Master of My Pants, November Edition: What I've been up to

[womzilla]

As you might have guessed from the blizzard of posts I've made, many of which are links to stuff snarfed from other people's LJs, I have spent most of today catching up on my flist. I was thirteen days behind yesterday morning, and I'm caught up now. (Modulo a lot of things open in tabs or windows to read later, of course.)

I fell behind in part because work has gone back into "kick womzilla around" mode--being in the trenches of the complete collapse of the American financial system has taken some toll on my free time. Things should improve there, though--we've finally managed to hire a replacement for my assistant, who was let go in a poorly thought-out batch of layoffs in mid-April. My boss, and his boss, both realized how bad an idea it was to lay off my assistant. But the headcount reduction was mandated two levels above my boss, and any other choice would have been even worse. It didn't take very long for the person who made that decision to realize he had cut too deeply, but it took us a surprisingly long time to find a good replacement. Even though Wall Street firms are firing left-and-right, it's not the technical staff who are being let go; the big companies are trying to do more and better trading with fewer human traders and salesmen, which means more automated trading, which means hanging on to programming staff. Anyway, the person we eventually found is so good I can hardly believe it, so that side of things is looking up.

I also fell behind because my weekends have been tied up by a side project: I've been doing a lot of work for the new edition of Tales of the Arabian Nights, which is now scheduled for December 2008 release. Tales was created by Eric Goldberg in the late 1980s, one of the last games he designed and published before he was fired as the president of West End Games for getting too successful. (No, really; that's another story for another time.) Eric retained the rights, and in the early 1990s he decided to use his new software company, Crossover Technologies, to create an electronic version. I was hired, thanks to wild_irises, to do production assistance work on it and through a series of accidents ended up being the main writer on the new project, helping re-write the entire "Book of Tales", a collection of 1400 or so story fragments which form the core of the game.

The computer game was never completed, unfortunately--it was somewhere between 75% and 90% done when we realized that it wasn't going to get a distribution deal from a real publisher, so we shelved it. However, the revised Book of Tales (which also included work from a wonderfully funny writer named Brad Freeman) was used in the 1999 German edition from Editions Erlkonig. That was my first professional boardgame publication, and I'm inordinately proud of it and long wanted to see it in English.

Zoom forward another nine years. The original Tales is now one of the "holy grails" of the serious boardgamer community in the USA--one of those games everyone has heard of and agree is a classic but no one can buy. Zev Schlasinger of Z-Man Games decided that the world needed a new edition. The project is spearheaded by long-time gaming pro Anthony Gallela, who has done a simply smashing job of streamlining the rules and expanding the Book of Tales to nearly twice its original length. I was invited to consult on all aspects of the project, and over the last couple of months I have spent a lot of time over the weekends editing the new portions of the Book of Tales, writing some new content for it (and for the rulebook), copy-editing, proofreading, giving feedback to the brilliant artist/graphic designer Peter Gifford, and generally being up to my elbows in flying carpets, magical springs, and vengeful djinn. The project is nearing completion--I probably have about three hours of work to do on it tomorrow, then scattered little bits right up until it goes to the printer--and because I'm also taking Monday off from work, I could afford to goof off today reading all of you folk.

I'm taking Monday off to visit my hemotologist, for two reasons. First, we've just discovered that my mother inherited from her father a gene for hemochromatosis, a blood disorder "characterized by excessive absorption of dietary iron resulting in a pathological increase in total body iron stores". My mother's half-sisters on her father's side all have it, and Mom's a carrier, so I need to be tested. More immediately, I need a round of pre-surgical blood work so that I can get authorized to have my deviated septum fixed. (You may remember that I mentioned this a few days ago in the context of recreational sinusoscopies.) This surgery is a process I've been putting off for a decade or more, but I'm committed to getting it done now. While he's in there, my ENT is going to widen the openings to two of my sinuses and reduce my turbinates. He's also talking about installing vinyl siding and upholstery in rich, Corthinian leather, but I'm probably just going to stick with the more conventional surgical processes.

So, there I am. Caught up. I expect I'll start slipping behind again over the next couple of weeks--next weekend is the monthly NYRSF Work Weekend, and then I hope I'll have the surgery this month--but it feels good to be caught up on you all for now.

Oh, I've barely actually started the nineteenth-century fiction project: I've read "Lady Windemere's Fan", which I enjoyed. Very witty, Wilde, very witty.

Whoops--I'm about to get caught in a time warp. Quickly--to the (wom)bat-bed before Standard Time arrives!

Comments

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

I found out recently that someone I work with has hemochromatosis. It went undiagnosed for a long time and caused incurable, serious arthritis (something about iron building up in the joints). I'm really glad you're being tested now.

[nppyinzer.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with hemochromatosis (found it when she was in her 20's, before any permanent damage was done), and based on her experiences, I really, really, really hope that you don't have it.

Really, really really really.

Hemochromatosis

[(Anonymous)]

"I'm taking Monday off to visit my hemotologist, for two reasons. First, we've just discovered that my mother inherited from her father a gene for hemochromatosis, a blood disorder "characterized by excessive absorption of dietary iron resulting in a pathological increase in total body iron stores". My mother's half-sisters on her father's side all have it, and Mom's a carrier, so I need to be tested."

In the interest of providing you and your readers with some helpful information about hemochromatosis, I am sending this comment to you about hemochromatosis. My name is Bob Rogers and I am the Executive Director of the Canadian Hemochromatosis Society. brogers@toomuchiron.ca

Hemochromatosis (HHC) is not a "blood disease". HHC the most common genetic disorder in North America affecting One in 300 in the general population; One in 9 are carriers. It takes two abnormal (or mutated) genes (one from each parent) for a child to potentially receive both genes and be at risk for hemochromatosis. If your Mother is at least a carrier and your Father is at least a carrier, then you, your siblings and possibily your children (if you married a carrier) are at risk to inherit this disorder.

Iron absorbed from food, in the excess quantities associated with HHC, is stored in the BODY and TISSUES. Over time, these organs and tissues fail to function properly due to the excess iron. This leads to diseases of these organs and tissues which can lead to early death. All this is needless if early diagnosis and treatment takes place.

The Iron Overload Diseases Association (in the USA was formed to act as a support group and information center for people affected by hemochromatosis. It is a very reliable organization for information on HHC. Please find their website for more information or you are welcome to visit our website.

Bob Rogers
Executive Director
Canadian Hemochromatosis Society
www.toomuchiron.ca

[lavendertook.livejournal.com]

Glad things look like they're going to lighten up at work in time for you to start dealing with al the pre-op issues. Congrats on the game work completing and publishing!

[montoya.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's cool about the game. I heard a podcast a few months ago where Zev Shlasinger was talking about his upcoming stuff, and that sounded like one of the more interesting ones.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I'm very pleased about the new Arabian Nights edition, having played the original many times back in the day and the German edition a few times more recently (using Patrick Korner's paste-ups). If nothing else it saves me form having to Englishify my German copy, which I would probably never get around to. I do kind of wish the new version had the Merchant Game included, so I could try it one of these days, but I suppose I had 20 years to do that.

Hope all the medical stuff goes OK.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

*whew* Good luck with everything, especially the medical stuff.

I went for a CT scan of my sinuses in relation to a blocked tear duct (and my sinuses being painful to the touch most of the time) but the ENT couldn't see me until December 15, so I don't know what kind of problem I have in that area.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw that--I hope it all works out well!

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Let me know if and when you read Wilde's A Woman of No Importance.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

That's next in the collection.