So, I have been playing with wordpress...

[Green1]

Well, new article up.

I managed to pump it out quicker since things have chilled out a sec.

After this, I may want to start delving into more nuts and bolts things. Most of the better read ones are like that.

https://frugaldm.wordpress.com/

[Valka]

I have a blog. I'm not going to say what it's called or where to find it, because it hasn't been updated in years. I had good intentions when starting it (as we all do when starting things), but I get easily sidetracked into lots of other things.

As far as commenting, I occasionally comment on a Fighting Fantasy blog run by someone who's also in a couple of Yahoo! gamebook groups I belong to, as well as the Fighting Fantazine forum. When he writes anything about the city of Khare or the other FF areas I'm interested in, I head on over there and post.

As I mentioned to him, one of my ongoing writing projects is novelizing the Sorcery! gamebook subseries, and any scraps of mapping and in-game historical information he can dig up is stuff I find extremely useful. And I've found out that if/when I ever finish this project and post it for people to read, they won't freak out over 'canon' if I've added in a town here, a village there, and write encounters that never occurred in the gamebook or combine others that were never meant to be combined.

[Green1]

Well, the people that freak out over "canon" too much aren't very fun. It is not like the work has a serious chance of becoming canon. As long as it is not some Mary Sue stuff or horrid. Even if canon, I am sure as a novelist or script writer, they have folks looking over that and it isn't public till it's out. If that was the case, fanfic folks would just repost scripts or whatever and not really be able to do much. 

My daughter used to do a bit of fanfic back in the day. But more the Bleach stuff. I think (happily) fanfic ruined Twilight for her.

[Valka]

Well, the people that freak out over "canon" too much aren't very fun. It is not like the work has a serious chance of becoming canon. As long as it is not some Mary Sue stuff or horrid. Even if canon, I am sure as a novelist or script writer, they have folks looking over that and it isn't public till it's out. If that was the case, fanfic folks would just repost scripts or whatever and not really be able to do much. 

My daughter used to do a bit of fanfic back in the day. But more the Bleach stuff. I think (happily) fanfic ruined Twilight for her.

The Fighting Fantazine admin said I wouldn't be able to post my stories on their forum because he's worried about the (extremely remote) possibility of any of the pro authors or artists finding out and issuing a C&D against the forum. I think he's being paranoid and unfair - after all, they post original adventures there that can't be professionally published because they're fan-written and those make use of pro material.

So Fighting Fantazine's loss is fanfiction.net's gain.

Or maybe I'll just start another blog and put it there. 


The only way it could be considered "Mary-Sue(ish)" is because I created a more-than-generic gamebook character. This is going back to the '80s - I gave my character a name, and as the adventure progressed I started to get all kinds of ideas like where she came from, why she started adventuring, and after the whole quest was over, I started writing down some of these ideas.

And many years later, when I first went online and joined a RPG forum, this character's name was my first internet username. To this day that's how I'm known on several sites, even though I no longer belong to that first forum (long, disagreeable story I won't tell here).

But when I really got into this novelization project, I went back over the notes I'd managed to save (some of them didn't survive the move from the house to my first apartment), decided to change a few things to what made more sense to my 25+-years-older self, and got going.

So in some respects, this protagonist does share some of my personality traits. But I also mapped out her future personal life going on to the next generation (opting to have her son be the protagonist in the Deathtrap Dungeon gamebooks - two of the most notoriously difficult ones in the entire series).

It's just my take on the FF gamebooks, in which it's obvious that some of them can be connected into a longer overall story and it's more interesting to make it multi-generational. As with other RPG games, older adventurers die or retire, and a new generation takes their place.

And the guy running this FF blog said he liked some of my ideas and nobody among the commenters there said they thought I was out to lunch, so I'm taking that as a kind of approval from people who know the series much better than I do.

[Unorthodox]

I think (happily) fanfic ruined Twilight for her.

I can't seem to understand the twilight to begin with. 

[Green1]

I think (happily) fanfic ruined Twilight for her.

I can't seem to understand the twilight to begin with. 

It is a horrible trope. "He's a misunderstood vampire/demon/werewolf/ whatever BUT he's cute and such a great bf. I am the only one who understands him" kind of thing. Girl, he's going to bite your face and make you want to bite faces off too.

I guess it is the sexual innuendo, the "changing" thing that mirrors puberty in a way, and the whole immortality and supernatural powers when RL can be monotonous that is the appeal of that.

I just want the few hours of my life back from watching that horrid 50 Shades of Grey that was adapted from horrible Twilight fanfic.

[Buster's Uncle]

Our man Green put up a new post yesterday. https://frugaldm.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/attack-of-the-bad-player-concept-part-3-the-fun-strikes-back/

There is fun and pizza therein.

[Green1]

Awesome. I am pleased with the rate of content.

I just got blind sided with a text, though, with something. Nothing concrete, but I may be on talk radio as a guest on one of the local radio stations to talk about stealth camping. Scary as hell, but I think I am up for the challenge.

Probably means I need to start a second blog with that kind of content as opposed to geek content. I have A LOT of experience on urban survivalist content. Hell, I damn near wrote a book on it that got 90K + views and is archived places by folks. Without the political constraints and a slightly less anarchist bent, should do okay.

Still got 2 articles cooking then change content direction on  frugalDM, though. A lot of competition in geek writing and I may have to shift more from the geek rant stuff to PDF material for folks freaking out because they have nothing written up which has many more views than rants.

[Dio]

Awesome. I am pleased with the rate of content.

I just got blind sided with a text, though, with something. Nothing concrete, but I may be on talk radio as a guest on one of the local radio stations to talk about stealth camping. Scary as hell, but I think I am up for the challenge.

Probably means I need to start a second blog with that kind of content as opposed to geek content. I have A LOT of experience on urban survivalist content. Hell, I damn near wrote a book on it that got 90K + views and is archived places by folks. Without the political constraints and a slightly less anarchist bent, should do okay.

Still got 2 articles cooking then change content direction on  frugalDM, though. A lot of competition in geek writing and I may have to shift more from the geek rant stuff to PDF material for folks freaking out because they have nothing written up which has many more views than rants.

While I was doing research on homelessness, I began reading about the concept of stealth camping. 

[Buster's Uncle]

I was going to suggest talking about that in the Homeless thread...

[Green1]

Awesome. I am pleased with the rate of content.

I just got blind sided with a text, though, with something. Nothing concrete, but I may be on talk radio as a guest on one of the local radio stations to talk about stealth camping. Scary as hell, but I think I am up for the challenge.

Probably means I need to start a second blog with that kind of content as opposed to geek content. I have A LOT of experience on urban survivalist content. Hell, I damn near wrote a book on it that got 90K + views and is archived places by folks. Without the political constraints and a slightly less anarchist bent, should do okay.

Still got 2 articles cooking then change content direction on  frugalDM, though. A lot of competition in geek writing and I may have to shift more from the geek rant stuff to PDF material for folks freaking out because they have nothing written up which has many more views than rants.

While I was doing research on homelessness, I began reading about the concept of stealth camping. 

Yeah... it's one of the classic homeless mistakes a lot don't realize. You DO NOT want to be in the downtown area or look homeless. You want to be out in the suburbs and you need a bicycle. The whole "stealth camping" term comes from the bicycle enthusiasts. When touring, hotels can crush you. Why not just duck behind some trees out of sight of the road on some land with NO posted signs -very important- and get your tent out then leave first thing and keep that money? Or... if landlords are kicking your butt... embargo those lazy leeches who want to charge your butt off so they don't have to work.

I posted AAR 5 and 4 from a tethered laptop to an android cell phone hooked to a deer feeder battery.

[Buster's Uncle]

I did something like that the last year I did Texas Renaissance Fair - rent had gone up to $50 dollars a campsite, and for that and other reasons, I just gave up and had an illegal camp in the woods nearby.

It was WAY better than the campground, actually.  I could fart in bed with no one hearing it.  Also could hear no farting but my own.  Hauling water and pooping in the woods was a pain, and I didn't like worrying about getting caught, but worth it.

[Dio]

Awesome. I am pleased with the rate of content.

I just got blind sided with a text, though, with something. Nothing concrete, but I may be on talk radio as a guest on one of the local radio stations to talk about stealth camping. Scary as hell, but I think I am up for the challenge.

Probably means I need to start a second blog with that kind of content as opposed to geek content. I have A LOT of experience on urban survivalist content. Hell, I damn near wrote a book on it that got 90K + views and is archived places by folks. Without the political constraints and a slightly less anarchist bent, should do okay.

Still got 2 articles cooking then change content direction on  frugalDM, though. A lot of competition in geek writing and I may have to shift more from the geek rant stuff to PDF material for folks freaking out because they have nothing written up which has many more views than rants.

While I was doing research on homelessness, I began reading about the concept of stealth camping. 

Yeah... it's one of the classic homeless mistakes a lot don't realize. You DO NOT want to be in the downtown area or look homeless. You want to be out in the suburbs and you need a bicycle. The whole "stealth camping" term comes from the bicycle enthusiasts. When touring, hotels can crush you. Why not just duck behind some trees out of sight of the road on some land with NO posted signs -very important- and get your tent out then leave first thing and keep that money? Or... if landlords are kicking your butt... embargo those lazy leeches who want to charge your butt off so they don't have to work.

I posted AAR 5 and 4 from a tethered laptop to an android cell phone hooked to a deer feeder battery.

I know it is possible to use tarps to make tents. They come in brown tones which will work well in the forest and countryside. I hear they also come in gray which would camouflage better in the urban areas.

[Green1]

Yes. There are certain situations where you DON'T want a tent. It attracts attention and is a pain if stolen. Particularly if there is a lot of traffic in the patch of woods. I lost a tent in Baton Rouge towards the end of my adventure due to snowbird hobos coming to Baton Rouge during the fall. Did not lose any clothes or electronics, because I double stash. But lost blankets. Surprisingly, I did not lose one on the West Bank of New Orleans. You would think NOLA to be worse.

A tarp is 5 to 10 USD but a cheap tent is 20 USD to 35 USD. I would not spend any more unless you are far up north during fall and winter. And that is going to suck and could be dangerous.

But, even if you go with cheap tents, you do need a tarp. Most cheap tents like the Ozark Trail stuff say they are water resist. But that is a lie. All the stuff you want dry like your work clothes will get soaked. You want a tarp to put over the tent for medium to heavy rain AND camouflage.

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh, I always did that.  I had a tent big enough to sleep in and lived on the porch.