't be traced to a basic Biblical principle that okays it in general, I'd be suspicious of the classification, but most "everyday" decisions can be.

Big Deals are those decisions so momentous that you assume God is not okay with it until he tells you otherwise. These are the decisions where you say with Moses, "if Your Presence does not go with me, do not bring me up from here." I would classify choosing your college as a common Big Deal.

I also choose to classify dating as a Big Deal. I couldn't call myself a romantic and not treat dating as a momentous thing. I expect that dating will at some point have a significant impact on the course of my life - certainly a bigger impact than my choice of college! It seems to me it would be inconsistent to make the bigger of the two decisions without waiting for explicit confirmation from the Father.

What about the idea that I might miss The One by doing that? I doubt it. If there is a One, then she's the One because God made her that way. God may think I'm being silly by deciding not to date a girl he hasn't explicitly told me to go for, but the root motivation there is a desire to submit my romantic life to his leading. And it would be patently out of character for God to penalize me for that.

I just realized that I've been throwing the word "dating" around a lot and haven't defined it. I am afraid that is because I am incapable at the moment of defining dating in a truly precise way. Allow me to posulate the following, however: dating is, fundamentally, emotional pair-bonding. Contrast to marriage, which is simply an emotional pair-bond that has no option to terminate. Do or die, come on you apes, you wanna live forever, and all that jazz. No, I can't give you a definition of "pair-bond." Make of that what you will. You'll just have to get a sense of what I mean by it by listening to me talk.

Those of you familiar with Time Enough for Love will point out that Lazarus Long doesn't define permanency as part of marriage, and would probably therefore view my two definitions as equivalent. I disagree with Mr. Long, of course, but that's because we come from different universes. His hypothetical point does illustrate a basic idea of my father's that I have decided to adopt until further notice: the emotional relationship between a man and woman while dating and married are different only in degree, not in kind. That is, "dating" and "marriage" are on the same spectrum, emotionally speaking.

Antilles is the logically trained one around here, so he may be able to point me up on this, but I believe that philosophy leaves room for "dates" (a guy and a girl doing something for the purpose of enjoying one another's company) outside of "dating." I had a "date" with Shanah this evening, but I hope that neither she nor Cloud thinks I am interesting in dating her (I'm not, for the record)!

I do think that it is remarkably easy to slip into a pair-bond with someone. I did it last year while telling myself I wasn't, and I'm fairly certain the same thing happened to Ransom and Chariessa this year. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but I think it deserves to be said, because this is the fundamental reason behind my renewed resovle to be cautious around girls. I can't fully control my feelings of attraction, but I can control whether or not I cultivate them - and while I think pair-bonding requires cultivation, in many cases it seems to require remarkably little. Like Mr. Lewis, I believe that the human machine was designed in two parts. Like an alkaline, those parts have a remarkable tendency to bond with random species in the solution of life with very little prompting.

I suppose that's about all I had to say. I have once again behaved irresponsibly by staying up past my bedtime. I should go to bed now, I think.

Dear Diary,

I hate my music class! Today in section we were doing rhythm dictation and I just felt so stupid and the class didn't even get through half of what the teacher wanted to. I hate it when everyone else gets something that I don't. Greek was fun today though. We were reading about this guy Simon, and he was like in love with this boy that the defendant was also in love with (like, major ew!) and Simon got drunk and came to this other guy's house and broke down the door and went into the women's rooms with a bunch of his friends. OMG, Diary, can you imagine? Last night Shanah and I were at rehearsal with Testimony. OMG, he is so cute! Shanah likes him, she told me. She wants me to ask him out for her, but I don't know. I kind of like him too. What should I do? Sigh.

- Danielle

Well, that was amusing. Those of you at rehearsal last night probably know where that came from; if you weren't there last night just accept it as a manifestation of my secret longing to be acting again and my deep-seated fascination with the female psyche.

I don't actually hate my music class, although section seems very much more difficult than lecture. There's an obvious reason for that, of course: in lecture we learn music in English; in section we learn music in music. Now, I suppose that's the intended structure of the course, but I don't speak music, which makes it a little daunting at times. I'm sure that I'll pick it up just as I would pick up Spanish if you put me in Mexico for long enough, and I think that's probably the best way to learn a language. But it's still a little frustrating sometimes. I could pronounce any text in Greek after like my first week of class, and everything after that has been extracting meaning from the sound. I know that there is plenty of meaning behind the sound in music, but not only can I not get at it, I can't even pronounce the "words." That's a very frustrating feeling.

Testimony is not a new blogname for a person, by the way, and I wouldn't have a crush on him even if he was. However, we do look darn good in our casual costumes. Yeah. The question of formalwear remains unsolved, but that's okay for now I guess. I think that the ladies look very good personally in their black and gray, but I still agree with the costume designers in my family that gray makes a bad costume.

The question of whether or not I'll be coming back to Testimony next year has come up again. I am not truly concerned - I'll come back if I feel like God tells me he has a place for me there still; if he tells me he doesn't then I won't - but it has raised the issue of what I would do here if I didn't do Testimony. Theatre? It would be fun to be back on stage. .I'm just scared of auditioning - well, actually, I'm scared of two things. One is monologues. I don't have a problem delivering monologues, but I don't have any. Stupid objection; I know. I could find more monologues than I could shake a stick at if I bothered to look; I am sitting on top of several million books. I'm also scared of dancing. That is, dance routines. Not that that would come up all the time, of course. And Stand and Deliver proved to myself that I really do like acting, not just musical theatre.

I've also decided to take fencing next year. I discovered something in my research for Phoenix Earth about the difference between foil and epee. The practical differences are that foil puts a lot more rules on the fencers as far as when they can do something and where they can strike. The reason for this is that foil developed between 1670 and 1680 (or so I'm told) as a method for Renaissance fencing masters to teach folks how to survive and win a duel, whereas epee developed as a sport because as fencing lessons became more common people realized how fun it could be. All the rules in foil therefore break down to one of two principles:

1). Don't attack somebody where you can't kill them (hence only chest and head hits count in foil)
2). Your first priority is to not get hit, not to hit the other person

Hence the basic foil principle that you aren't even allowed to attack your opponent if he is attacking you - the point is to teach you how to think so you'll stay alive! This is a very attractive idea to me. So I'm going to give Beginning Fencing a try, which is conveniently enough focusing on foil technique. I've been wanting to try a martial art for some time, and sword work appeals to me more than a hand-to-hand style or competitive shooting. And since there's nobody around here who can teach me how to use a broadsword, small sword\\foil technique will have to do.

My twenty-first birthday is coming up in sixteen days. Shanah asked me what I was going to do for it. I don't know, really. I'm certainly not going to do any of the things that I'm suddenly allowed to do by virtue of being twenty-one. I won't cry if dinner alcohol becomes part of my lifestyle, but I see no reason to hurry the process any more than I see any reason to become a coffee drinker if it doesn't happen naturally.

What I'd really like to do, I think, is go back home to the Twilight Zone to hang out, roleplay, and smash. Maybe we'd even play some Illuminati, although I think Trent's disconnection from the crew has sort of closed that door. But I can't do that, since Testimony's spring show is the day before my birthday and that would leave me insufficient time to be home for the weekend. I'd also like to go to dinner and a movie with somebody, except that that would be more a birthday gift than a celebration. It's been a long time since I smiled as big or as long as I used to smile after a date with Princess or Thea. A movie night might be cool. I dunno. On the plus side, I will hopefully be able to go home sometime after my birthday.

This week in dance we learned redowas (or just redowa?) and canter pivots, which means - that's right! - we were back to waltz! That was quite a bit of fun, and I got to dance with someone I hadn't danced with in a long time and don't have a blogname for but is one of my favorite waltz partners. Ah, the waltz. Charming.

Before I begin the body of this post, I'd like to say that I really like Empire Earth. The game does a remarkably good job of creating the impressionistic feel of historical combat - I say impressionistic because this is a game, like most RTS's, that is about as close to real combat as chess (yes, I'm aware of the fact that chess was supposed to simulate combat. That's the point). I am very fond of the idea of unit relationships: very fun, and I daresay very much in line with the calculating spirit of a genre that is essentially twentieth century chess. I would like to see the following ideas implemented, however:

1). Alternate weapons. I can think of very few military units throughout history that have been effectively armed with a single offensive weapon (e.g., Macedonian phalangites and - I would argue - modern infantry regulars). The idea of unit relationships could be made infinitely more nuanced if units had multiple attack types appropriate to their historical archetypes, and if it took time to switch between them. Napoleonic infantry should be able to fix bayonets and thereby resist a cavalry charge - but be made vulnerable to enemy infantry. Archers should be forced to use a secondary melee weapon when attacking at point blank range, thereby giving you an actual reason to charge them with - and to protect them from contact with - melee infantry. Tanks should have three - yes, three! - attack types: armor-piercing shells for engaging other armored targets, high explosive shells for engaging buildings and soft targets, and machine guns (good Lord, did somebody suggest putting machine guns on tanks?) for engaging infantry. (And as long as we're talking about machine guns, just once I would like to see a machine gun in a computer game that is more powerful than an assault rifle, with a longer range, better accuracy, and higher sustained rate of fire. To judge by most games, EE included, you'd think there was some sort of physical law that said there's an inverse relationship between projectile power and rate of fire). The list goes on and on. But wouldn't that mean that virtually anything could be conceivably countered by anything, you ask? Why yes, it would ... but before you go saying that's too complicated for today's gamers, ask yourself if the same statement applies to StarCraft.
2). Unit experience. One of the coolest things about LucasArts' Force Commander was the way they handled upgrading equipment. If you gave a rookie crew a top-of-the-line AT-ST with all the latest upgrade packages, they performed somewhat better than if you had given them a walker with no upgrade packages, but not much better. However, if you moved a crack crew from their stock walker to one with all the latest bells and whistles, you could really see the difference. I think this is a very cool way of saying "the machinery counts, but it's the men who push it to its full potential." That idea - that upgrades become more worth it the better your men are - is so cool that I count it a grave injustice that it was only implemented in Force Commander.

With that little rant out of the way, I'd like to move on to what I intended this post to be about. It's one of my favorite subjects and likely one of yours, too: girls. More specifically, dating girls.

I've finished I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and surprised myself by agreeing with pretty much all of it. A large reason for this, I believe, is the fact that Josh Harris is rather like me in that he's a hopeless romantic who just can't wait to sweep a girl off her feet. Well, ok, he's married now and presumably having a blast with his wife. But the point is that I Kissed Dating Goodbye was written by a guy who looks at the romantic world pretty much the same way I do, and that made me feel very comfortable with his book. It also immeasurably improves my opinion of him that (it turns out) he is not the man behind the courtship fad, and in fact views that rules-based approach to wooing a girl in a very negative light. As it should be, if you ask me. If I'm going to woo a girl, I want to woo her, as an individual!

The basic point of IKDG is this: if you're not in a life position to marry a girl, don't bother dating her. That has a very important corollary the following principle: that Christians should date to weigh the possibility of marriage and for no other reason. I stipulate "Christians" because both of Harris' books are written for Christians, and his arguments only have weight within the context of a Christian worldview. That doesn't mean that I don't think what he has to say is good advice for everybody - just that if you're not Christian, I doubt you'll care what my deity thinks about dating.

This is, of course, something that I already believe. It is not, sadly, a set of principles that I honestly followed in the only dating relationship I've had to date (which was a dating relationship in all the ways that are relevant for this discussion, even if I didn't call it that). For this reason I am glad that I read this book. It's a reminder to me that romance is not romance without common sense (my study of Greek has recently led me to the idea that the sense of the phrase "common sense" is universal sense; sense that is applicable to all situations in life). I certainly know people who would disagree with me about that, but none of them have marriages I respect and very few of them have marriages at all. Conversely, all the people I know who agree with me about that do have marriages I respect. For this reason I have chosen to conclude that real knock-your-socks-off romance requires common sense. That may not be true, but I hope you'll agree with me that given my data it's a logical conclusion.

It may surprise you to know that my reading of Robert Heinlein has dovetailed quite nicely with my reading of Joshua Harris. But it has. Twilight once suggested, only half in jest, that if I wanted to know whether or not I'd get along with someone I should ask them what they think of the works of Robert Heinlein. Time Enough for Love is essentially about the sanctity and the utility of marriage. I believe that both books (properly read) strongly reinforce the idea that a girl should only be pursued if you're prepared - not just emotionally and physically but circumstantially - to take it all the way through to marriage. Heinlein adds, though not in so many words, that if both parties understand that it's just for fun that's ok.

That last is certainly a principle I have been living by up here, but what about it? Let's apply another of my life principles and try to tear that one down (this principle being that if you can't defend a belief you hold then you don't have any business holding it). Harris would probably say that flirting for fun is awakening love before it pleases (c.f. Song 3:5 and others like it in that book). I would counter that it's impossible not to awaken love before it pleases (more on this below). At that point I would bust out two more life principles, two of my most deeply held:

1). You have very little control over your feelings. You have complete control over your actions.
2). Feelings never necessitate action.

To return to my former track, then, I would say that if love gets awakened all by itself that's fine and doesn't mean anything. By principle 1)., God's charge in the Song of Solomon doesn't mean that I should never be attracted to a girl. That's not going to happen and in any case attraction is merely a feeling. However, evidently I have been charged not to tailor my actions that they encourage attraction in me before I'm prepared to act on that attraction by marrying its object.

In short then, I conclude that it is not fitting for me to hold the principles I hold and also believe that flirting for fun is perfectly innocent. One or the other must go, and I choose the latter. And I have the added proof of God speaking to my heart about this for several months now, using strong language that I choose not to post here.

This does not mean that I refuse to snuggle with girls any longer; nor does it mean that I refuse to give or accept backrubs. The reason for that is that those activities have legitimate purposes in my life other than awakening or expressing attraction. It does mean that I choose to go overboard and no longer initiate such activities with girls who are not in my nuclear family.

This is another principle that Harris has reminded me I believe: that it is worth it to go overboard if that's what it takes. He gives the example of Billy Graham and his cabal of evangelists, who made it a rule early in their careers not to be alone with a woman in the same room. Not because there's anything wrong with being alone with a man being alone a woman, but because people at the time had a very poor opinion of the sexual habits of televangelists and their ilk. Graham and his folks did what they did because it was the only way they could get people to believe that they weren't like that.

Finally, about the idea that it is impossible to not awaken love before it pleases - i.e., to not become attracted to a girl before you're ready to marry her. The obvious reason for this is because guys are built to be attracted to girls. If you're a girl and you're in my presence, there is a non-zero chance that I will become attracted to you by reason of your existence. That's nobody's fault; it's just the way things are (see above for why I don't think this is sinful).

But how can you, as a girl (if you're a girl) help me, your brother (if you're my sister) to not awaken love before it pleases? I don't really think you can. As I see it there are basically four broad options for how you can behave towards me.

A. You can be sexy. Traditional Christian views will reject this option but I suggest we keep it open for consideration. I believe that Heinlein rightly points out that the essence of this kind of sexiness is that it makes a man happy. If you're doing something sexy because you know it will delight me and you want to delight me (and I do mean delight), then I thank you. Assuming that you're not doing something that will cause me to lust after you, in which case I definitely do not thank you! To give you an idea of something sexy that makes me happy but is unlikely to make me lust, take hair: I really like hairstyles that are mostly down but have some hair (or better yet, little braids) swept back to form a kind of circlet.
B. You can be chaste. I consider the Hawaiian to be the best personal example of this. Someone who loves God, serves others, dresses modestly, speaks circumspectly, the whole bit. That's all well and good. But in case you didn't know, ladies, I should tell you now: chastity is sexy. Sexiness is, I think, about congruity of implied beliefs. That is, the things I find sexy are things I like. I like skirts, for instance. I think it's sexy when a girl wears a skirt. I also like Jesus. I think it's sexy when a girl likes Jesus.
C. You can go out of your way to be repugnant to me.
D. You can forget trying to tailor your behavior with an eye towards my existence.

I'm sure none of you will choose C, and probably if you're reading this you love me too much to choose D. Which means that basically whatever you do, I'm going to find some of it sexy. I don't think that's a bad thing, and the responsibility for acting properly in light of your sexiness is on me. However, if you wish my advice about whether to choose either A or B most of the time, I recommend B. It will be better for you than A. Moreover, a girl is at her sexiest when she's not trying to be sexy. So B is better for you and ends up delighting me more, and we all win.

Well, that was rather long. I probably shouldn't post for a while to let you all read that.

When I have a brand-new hairdo
With my eyelashes all in curl
I float as the clouds on air do
I enjoy being a girl!

Okay, not really. But following sure is fun! Specifically following in a dance. And even more specifically following in lindy hop, which is what we did today in Social III because the Dance Master figured we'd all be rather tired from the time change, and therefore didn't want to do more hustle straight off. Wise in all the ways of social dancers is the Dance Master.

My enthusiasm for Social Dance had been flagging of late; wherefore I do not know. I suspect it had to do with my general lack of enthusiasm for school this quarter - last night I told Marion that I'm getting more and more ready to be back at school, and she asked when I go back. Case in point, ayia? But at least I am getting ready to be back. Two girls in a row told me they were the best guy they'd danced with when we did that. Which of course made me feel good, but more importantly made me feel on a level with other people in that class. Call me silly (I'm doing it) but I have hitherto felt rather inadequate in Social III. I just haven't felt like my dancing is good, and while I do enjoy hustle, it's not a dance I have as much of a handle on as swing or waltz. So it was particularly good time to get a compliment on my dancing today.

I'm also enjoying Music 19 more the more I go to it. Which is good. When I signed up for a section the professor asked me if I could read music. I wasn't sure how to answer. Sure I can tell you what the notes on the page are, and if you give me enough time I could tell you what the intervals were, the key, and maybe do some rudimentary analysis of the piece. But is that really reading music?

What I mean is this: what good does it do me to be able to read music if I can't speak it? If I can't sing the piece in front of me, how can I prove to you that I know what it says? When I can do that I will consider myself a singer. But I can't right now, which means that in my mind I can't read music. Then again, I'm probably being a little unfair: I can't speak in Attic, but I can read it if you give me enough time. Just because I can't explain to you what I'm reading in the language it was written in doesn't mean I can't read it. Isn't that analogous? So basically I'm setting my standards too high. But (despite the figure of speech) I'd say that's not such a bad thing.

You'd think that by now the City of Angels soundtrack would be old. But it's not. Favorite song right now? "What You Don't Know About Women" - sure it's a girls' duet, but what do I care about that? I can still sing it, can't I? Sure can. Singing is fun.

Even when it shouldn't be. Yesterday I was in the recording studio until about 0300, along with a bunch of other Tmony folks, recording solos and harmonies. Funny thing about recording - there's rarely any gratification after you're done. I suppose that film actors must experience a similar thing: you finish the shoot and then you go home. When you're performing people applaud you and you can see, right in front of you, the reason you do it. No such thing in a studio. Despite this I had a really good time yesterday. For one thing, if I may be permitted to say so, I sounded really good. And I sounded even better with the Wizard's harmony over my solo ... we just sound good together.

So of course it's always nice to do work that you're honestly proud of, and it felt good to sing a solo and feel like I was actually singing a song. Not that I don't enjoy singing bass background; after all, the whole reason that I joined an a cappella group was to sing bass background. But anyway, more importantly I enjoyed yesterday because everybody else sounded really good. That pleases me for a number of reasons, one of which is that it sort of restored my will to do this project. It was restoring to hear that we can make good-sounding music, and not just music that'll have to do because we're running out of time and money.

Speaking of music, I'm taking Intro to Music Theory this quarter. I don't really want to - it's scary and early in the morning (0900 MWF) and I really don't want to compose music. I'm told that it won't be hard, and I suppose that's probably true. It doesn't mean I'll enjoy taking the class. However, I feel like I should improve my music theory for the following reasons.

1). it's desirable to be a Renaissance man
2). there's no guarantee Simba will return to Testimony next year, which would mean that bass section leadership would devolve upon me
3). practically everybody I know up here has more music theory than I do and I'm tired of feeling totally out of the informational loop.

In short, I'm shaming myself into taking a class that I don't want to take. I'm letting myself do that because I'm trusting in the principle that what I want to do has only a passing acquaintance with what I ought to do. Of course, of the three reasons above only one is truly valid. 1). is true, but I would argue that there's no point in becoming a Renaissance man if I don't want to be. 3). is just plain stupid, and if I'm going to choose to let my insecurities get the best of me then I have no cause to complain. 2). has some merit to it, but it's only a "what if." Which leaves me admitting that even if my basic principle is sound (which I'm not sure I believe), only one third of my reasons for taking this class are reasons I would actually defend. Which in turn suggests that I shouldn't take this class because I don't want to. But I'm going to press ahead and see if my attitude changes. I can always drop it in a few weeks if it doesn't, or else just dislike the class in return for gaining some useful knowledge.

On a happier note, I met with Eliani and Archimedes to discuss the holes in the Phoenix Earth storyline, and I am quite satisfied with what we came up with. I think the crew will find their session in the Phoenix Earth Explainotron quite satisfactory as well. I'm looking forward to that. And of course I'm definitely looking forward to the last Terratopia session, and to my own ride in the Terratopia and Atlantis Explainotrons.

I don't actually know precisely how many people read this, but I've noticed a marked increase in Stanford people showing interest in Phoenix Earth lately. People wishing me well on the sessions, and asking me how it's going, and helping me work stuff out, and even asking if there's any way they can help. I don't know if that's because they've been reading this and they know how important Phoenix Earth is to me, or because they've just picked it up based on how much time I've been spending on it. And I don't know if they're asking about it because it's just that cool (which might be true but is a little hard for me to believe) or because they just love me and they've figured out that this is a good way of letting me know that. I don't really care, mind you, since all of those possibilities boil down to something good. But I just thought I'd let anybody who happens to be reading this that I've got good friends up here, and let those friends know that I appreciate what they're doing.

Finally, I think I'm going to go post a little review about Empire Earth here in case you care to hear me talk about computer games. EE has been taking up plenty of my time lately (though that's about to change) and I just finished my first multiplayer game of it with Wedge. I've saved this till the end so if you don't care about my thoughts on this matter you can stop reading now. I've got some thoughts about I Kissed Dating Goodbye, too, but I'm going to hold off on those for a bit.

EE runs into the same problem that all RTS games face: what exactly do the absurdly small numbers of men in the scenario represent? The problem here is more acute than normal because of the game's historical theme - I mean, are we supposed to imagine that the Battle of Agincourt was fought with seventy-one men on the English side? I don't think so. There are basically two ways of dealing with this problem. One is the method taken by games like Gettysburg! and Lords of the Realm: each man-shaped icon on the screen represents a great number of men, so even if there are only six men on your screen it's understood that there are, say, two hundred and forty involved in the engagement. The other method is that adopted by WarCraft III: simply say yes, these engagements take place between very small numbers of men.

That isn't really an option for EE, of course, but the game doesn't ever actually say which method it's adopted. I've decided to assume it adopts the former method, since the rest of the game is absurdly scaled; on some maps your men can walk across Greece in about two minutes. Which lends some legitimacy to the multiple-men theory.

I mention that because what really interests me about EE is that it tries to find a halfway point between the traditional run-into-the-middle-of-the-map-and-bash-away "tactics" of RTS games like those made by Blizzard (which are fine games, but they don't even try to depict realistic combat) and those RTS games which really do do a pretty good job of depicting a tactical situation, like the ones that Sid Meier makes. EE has the familiar base-building and resource-gathering elements that have been standard in RTS games ever since Westwood's Dune 2 and a healthy sci-fi/fantasy element, but it's also got a greater-than-normal historicity in its tactics.

The way EE achieves this is by what it calls "unit relationships:" every epoch of history in the game (there are 14) has a number of different unit types based on method of combat. Each type of unit is best countered by one or more other types of units, and is in turn particularly effective against one or more unit types. Unit relationships are the governing principle of combat in Empire Earth, which is much more satisfying (at least in a historically-themed game) than the fairly arbitrary nuances that govern combat in a game like StarCraft. In addition, there are a total of seven discrete sets of unit relationships, which means there are essentially seven sets of tactics to master.

I approve of the whole principle behind here - it's something as old as Broderbund's Ancient Art of War, and I'm glad to see it return to gaming. I have two complaints about the system. One is that as good a job as they've done identifying the fundamental types of units in each of the epochs they're treating, in some cases their treatment is too simplistic. Second, sometimes they've simply miscategorized units.

The case of the first unit relationship dynamic will illustrate both points nicely. All the way up to the Middle Ages, combat is governed by the rock-paper-scissors relationship of shock weapons-arrow weapons-piercing weapons. "Shock" weapons are swords and maces - weapons designed to be used up close and personal - the weapon of choice against bow weapons, but not something that works well against another melee weapon with greater reach. "Piercing" weapons are spears and javelins, impaling weapons that are supposed to be used at a distance - fine against shock weapons, but making the user cumbersome and therefore an easy target for archers. And archers work well against heavily armored spearmen but are vulnerable to fast-moving troops armed with close-range weapons.

At first glance that all seems well enough, but it breaks down when you try to apply it to actual historical unit types. Consider the case of the gladius-wielding Roman legionary versus a Greek hoplite. Granted that particular match-up almost never happened, but in EE it can happen quite frequently. EE basically assumes that everybody is an expert with his weapon - and if that were true I'd agree that a spear is a good defense against a short sword; I assume there's a reason that half a dozen martial arts schools call the spear the "king of weapons." But of course for most of European history spears have not been wielded by martial artists, and the experience of legionaries against Hellenistic phalangites strongly suggests that the a legionary and a hoplite would be reasonably well-matched, with edge to the legionary. Not so in EE; the hoplite will win every time.

Another example of lack of nuance: the idea that arrows are good weapons against heavily armored soldiers. Sure that's true in some cases - a crossbow or longbow are perfectly good ways of punching through plate armor. But a self short bow - or even a short composite bow - is totally inadequate for such a task. So why is a man armed with a self short bow going to kill an armored knight or hoplite?

And then there's the question of just what exactly is what. Hoplites were definitely shock troops; the idea of fighting at a distance was as antithetical to the hoplite as it was to the legionary. They were comparably armored and fought in comparable ways - so why is a legionary classified "shock" while a hoplite is classified "pierce?" Once you get out of antiquity the system works well enough - long bows are great against knights or squares of pikemen; swordsmen are next to helpless against a bristling row of pikes. But they really needed a separate dynamic for antiquity. Their later dynamics look pretty good to me but I haven't played them much, so I'll let you know once I do.

Well, I'm back at Stanford even though I don't want to be. I want to be back in LA where there is art and music and love - not that there isn't some art and some music and some love up here - but that's really just it; right now it seems like there's only some of each of those things. But may the day never come when I do what I want rather than what is right. It's right for me to be back at Stanford now, even if I don't want it. And thanks to M'lak and Ish, I have a portable hug stowed next to my little black box, within easy reach for emergencies.

For those of you who are interested - and, touchingly, there seem to be many of you - the break's roleplaying went well. The IG session was very refreshing; it is fun to see The DM alternate so fluidly between the dark humor (kudos to you if you get the inside joke) of IG and the quirky humor of his Phoenix Earth character, the goblin tinkerer with the facile surname, Skiviyt. And it was fun to play Danielle again. It was just good to be back with that group of characters again, and it was fun to kick butt. I hope by now you don't believe that I actually desire combat - but there is a [legitimate, I believe] part of humanity that imaginative fighting satisfies, I think. And face it (or take my word for it), the IG party is cool.

My Phoenix Earth party isn't precisely cool yet, but there are some very colorful and very real characters in there. I was not as pleased by this first session as I was with my last first session; my DMing simply wasn't as slick. But then again, I deliberately handicapped myself in two ways: one, I deliberately avoided using a coercive NPC; two, my "connecting" NPC (Nathaniel Birkenstock) was not mobile like my last one (Karl) was. All in all I'd say it came out pretty well, and after all it was only the first session. The next one should be more fun, assuming I can find a way to get Maelana Trassini (my sister's character) out of Epistano. Once they're out of the city I think I've got them, and then the real fun can begin. And next session I can have a real fight sequence, too, which ought to be fun for all involved.

In addition, we have all decided that we're finally going to have a big sit-down session and explain what the heck was going on with our various games - namely, Phoenix Earth (mine), Atlantis (Ayudaren's), and Terratopia (The DM's). I now feel comfortable giving folks the whole history of Phoenix Earth - though I'll have to sit down with Eliani and probably Archimedes over a meal sometime and figure out the last couple missing parts - and it'll be cool to find out what was really going on in Terratopia, which was a massive game spawning an entire idioculture and spanning like nine years. And we're going to have one last Terratopia session to close out Book VI (of a projected nine). It'll be fun to play Kalaraen Shadrea again. She was the last of my truly stereotypical characters (i.e., the weird girl with strong religious convictions who wants to be a hero), but I love her anyway. And it'll be fun to have another Terratopia-style fight scenes. The combat in everybody's game has a very distinctive tone that says a lot about the game itself: Phoenix Earth is pretty darn realistic; Infernal Gaslamp is fantastic but within the bounds of possibility; Terratopia is utterly impossible, venturing into the realm of anime.

Today after church (Pastor Scott gave a truly superb message) the Pilot asked me if I was dating anybody. I told him no, to which he said good, find them at church and not at school. Based on what I know of the Pilot's personality and background, I'd lay odds that he said that 'cause he's an adult male and felt like he had to. I laughed and told him that if I found a girl worthy of dating up here I'd do it - which holds for church girls too, of course. How I love being home, where I feel confident enough of myself to say things like that - and feel secure enough to treat dating like a voluntary option, an act of will. I love girls, of course, but why should I date one unless she's a match for me? With friends who are unsuitable as girlfriends (for whatever reason, not necessarily bad - Blue Rose is a fair example of such a case) why not just go on dates instead?

I'm currently reading Robert Heinlein's Time Enough for Love, which is refreshing because reading a Robert Heinlein novel is generally a refreshing experience. If you are a Christian reader, however, I think you need to go into Heinlein works with one concept held firmly in the front of your mind: none of his novels take place in this universe. All Heinlein novels are set in an alternate universe, which generally resembles ours a great deal but differs in one important detail: there is no God. There is an implied Prime Cause (for lack of a better term), but that Prime Cause does not have the essential characteristics of God, Jesus, Yahweh, Maleldil, Elrash - whatever you want to call him.

The Heinleinian treatment of sex is a good example of this principle. In Heinlein's books, fornication is generally approved - even strongly encouraged. He doesn't buy - and I don't either - that it is endemic in human nature that extra-marital sex leads to heartache. Granted in our experience it is - all the stuff that people say about the non-physical consequences of sex is true. But only because we have a culture that makes it true, I think. If one had the freedom to bring up a generation of people believing, say, the doctrine espoused in Stranger in a Strange Land, I believe you could get a community of human beings for whom sex was a wonderful, joyful thing to be shared with whomever one wished. And that's a wonderful thing - if there is no God. Put God into the picture and all of a sudden that wonderful, joyful thing becomes wrong in the vast majority of cases.

However, if you can suspend some disbelief and postulate an existence where there is a Prime Cause but no God, and if you are at heart a reactionary conservative like me who longs for the good old days when heroes were heroes and life was better - reading Heinlein is a wonderful visit with people who think straight. And what a wonderful thing that is. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was no jealousy and two willing young people could hook up to smiles and encouragement? Oh yes ... if there was no God.

But of course there is God, and therefore it isn't a wonderful thing at all. And speaking of things that might or might not be wonderful, I'm about to pick up Joshua Harris' I Kissed Dating Goodbye, to be tentatively followed by Boy Meets Girl. My original reasons for picking up the book are obsolete, but I am still curious what the man behind the courtship fad (I don't mean that perjoratively, but I don't hear courtship being preached anymore so I can hardly call it a "trend") has to say for himself. If his theories are sufficiently noteworthy, I may dialogue with them here.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is enough for one night.

I'm sitting here listening to City of Angels and feeling content. The speakers overhead are playing "You're Nothing Without Me," which is this awesome duet between the two male leads of the show: a novelist and his fictional private eye alter ego who represents everything the writer wants to be. Anybody surprised that I want to play both of those parts?

This was my sister's final senior play, by the way, which I saw last Friday and Saturday. I was fairly unimpressed by the Friday performance, but closing night was much better. My sister continued the family tradition of providing moral leadership to the company and leading on stage by example, for which I feel justifiably proud of her. I do feel like The Director could have supported her performance (as the play's leading lady\\villain) more if she'd had a better grip on the script, but Stone (the private eye) did a good enough job of playing off her on closing night that I feel mollified.

It wasn't really strange going back to the Chaminade Players, but there were a few slightly weird things. For one thing, there are people in that company who I've never met respect me as the star of the previous generation - for nothing more than watching me on stage two years ago! That's a bit odd, really. It was also funny to think that other folks in the company have been up to the Shrine and seen my signature there ... it's like it hit me at a whole new level that I'm part of the legacy of that company. And for all of that company's flaws, I am proud of that fact. And I am proud of the legacy that my sister left behind, too.

I don't really miss performing on stage, though it might be fun to give it another shot. It'd be fun to have a performing experience that was an honest performing experience. Of course I can't guarantee that a production at Stanford would be that. What I mostly miss is having a chain of command that has genuine give-and-take (i.e., what Polybius called monarchy) instead of democracy. And I can't guarantee that a production at Stanford would give me that, either.

There is a 1/2 inch binder sitting at my left elbow that contains the fruit of my labors over the past several weeks: pages detailing each of the 41 basic weapons and 24 basic armors of Classical Phoenix Earth, and the 260 basic human spells of the game. I have already added a number of character-specific items and spells to that, but it is oddly satisfying to see the official Phoenix Earth binder filled with a new generation of rules that represent a new generation of game. I have almost nailed down the history of Phoenix Earth, and this latest game will take place when the first of the Big Historical Events is only just on the horizon. Alexis Lashrainne has just been born; Vonsus Au'roun is still dashing and substantially innocent, and Karlhoss Modron is still just an ambitious young man. Even G'arthan the Chronicler is a mere three centuries old. It's kind of refreshing to face the world when it is still free of one of the major taints that humanity will put on it.

The session is Friday, and I'm having a bit of performance anxiety. The Modern game was ill-conceived but had some really virtuoso moments by yours truly. I'm sure I'll be fine, but the prospect of crafting a party out of no less than eight characters (Islington will be a part-time player) is a rather daunting task, especially since I've only got six hours to do it in. Still, it will be fun to play with the gang whatever happens. And speaking of playing with the gang, tonight there's an Infernal Gaslamp session, which is very exciting to me since I haven't played Danielle Meroit in forever, and we're in the middle of this very exciting expedition to Antarctica to do what we do best - battle the forces of Cthulhu. It's been too long since the IG party dealt with some good old-fashioned evil. The ability to have a truly evil villain is one of the great things about fantasy, and one of the things that makes it more real than other genres of fiction (inasmuch as the real world does in fact have a truly evil villain). I'm looking forward to it.

It's currently 0041, and thanks to a small but total computer crash I am still blogging. To recap: I have just finished watching Starship Troopers.

If I want to be a film critic, Starship Troopers is a spotty movie: the special effects are excellent; the acting is sometimes quite good (it is!) and sometimes not; the plot is okay; the depiction of the Federation's military machine is abominable; the feel of the universe is pretty good. But despite this overall mediocrity, I am really quite fond of this movie.

I am fond of it because I do not watch Starship Troopers as a film critic. I watch it as a young man who knows he will not be drafted but is thinking about military service all the same. And more than any other movie - even the very realistic ones, like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down - Starship Troopers confronts me with the reality I would have to steel myself to face in the armed forces.

I'm not talking about eight-foot arachnids and plastic body armor, of course. Neither the film nor Mr. Heinlein's estimable book has ever been about the time or method of combat, or even the society that gives combat birth (such, at any rate, is my conclusion after reading Expanded Universe), but rather about the timeless quality of the soldier himself, epitomized in the qualities of the infantryman. The carnage, the fear, the unpreparedness, the experience of putting yourself on the line because you've bought into an Idea and then finding out when you're actually on the line that no Idea thought by man is worth it, only the men next to you who are in the same absurd position as you are - those are what I would have to agree to face if I became a soldier, and I would have to agree to face them knowing that I have absolutely no clue what the real thing will be like.

Could I do that? Maybe. But what this movie tells me about myself is that I don't ever, ever want to be in that position. Maybe I'd surprise myself and turn out to have what it takes to be a soldier under fire. Maybe I'd surprise myself even more and come back alive from the experience. But I don't ever want to find out. It makes me respect all the more the people who do face those situations and face them like soldiers - but I don't ever want to be one of those people if I can help it.

Remarkably, the mosquito is alive. I encountered the poor thing trying to scramble up my window to reach the relative safety of the outside. Apparently it didn't occur to her tiny insect mind that she could fly up the window instead of trying to walk up it. But with the help of my Empire Earth tech tree card I lifted her up to the window and set her free. I had the perfect opportunity to smash her with Simba's water bottle, but she just looked so pathetic trying to climb up that glass that I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Finals are over and went pretty satisfactorily. Out of deference to those of my friends up here who aren't feeling quite so confident about their exams, that's all I'm going to say about that. Feel free to ask me if you're curious, though.

It is now time to finish up the magic packet for Phoenix Earth. I have not one, not two, but three human mages in my party - and two more characters to go! By and large I feel good about my characters, and the first session is beginning to take shape in my mind. I need to figure out who this elusive quarry that Twilight's chasing is, though. Definitely have to figure that out.

There's some other random stuff running through my mind but I'm not sure I feel like writing about it right now. I need to talk to M'lakMavet about an idea, though.

I just got back from the dining hall, where they had not only some excellent broil but finger jello as well! In addition, I'm listening to Point of Grace in Steady On, which is truly an excellent album. Of course I'm naturally inclined to favor the vocal stylings of a Christian women's quartet, but really, these ladies are extremely good. In control, blend, and range of vocal expression I know of no contemporary vocal group that is their equal.

Today I invited Kathelia to bring her mage mistress along to the first session of Classical Phoenix Earth, which will be held on March 29. She was very excited about that, which made me happy. I finished writing up a quick packet about combat in the Classical game, which [predictably] Kharmak has already read through and [equally predictably] contained one or more typos which [most predictably of all] Kharmak pointed out to me. Oh well, nobody's perfect. What I need to do now is get the magic packet done, especially since I have at least three human mages in my party (Kath's healer/telepath from the Azure Eye, Lionell's dowrider from the Blood Maw, and Maclaeden's swordsman from the Silver Wrist).

Unfortunately I have to work first. All this talk about Phoenix Earth has got me yearning for home, but sadly there are two finals to get through first. I'm not worried, but I will have to work at them for th next couple days before I can really launch myself into what I would truly like to do.

There is a winged six-legged interloper buzzing around Vladimir (mine and Simba's ceiling light smiley). I am generally tolerant of our diminutive six-legged friends, but this one looks suspiciously like a mosquito and therefore her life is forfeit provided I don't have to expend any great effort tracking her down.

Finally, for your convenience, the Comforts of the Day list is provided at left. It is a quick way for me to acquaint you with the things that make me feel good and feel loved. In addition, it will hopefully provide you with a ready-made list of nice things to do for me should you ever feel inclined to do so. I personally find it very frustrating when I want to do something nice for somebody but don't know what would make them feel loved, so here's my own small contribution to solving that problem.

The date is March 14, the time is 1816 Zulu, and I have just returned from the last Social Dance II class of the quarter. We spent the morning waltzing, swinging, two-stepping, foxtrotting, and hustling. I didn't dance with all of my favorite partners but I danced with quite a few. I had a very cool hustle experience with Thomasina, when I tried to imitate something I saw Alanna doing and ended up doing windows\\face-turns in hustle. The footwork didn't quite work for me but it did for her, and she thought it was way cool. I'll have to figure out how to do that with my own footwork so it works. And I got to dance with Thalassa, which was charming as always. I wish the Alaskan had been there, but oh well. And, after two quarters, I finally had a dance with Miss Lodge that didn't involve her cringing. I really like hustle and club two-step, and I'm interested in porting over some of the figures from there into swing. I'll bet I could figure out a way to do it.

Ah, but the final dance of the morning ... oh my yes, that last waltz. I danced it with Blue Rose, who is a very good waltz partner. I do forget sometimes that she prefers a different frame than most of my other partners (I suppose, even though nobody's complained, that I should try her frame out on other girls and see if they like it better). The music was good, and the waltzing was pretty good - not the best dance I've ever given a girl but pretty smooth. So why am I filled with a honey-sweet heart contentment?

She closed her eyes.

Allow me to elaborate. In a waltz that works, closing your eyes brings an already soaring experience to a whole new level. I've felt a little bit of it in a waltz that didn't work, so I can only imagine what it must be like for one that does. It also commits yourself to dance entirely by feel, which is implicitly saying that your partner is good enough to lead by feel. Of course that means that you as a couple only have one pair of eyes (the follow's) scanning the room, and the follow can't do anything to save herself from collision. So for a follow to close her eyes in a waltz is pretty much the supreme compliment you can give your partner. It is not one that I have ever been given before, even on dance floors that were mostly empty. I have harbored a secret hope, which I have shared with no one, that this quarter I would be good enough to be counted worthy of that supreme compliment. I haven't breathed a word of that to anyone; Rose couldn't possibly have known. So I will say again:

She closed her eyes.

And that fills my heart with a deep-seated contentment, puts a faint knowing smile on my lips, and sends me soaring into a bright and wonderful day.

Well, it seems impossible, but I've come up with fully 126 spells for Phoenix Earth. That's all six Inner fields, the ones that deal with matter. Sure, 63 of those haven't been written up yet, but I have the concepts and that's the important part. Now on to the Outer spells, those that deal with energy.

The rest of Phoenix Earth is shaping up quite nicely. I had a conversation with Twilight on dwarven kingships that lasted for over an hour, and it was almost entirely improvised. That's always an exhilarating feeling, even if I did contradict myself once. Then I improvised five cities into existence with Kathelia. If you ever have a conversation with me about Phoenix Earth you might find it amusing to try and figure out in the back of your mind how much of what I'm saying I made up on the spot, particularly if the conversation is via AIM.

Kath is so silly! She's worried that she won't play well, or I won't like her, or somehow she'll end up botching her first chance to be in a roleplaying game. Without saying that she's in straight off, allow me to point out a few things from my conversation last night with her regarding her character:

1). The current idea of the character is a 33-year old mage of the Order of the Azure Eye specializing in healing and telekinesis (Inner Restorations and Inner Immaterials). That is a far cry (and a far better cry, in my opinion) from her first impulse, which was the fey elven warrior stereotype. This character is not only more useful to the party (it's technically very challenging to add a healing non-player character to the party; far better if the healer is a player) and has a lot more room to grow as a heroine.
2). One my skills as a DM is my ability to throw out an answer to a question about the world in an instant, or usually seconds at most. The reason is not because I know every little detail about my world, but rather that I know what my world feels like and can therefore decide pretty quickly which of the possible answers to a question feels like the right one. During our conversation I was throwing questions about her character at Kath pretty quickly - not because I was trying to quiz her or anything, but just because she answered so quickly! She didn't know everything about her character either, but she did know what her character felt like. And that's the key to being a good player.
3). At one point in our conversation Kath referred to her character as "I." That usually doesn't happen to a new player for a few sessions or so, and it's an important milestone. It marks the beginning of the player feeilng comfortable participating in the game as an actor rather than a distant narrator.

So yeah, I predict that Kathelia will fit in just fine.

In an unrelated note, Shanah's pledging a sorority on campus called Chi Omega. The funny thing about that is that Chi-O was formed because a bunch of girls decided they needed a sorority 'cause a bunch of their guy friends had formed a frat just for the heck of it. Apparently Greek letter societies are supposed to make their names actual Greek acronyms, but the sisters of Chi-O just picked two they thought looked good together; they don't stand for anything. Now probably they don't want them to stand for anything, but I don't know many words that start with omega so I decided to look some up and see what acronyms I could make. I came up with the following: chariessai horazdousai, or "graceful\\charming girls who bloom with youthful beauty." That amused me; I don't know if it amuses you.

I am surprised to note as I write this that I have a happy tear in each eye. I am currently listening to the "Lord of the Dance" theme from Michael Flatley's show by the same name. I am quite fond of Lord of the Dance - in fact, in my opinion the only thing that is wrong with that show is Michael Flatley himself. Figures that the man who is arguably the world's greatest Irish dancer would also be a slimeball. Fortunately for me, the first time I saw this show performed was at Epcot (I guess technically that should be EPCOT) Center at Disneyworld, FL. Well actually it was only excerpts from the show, but it was way cool, and most importantly it was Lord of the Dance sans Mr. Flatley. I have a very distinct memory of wishing that Thea was there with me. Which was silly, of course, since I'd known for several years at that point that Thea and I wouldn't work out. But believe it or not the Disney Boardwalk (where we were staying) is an incredibly romantic location - I would definitely be happy having my honeymoon there. Actually I want to have my honeymoon there. So you can see perhaps how it made me think of Thea, who is one of only two girls in the world whose scent I still remember. I miss my Dragon Girls. I definitely feel like God has separated our life paths deliberately, but sometimes I miss them all the same. It would be nice to go back two or three years for one more movie date with Princess, back to when I didn't feel uncomfortable hugging girls I was fond of - and when I didn't feel the need for hugs quite so acutely.

It's funny to think that at Stanford nobody has replaced Thea and Princess. I guess I sort of figured deep down inside that I'd always have my Dragon Girls to turn to. But even deeper down I guess I knew that part of growing up would mean that they and I would go our separate ways. As I said in my speech at the 2000 senior breakfast, "Some of our classmates will become faces at a high school reunion, some school rivals, and some total strangers." Well, neither of them have become school rivals. I hope they become faces at a reunion instead of total strangers.

That wasn't at all where I intended this post to go, but I'll leave it standing because the Dragon Girls form an important part of my life history and after all the purpose of this blog is to acquaint you with the parts of me that you wouldn't otherwise get acquainted with. However, the purpose of this blog is not to rant. I am not down with ranting or venting in public, and I definitely consider the Internet to be a public place. If I wanted to rant in writing, why not take out a piece of paper or open up Word? No, if I ranted on a blog it could only be for one reason: because I wanted other people to see it. But if I've got something to say to another person I should say it to him or her in private, not to you. I am thinking specifically of the following line in my last entry:

Not the best the group is theoretically capable of doing, mind you, but our directors aren't stringent enough with us (and our coffers aren't full enough) to permit us to record the best we're theoretically capable of.

Now, that was plain unacceptable. It wasn't right for me to use this space to express my dissatisfaction with parts of core's directorship, and thoroughly at odds with my behavior outside of this blog. So I apologize.

I am very close to finishing my work for this quarter. I should be done with Reading & Writing Poetry by the end of the day (only four more anthology pages and then I'm through, except for possibly a revision of the open form poem I wrote just now), and then there's just another two or three hours or classics reading. Once I'm done with that I'll just have my Greek and classics finals. Fortunately I have gotten back into "it's time for me to be at Stanford" mode. But in a little over a week I'll definitely be back in "it's time for me to be home" mode, and won't that feel good?

I'm not recording today because I'm too sick. Yesterday I wasn't quite so sick, so even though I definitely wasn't in total control of my voice, I did okay. Today I really feel like I'd be more of a hindrance to the process than a help.

By and large recording went well yesterday. The sops finally got a part of "In the Light" that they'd been having trouble with since the beginning of the song, and it sounded quite good. Apparently some of core was very dissatisfied with portions of the songs, but that's to be expected. I myself am very dissatisfied with plenty of stuff that they've signed off on in our final product, but that's fine. I've never been in a production where I wasn't dissatisfied with significant portions of the work, and there's no reason to start now.

The reason I feel I can say that is because I don't think the point of performance art is to create a good product so much as to create a product that the audience will appreciate. That much I think we've accomplished, and in any case I think that what we're going to be selling to people is the best we could do. Not the best the group is theoretically capable of doing, mind you, but our directors aren't stringent enough with us (and our coffers aren't full enough) to permit us to record the best we're theoretically capable of.

What about the argument that this CD is supposed to be a ministry tool? Well now, I'm not sure what I think of that. I certainly don't buy the argument that Christian music can be legitimately targeted at nonbelievers, or really even at seekers. So far as I've been able to determine, Christian music is nothing more than prophecy, and prophecies are not for unbelievers but for believers. If a song (and I'd like to point out that none of the songs we're doing is original, except for two original medleys of songs we didn't write) on our album is used to pique somebody's curiosity that's fine, but I still think it's a fallacy to target Christian music more at non-Christians than Christians.

As for the CD title ... well, I don't like it and I don't understand what it means, but I'm not going to protest it. We had a concept committee for a reason, and if the group is going to persist in running itself like a republic then it had best accept that republics have disadvantages as well as advantages. To challenge the title now is either to say that we won't accept the rules we laid down for ourselves or else to say that the concept committee failed to discharge its duties in good faith. I am prepared to do neither of those things. And, as I think about it, I own plenty of albums whose titles I wouldn't have picked. Center of My Universe? Speechelss? Behind the Eyes? Free to Fly? That doesn't mean I like the albums any more or less. Nor was I put off by the choice of album title; I bought those CDs because I like the music on them and I like the artists who made it. Which, I would argue, is precisely the reason that people will be buying our CD.

I finished Inner Restorations yesterday and was pretty proud of myself for coming up with 21 distinct healing spells. I think I'm going to shoot for 21 spells per field, plus any ideas that my players contribute or ideas that simply must be included beyond 21. This morning I brainstormed 21 spells for Inner Statics, the magic of earth and of binding, and I'm writing those up.