Something Sophistic This Way Comes

I made the mistake this week of trying to upgrade Old is the New New to Movable Type 3.2. I foolishly believed the hype about it being “our easiest upgrade ever!” and only after crippling my website, apparently beyond repair, did I find the 10,000 or so blog entries by other disgruntled MT users saying it might not be so simple. (Memo to myself: When a 200-page users manual is replaced by a 60-second Flash animation, start worrying.) OK, maybe not beyond repair. I'm still working it out.

This sucks because I really want to clean that place up over the holidays and even start posting a little before January, when I’m “hosting” the next History Carnival. (The most recent carnival went up yesterday at Jonathan Dresner's fine Asian history blog Frog In A Well.) ANYWAY, if anyone reading this sees any interesting history-related blogging between now and January 15, please comment here or email a link to me at electromail-way at-way obmacdougall-ray ot-day org-way. It doesn’t have to be academic-style history or the work of a professional historian. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'd love to expand the Carnival beyond the usual suspects. (princeofcairo's eliptony library will almost certainly get a plug.) So pointers to history-type-blogging at sites not specifically focused on history or just generally off the beaten paths of the academic blogosphere are particularly welcome.

Remind me never to send you to the store to pick up a six-pack of Canadians!

I was going back and forth on whether this was too flimsy to post at 20x20' Room but it seems TypePad is down today, so that makes my decision easy. (Karma for Six Apart and the pain upgrading MT is currently giving me, heh heh heh--oh wait, this also inconveniences me! Damn you, Six Apart! Now watch my LJ implode.)

Primetime Adventures players take note! And see if you can follow along: The title story in Kelly Link’s new collection, Magic for Beginners, is about (I’m quoting a review in The Believer) “a TV show called The Library, a teen drama whose cute, hormonal, conspicuously quotable friends are devoted fans of a TV show called The Library, a paranormal, ass-kicking series of mysterious provenance that pops up without warning at ungodly hours on random cable stations. … The hero, Jeremy, is a sentient TV character, obsessed with Fox, a character on the show within the show within the story, who turns out to be real.” A show within a show within a story, eh? If this is anybody but Jorge Luis Borges…

I’m thinking of taking Primetime Adventures with me to Florida over the holidays, where I’ll be with most of my family. They’re a mix of non-RPGers and long-ago-RPGers, but I might be able to get them to give it a whirl. (We typically play a lot of board games when we all get together, but bulky board games will be a hassle to lug down to the Sunshine State on a pre-Xmas post-Patriot Act plane.) Anyone reading this ever tried PTA with a group of non-gamers? Or does anyone have alternate suggestions of easy-to-transport board/card games or newbie-friendly one-shot RPGs?

See, my subject line is like an answer to the "Central Question" at the top of the Believer review, and there's this old joke, and...