http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/us/27dungeons.html

“Prisons can restrict the rights of inmates to nerd out, a federal appeals court has found.

In an opinion issued on Monday , a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected the claims in a lawsuit challenging a ban on the game Dungeons & Dragons by the Waupun Correctional Institution in Wisconsin.

The suit was brought by a prisoner, Kevin T. Singer, who argued that his First Amendment and 14th Amendment rights were violated by the prison’s decision to ban the game and confiscate his books and other materials, including a 96-page handwritten manuscript he had created for the game.

Mr. Singer, “a D&D enthusiast since childhood,” according to the court’s opinion, was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for bludgeoning and stabbing his sister’s boyfriend to death.

Prison officials said they had banned the game at the recommendation of the prison’s specialist on gangs, who said it could lead to gang behavior and fantasies about escape.

Dungeons & Dragons could “foster an inmate’s obsession with escaping from the real-life correctional environment, fostering hostility, violence and escape behavior,” prison officials said in court. That could make it more difficult to rehabilitate prisoners and could endanger public safety, they said.

The court, which is based in Chicago, acknowledged that there was no evidence of marauding gangs spurred to their acts of destruction by swinging imaginary mauls, but it ruled nonetheless that the prison’s decision was “rationally related” to legitimate goals of prison administration.

“We are pleased with the ruling,” said John Dipko, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, who added that the prison rules “enable us to continue our mission of keeping our state safe.”

News of the decision spread quickly though the network of blogs that discuss such games and to those devoted to the law, where many commentators revealed perhaps more of their own history as gamers than they might have intended. On The Volokh Conspiracy, a legal blog, a particularly rollicking discussion ensued, kicked off with a post by Ilya Somin, an associate professor of law at George Mason University, who asked, “Should prisons ban ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ on the grounds that it might encourage escape attempts?”

In an interview, Professor Somin said the prison’s action was reminiscent of a media frenzy in the 1980s surrounding the supposedly pernicious effects of gaming. “Ideally, you should really have more evidence that there is a genuine harm before you restrict something,” he said.

The comments accompanying Professor Somin’s post ranged from hoots of outrage over the ban to constitutionally nuanced discussion, but they showed that there were many lawyers who at some point owned a pouch with some dice of more than six sides. And none of them seemed to think that the risk to the nation’s prisons could be found in the works of Gary Gygax or other creators of the genre.

As Andrew Oh-Willeke, a lawyer in Denver, wrote, “If more inmates were über-nerdy D&D players, life would be good.”

I’ve decided that I’m going to force myself to use all of the RPG books I’ve stockpiled and never touched. I suffer from gaming ADD; I hear about an interesting new book, buy it, read it, get psyched to run it, and then something else catches my eye before anything materializes, resulting in nothing ever getting played. That cycle has repeated itself for about 15 years now. I now have several complete gamelines that have never been used. In the case of Star Wars, I have a complete gameline that was never used, and has been obsoleted by a new Star Wars gameline that I own and have never used. I think that sobering realization was the straw that broke the camel’s back (well, that and my g/f asking me at Borders why I’m always buying RPG books that I never end up using).

We recently had fun trying out the new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition (with Lio as a Troll Slayer and Action Widow as a disgraced Wood Elf Thief), and we’re getting pretty comfortable with the new system. Next we’re trying out Shadowrun 4th edition (which I own every book for and have never used). After an adventure of that we’ll try out something else. I do plan on getting back to WFRP3 though, because I really like Lio and Action Widow’s characters, and I’ve got some solid ideas for a long-term campaign. Lio’s Troll Slayer (Olaf Runebreaker) is nursing a fallen dwarf back to sanity (when he’s not beheading greenskins or trying to create a Dwelf), and Action Widow’s Elf (Moonthistle) is seducing haggardly peasant cooks while developing various con-jobs and poison-crafting skills.

Aside from forcing us to finally make use all these books, this approach serves a few other purposes. It gets us comfortable with the rules for all these different games, which makes the prospect of playing them in the future far less daunting. Also, we’ll start to figure out which games we really like, and which games we don’t; I suspect there are games that we buy books for and wouldn’t even enjoy (if we ever got around to playing them).

I think the major benefit, however, is getting comfortable running these different games for our monthly gaming weekends (which I really hope we get going again, because that weekend at Stone’s place in Boston was fucking awesome and I miss having us all together). It’ll be much easier to get a variety of games going if Lio and I are comfortable running them, so that the burden doesn’t always fall on Stone and Calliander to run D&D. I’m envisioning a setup where we get several different games going at once, riffing off each other and trying lots of new stuff like back in the day.

I like Philadelphia. The people are pretty friendly. A lot of things that remind me of Ithaca.

I enjoy the presence of seasons. I can feel summer turning, and I'm excited to know that fall is coming. It seems like a cheap excuse to me, but I thought that the consistency of Los Angeles' weather at times lulled me into a sort of stasis. I connect seasons changing with time passing, and with my own mortality, and there's something fulfilling about having that reminder. I liked Los Angeles a lot, but I'm very glad that I left.

The smells here are strange. There are unexplainable clouds of stench that dot the city - you can be driving or walking around, and without notice stumble into the smell of a subway bathroom that hasn't been cleaned in a year. It's more prevalent in the crap areas of town, but you'll catch it downtown, too. There are good odors too - you can smell the major cheesesteak places from a block away.

I think I'll be up in Branford before the end of the month.

The drivers here are insane. A lot of drivers here accelerate away from red lights before they turn green. Quite often someone ahead of me is halfway through the intersection before a light turns red. I've seen a lot of people simply run through red lights late at night, if it looks like no one is around. Very few people actually stop at stop signs.

"Out of my way, peasants!" This is a Mercedes S65. It's a regular top-end Mercedes S-Class with, get this, a twin-turbocharged V12 that makes 604hp and 737 ft-lbs of torque. It costs something like $200k. Maybe $125k of that is the engine. Remember when I talked about getting a car that I could run over poor people in? This is it. I need to get one.

Stone Stone

Hey man, I have a D&D campaign ready to go. Like, almost the whole damned campaign is done, and you've already started it. Sapphire, yourself, and Caniprokis played. All I would need is at least one person to replace Caniprokis and we could set up a time and whatnot.

No!

Game's Over: Troubled Sega Agrees to Merge With Sammy

By KEN BELSON

TOKYO, Feb. 13 � The Sega Corporation, the embattled video game maker, said today that it would merge with the Sammy Corporation, a leading manufacturer of pachinko gaming machines.

The deal, which is expected to be completed on Oct. 1, ends years of speculation about one of the oldest names in the game software industry. Sega, which also slashed its profit forecast by 90 percent, has struggled to compete with Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, which all make high-powered video game consoles.

Microsoft has been looking for partners to make software for its X-Box console and was thought to be interested in forming an alliance with Sega.

By combining forces with Sammy, though, Sega hopes to concentrate on its software for game arcades. Most pachinko machines are now driven by computer chips that determine the game's winnings. Sammy will also be able to expand beyond the pachinko industry, where sales have declined 10 percent since 1995, and bolster its own operations making software for home video games.

The companies hope to "make full use of our synergies developing technology in the amusement and consumer arenas and combining Sammy's rapid growth with Sega's brand name," Sammy's president, Hajime Satomi, said in a statement.

The new company will have combined sales of 371 billion yen ($3.1 billion) and employ 1,750 workers.

Sega, though, will take a back seat to Sammy. Mr. Satomi will lead the new company, even though Sammy's stock market value is about 20 percent smaller than Sega's. Sammy's sales have more than tripled in the last three years while Sega's plunged 40 percent.

Sega, which has lost money for the last five years, also slashed its profit forecast for the fiscal year that ends on March 31. The company now expects to make just 500 million yen ($4.2 million), 90 percent below its earlier estimate. It trimmed its sales forecast 2.5 percent as well.

Sega, an early pioneer in the home video industry, headed for trouble in the mid-1990's after Sony introduced its PlayStation console. The game was an instant hit and Sony has sold 50 million units of its follow up version, PlayStation 2. Nintendo, too, has cashed in on its GameCube console and portable GameBoys.

Trying to keep up, Sega spent more to develop new games and also expanded its amusement operations. But saddled with growing debts of nearly $3 billion, the company started ditching operations. In 2001, Sega ended production of its DreamCast game console to concentrate more on software.

Debts were cut, but sales plunged. Worse, consumers who bought the DreamCast were left without a new supply of games. While Sega still produces popular games like Sonic the Hedgehog, it must now compete head on with stronger players like the Konami Corporation and the Square Company.

"Once they abandoned their game platform, they became a video game producer like everyone else," said Ortwin Gierhake, a software analyst at West LB Securities in Tokyo. "They are getting killed by Sony and Nintendo."

Also today, shareholders at Square, which is 19 percent owned by Sony, accepted a takeover bid by the rival Enix Corporation.

I like a few of the 'emo' bands that are being played on the radio right now, because I like that sort of music, as far as pop music goes. With the new-hip-hop-hardcore-metal music, a couple of things put me off - power ballads and the rapping. Hate, hate, hate power ballads, and the power ballad is the bread-and-butter of bands like Staind (POISON 2000).

The rappers in bands like Linkin Park are pretty terrible. Kid Rock's probably the worst offender out of all of them, though. They all seem content to stick with the same type of flow-less, even, aabbccdd pitter-patter that would've considered mediocre back way back in 1985.

While we're talking about 1985, they're also all way, way, way too into Run-DMC, too. I can't even imagine how many copies of King of Rock these new-metal rapper-singers must've collectively gone through.

Ground effects rule, man, shut up.

New DE LA SOUL album soon, which is exciting.

I wish nice things weren't so damned expensive.

Stone

I lack creative outlets sometimes.. or.. at least.. well.. let me explain.

A creative outlet is something you should tap into every so often to relax, etc. This can't be something you do often, or it will become not-creative. For instance.. coding could be seen as creative, but if you do it all day, every day.. it doesnt FEEL creative. So it's not.

Thats what I do all the time. Code. When I am not coding, I am sleeping or doing school work. None of this is creative. Periodically I have the feeling I am doing something creative.. for instance, when I start a new project. Also, sometimes I get to play with graphics and stuff.. so it all makes me feel better about everything.

Video editing has become sort of a creative outlet......... but, I have to do it more than once every two weeks. Right now I am in a slump because I really have had no time to do anything.

Things that are exciting are good. The only problem is that the excitement fades and you really need to step back and look at yourself to see what the fuck you are doing. I mean.. god damn.

Chicken is good too. There is something about chicken, waffles, and orange juice. There is something really nice about them because they never treat me wrong. There is something in that too.. but it lacks excitement.

Then there is something like ice cream. It is an exciting food. It tastes so good to start, but it bites you in the ass.. almost literally. The worst problem is that the explosive diahrrea and cramping does not push me away for going for more a few days later. It feels like a fatal attraction (especially when seated on porcelain).

Wouldn't it be phalli(i)? That Seven Nations was in a Dewar's ad. That letter was funny - I like the "in jail" part. I dunno if it was evident of moral outrage on his part, or if the site is just homosexual enough to merit us all jail time. I sort of like the idea of the latter...I dunno, it's just funny to join what seems like a pretty typical e-mail with "I can't believe you're not in jail"

My roommate is having some sort of crisis regarding pre-med/his desire to be a surgeon, so forth. My horrifically rich roommate and I were taunting him while playing Mario Golf, trying to break his concentration, and it seems to have had some sort of deeper effect on him. He works so much here. It's kind of funny. I want a Mac for some reason.

Today was, eh, alright, got some reading done during class, spoke in one class, went to the library and ate food with J., bought lemons, limes (horrible juice-free limes, Jason's Collegetown Deli sucks), club soda, sugar, played Capcom vs SNK in the arcade for an hour or two, bleh, another day with very little work accomplished, but, relatively entertaining. The weather perked up in the afternoon. I had no idea how much I liked nice weather (cool/mildly warm, good air smells, sometimes rain) until I came to this godforsaken town. I love arcades.

Anyways, yeah.