Short History Lesson

1. Before this incarnation of a blog, I ran A POINT OF SINGULARITY, on Xanga.com, from 6/03 to 12/04. At the time, Xanga was pretty limited in a lot of ways, and I did not like their posting interface. I understand Xanga has made great strides since then.

2. I have run ANOTHER POINT OF SINGULARITY since December of 2004 on blogger.com, and generally, I'm happy with blogger. Now that the company is owned by Google they are making great strides to integrate their blogging product with other Google apps, and that's only a good thing. However, there are elements of control that I desire that are simply not here. I've been shopping around for a new technology to implement, possibly even (gack!) a paid domain with my own content management application, like Joomla.

3. In the end, I think there's a nice reasonable compromise out there, and it is (yay!) still free. That's Wordpress blogging application, hosted on Wordpress.com. I still may host a Wordpress blog on a paid domain eventually, because Wordpress.com only allows a certain level of functionality and and only their own templates. However, it is a very nice comprehensive blogging service even if I'm not hosting it myself.. Wordpress is more complex than blogger, and I'd like to get used to it for a while before committing myself to PHP and MYSQL. I think it's the right choice.. there are many nifty plugins that support expanded social media activity, like Podcasting and other feeds. That's something I've been nerving myself up to attempt at some point, and it would be nice to have something in place that can handle it.

So, at some point, after I finish importing the archive from blogger.com to Wordpress.com, This blog is going to get turned off. It will still be here, but it won't be updated any more. You will have to move over to http://mrnizz.wordpress.com for THE THIRD POINT OF SINGULARITY.

Fortunately I've been working on transitioning the archive of THIS blog over to wordpress. The posts came over, and most of the tags (as categories) but many are uncategorized.. from the two years that blogger didn't use the tagging system.. GAHHH!

So, this theme has been up for about a year now and for the most part I enjoy it, but it has certain limitations. I've been monkeying around with Wordpress lately and I enjoy the level of control this service gives you, especially with podcasting, which is something I'm working on jumping into. If anyone out there is reading this, I'd be interested in what you had to say.

Ditch the Blogger theme? Go with Wordpress?

THIS is an example of what the new site might look like, with all these posts and comments captured over to it. Comments welcome.


Get This - Survey Results

The White General (wears a fez)

One of the problems with conventioneering is that you just never get a chance to see what you want to see.. too much stuff to check on during the course of the day. At COLD WARS, I never played any games at the convention for the first two years. I believe I DID play one last year, and got in TWO at CW07. These were pickups after 6 PM, however, and not something big and grand and glorious being put on during the day. Such a game was The Battle of Gorni Dubnik, put on during the day at Cold Wars, by my friend Don Hauser. Don maintains an excellent blog primarily devoted to his love of obscure wargaming eras (a passion of mine, too!). Right now his focus is on THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR (an obscure conflict in an obscure century). Gorni Dubnik was fought with beautifully painted glossy 42(?)mm soldiers that Don has been working on for quite some time. I won't replicate his blurb-- go to the blog to read it-- and be sure to check out the photo gallery as well.

Recent books acquired

(I'll explain where I've been in a follow up) For starters, let's look at some recent book purchases (or gifts).

World War Z of course, Max Brooks' "Oral History Approach" to the Great Zombie War, done in the literary style of BLOOD OF SPAIN (or perhaps more accurately that recent anthology dedicated to the H.G. Wells War of the World event done by various authors) It's not a central narrative, e.g., you won't see one gang of plucky survivors battle for survival as is the subject of MANY zombie films. Instead, Brooks tells the story of a global zombie holocaust through the eyes of many narrators in many places. I'm only just getting into it now but I'm impressed with Brooks writing style and sense of humor to accomodate the sense of dread. I loved his ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE .. and you can look at WORLD WAR Z as a companion piece set in the same milieu, pretty much.


An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories This is not a "trade back" of cartoons, rather a serious attempt to explain some of the modern and post-modern themes that are prevalent in "iconic" fiction such as Sunday Cartoons. The Anthology is edited by Ivan Bruneti of "Schizo" fame but many individual "edgy" comic artists and writers contribute. Ivan Bruneti writes the Introduction and I believe one or two of the "chapters" therein. Most of the material is page after page of post-modern comics illustrating a theme that Bruneti is working on in the chapter (it almost seems that the phrase "chapter" doesn't really fit, actually) Bruneti is a quirky fellow; but he takes the subject matter seriously enough -- I had no idea how cosmic some of these guys could get! One of my favorites is a series of interviews and commentary about PEANUTS written mostly by Art Spiegelman of MAUS fame. There's even a comic of Spiegelman's interview with Schulz with Spiegelman in his usual "Maus" guise and Schulz dressed up as a Charlie Brown character. Charles Schulz, who had been a cartoonist so long his work was part of the backdrop of American culture, had some very interesting points to make about the graphical art itself. You kind of expect the creator of PEANUTS to be conservative (or at least I did) but he was quite insightful. I'm about halfway done with it and I am glad I picked it up using some of my copious Book Store Gift Card boodle I usually get this time of year.




HIGH COTTON by Joe Landsdale. Haven't started it yet. Joe is my favorite East Texas Shitkickin' writer and a past master of the macabre short story art form. This is a short story anthology loaded with some of his more celebrated short stories, including one I've been tracking down for years.




THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS by Barry Straus. another Scholarly look at the great galley battle between the Greeks and Persians The Greek triumph at Salamis stopped the advancing Persians and saved the first democracy in history. It made Athens the dominant city in Greece, gave birth to the Athenian empire, and set the stage for the Age of Pericles. On the Persian side, the battle of Salamis also featured history's first female admiral and sailors from three continents. I've only just creacked it open-- Strauss' prose style is what I would call "spare" but it's still easy enough to follow and a good treatment of the subject.



Tuff Guide to Fantasyland By Diana Wynn-Jones. A very tongue-in-cheek, often hilarious, treatment of all the cliches in fantasy writing done by a very succesful fantasy writer. Who knew she had it in her? I bought this one on Otto's recommendation and don't regret it...

That's what's in my book bag at the moment, and I'm enjoying them tremendously.

Is there a By Popular Demand Fan out there?

I noticed this search in my user REFERRAL stats (e.g., what they clicked on to make them come here) last night:



The exact duplication of the phrase "antagonist in ANY Oprah Book Club NOVEL" including the odd capitalization, makes me think that the person making that search copied it directly from the infamous ROUND FIVE (the Oprah Round) of our last game of By Popular Demand, "Wuerthy". The inference I make is that the person might be playing along and trying to score the game themselves, or doing some research, or maybe they are just dying to know more about antagonists in Oprah Book Club novels, and it's all a cosmic coincidence... wait.. naaaaah. In any event, stranger, I hope we can get you interested in the next round, which will have a HISTORY THEME.

Happy Birthday, you old Blog, you!

Today is (roughly) the second anniversary of ANOTHER POINT OF SINGULARITY here on BLOGGER.COM. I ran a previous incarnation, the POINT OF SINGULARITY, on Xanga for a few years before bailing to come here, so all in all I've been a so-called "serious blogger" for about five years, and I maintained a web presence (not really a blog but kind of a catch all static webpage that got updated often enough) fairly constantly since about 1997. Why? Well, in part, web development was my job for a while, and you get into the habit. For another, I enjoy sharing not just my thoughts with other people, but also something they can put to use in a hobby sense (particuarly, in the wargaming hobby). Some of my earliest "resource pages" saw a lot of mileage over the years, being referenced in many places and used again and again (such as the PBeM Emporium, on the web since 1997, and my Wild West Skirmish page, which has been around about the same amount of time). About four years ago I started getting out of the static web page stuff and devoted more time to blogging style web pages. Why? Well, it's easier to update for one thing, and generally pretty network friendly wherever I go. Constantly updating pages (as I did back in the Emporium's heyday) gets very old, very quickly. I just can't do it any more. A blog post, though, that takes a few seconds.

During the last year or so, I've noticed the traffic for this blog has gone up dramatically. Part of the explanation for the traffic is undoubtedly the fact that I'm not shy to link to a post of my own in another forum-- after all, I took the time to write it, why not have someone read it? Some folks have come back,and I even have a few regular customers, you might say (judging from the traffic reports). That's a lot of fun, and I appreciate that they think this thing is worthwhile enough to return occassionally.

During the year since the LAST anniversary, I've also noticed a lot more critical reaction to some of the posts that I have put on here. For instance, I recently received my first hate mail about a post that dared to question the policy of reimbursing GMs for conventions. I have also been called (literally, at my house) for posts that were critical of individuals in this or that group. Yes, I have people who scan this blog on behalf of other people, with the express purpose of reporting back to the 'offended person', to try to whip up trouble for yours truly. I'm not exaggerating. I've always been somewhat astounded that people take posts on a hobby so deadly seriously. Especially when there are so few of those "hobby organization" posts to begin with! As a result of the new "Label" feature on the current incarnation of Blogger.com, I've been able to categorize posts better, and thus have found that it's become easier to collect statistics on any topic posted here. For instance, oh, just taking something out of the blue, it turns out that the term "HMGS" only shows up in less than 2% of the posts on here. Don't take my word for it, count it yourself. And when it does, it always ignites a sh*tstorm, so to speak. Oh well, it should hardly be surprising in an age that values perception over substance.

In closing, I'll be continuing on here for another year at least. I enjoy this pastime. If I offend somebody with something I write, feel free to comment on the "Post Comments" section. Heck, if it's that important I'll post your point of view on the subject, no skin off of my nose.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and I hope you continue to read in 2007.

Mister Nizz