House of Jorob

Excuse Me, But Weren't You Throwing with the Other Hand....?

The Phillies are playing the Nationals tonight and Chris Wheeler is commenting on Jamie Moyer's pitching.
"He's developed a sinker," he says. He goes on to say how Moyer has developed the pitch to stay alive on the mound. At 45 years old, the more weapons you bring to the mound, the better.

That got me thinking about weapons. And a switch-hitter came to the plate.

A couple synapses fired, and I thought, "switch-pitcher."

Jill looked at me.

Oops. Talking out loud again.

But the idea stuck. And I went in search of the Ambidextrous Pitcher.

Found one.

Two, actually.

All the rest are in the 19th century.

Greg Harris threw one inning of dual-armed ball during an Expos/Reds game in 1995. There was a debate at the time as to whether or not this was a stunt.

Pat Venditte is the current one. He threw from both sides during a game just last month. Pitching for the Staten Island Yankees (Class A) with two outs in the ninth, he faced a switch hitter, who checked in from the right side of the plate.
Venditte decided to throw right-handed. His glove has two thumbs, making it simple to wear on either hand.
Batter Ralph Henriquez took one look at that, and switched sides of the plate.
Venditte changed his glove to his right hand, now pitching lefty.
Henriquez steps to the right side again.

This went on for a while.

The umpires eventually settled on ending the game of "Switchie" by declaring the batter needed to declare first.

This worked out better than the last time Venditte got stuck in a game of "Switchie." The last time it happened, in April 2007, he was pitching in NCAA Division I ball. And the umpires ruled then that the pitcher had to declare which arm he was throwing with before the first pitch to a batter, and no changing of arm permitted before the at-bat ends.

If Venditte makes it to the majors, MLB has some rules work to do. The Rulebook isn't specific on who declares first, pitcher or batter.

Which Part of "Emergency Room" Don't You Understand, Doctor?

Jill has an interesting relationship with her doctor.

1. Jill detects an ailment.
2. Jill calls Doctor Kenis for appointment.
3. At the appointment, doctor examines, diagnoses, and prescribes.
4. Doctor calls for help.

Just about every time Jill goes in there, she comes out with a referral to see a specialist. Or a test that's offsite.
I'm not kidding.
I set aside double co-payments when I know she's got a doctor appointment coming up: one for Kenis, and the other for the specialist.
Chalk it up to covering one's butt, I guess.

I had to laugh today, however.

Cynically.

Jill developed a swollen finger tip the other night. No reason for it that she could tell. It just swelled up.

I looked at it with my trained eye.

"Yep. Swollen. Gonna call the doctor?"

She decided to call in the morning if the swelling hadn't gone down. Clearly there was some kind of infection in there, needing treatment.

In the morning, still swollen.

Luckily, Doctor Kenis was willing to see her same day. Off to Kenis's office we went.

Our specialist?

The Emergency Room at our local hospital.

Yep.

Jill's doctor wrote a script for an antibiotic, and told her to go to the emergency room if she needed further care.

This is an infected fingertip, mind you.

No gangrene.

No running sores.

No bones sticking out.

No wonder hospital emergency room staff around the country are overcrowded; that ER staff complain folk use them as clinics.

Their highly paid contemporaries in private practice are encouraging the problem.

My health care coverage doesn't like it when I go to an emergency room for care. To help control ER over crowding, my copayment is $100.

Thanks, Doc.

Dungeon Masters: Protect your ideas--Don't post original material on Wizards of the Coast

There was a time, back in the dark ages of electric typewriters and 2400 baud modems, when the true mark of an unschooled amatuer novelist was the "You're gonna steal my idea and so I've got to slap 'Copyright <myname> on every page" approach to manuscript submissions.
It only took a couple of hours research in a library before the author learned the copyright was already in place, as soon as taking pen to paper. Oh sure, you could mail it to yourself, or even register it with the copyright office. But you didn't have to.

I feel sorry for the writers starting out today. To keep this topic manageable, and because I am by no means an established and published author, I'll work with what I really know: Dungeons and Dragons.
Beginning Dungeon Masters will eventually grow into DMs who want to work up their own ideas. From there its a natural progression to publishing your own stuff.

The web makes it easy to publish. There are sites where DMs give their stuff away, and sites where you are asked to kick in a few bucks, and other places where you can invite contributions after folks take a look at your stuff..

On all of these sites, one thing is clear--or at least if not clear, then easily found: original authors of material retain their original copyrights.

Not so Wizards of the Coast. And, by extension, Gleemax.com.

First, we have the "We don't want your stuff" statement.

Gonna quote Wizards.com here in entirety. The caps are not mine:

8. Unsolicited Idea Submission Policy

NEITHER WIZARDS NOR ANY OF ITS EMPLOYEES ACCEPTS OR CONSIDERS UNSOLICITED MATERIALS PROVIDED TO WIZARDS REGARDING THE SITE, THE SITE CONTENT, WIZARDS, OR THE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES OF WIZARDS, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, SUGGESTIONS, IDEAS, PLANS, NOTES, DRAWINGS OR OTHER ARTWORK, DEMOS, PROTOTYPES, SAMPLES, ORIGINAL OR CREATIVE MATERIALS, OR SIMILAR INFORMATION (COLLECTIVELY, "SUBMISSIONS"). SOME EXAMPLES INCLUDE IDEAS FOR NEW ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS, NEW PROMOTIONS, NEW PRODUCTS OR TECHNOLOGIES, PROCESSES, MATERIALS, MARKETING PLANS OR NEW PRODUCT NAMES. PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY SUBMISSIONS TO WIZARDS OR ANYONE AT WIZARDS. IF, DESPITE OUR REQUEST THAT YOU NOT SEND US YOUR SUBMISSIONS, YOU STILL SEND THEM, WIZARDS MAY NOT TREAT YOUR SUBMISSIONS AS CONFIDENTIAL OR PROPRIETARY AND MAY DISCLOSE YOUR SUBMISSIONS TO ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY, WHETHER PUBLICLY OR PRIVATELY. WITH RESPECT TO ANY SUCH SUBMISSIONS YOU PROVIDE THAT WIZARDS ACCEPTS INADVERTENTLY OR OTHERWISE CONTRARY TO THE ABOVE POLICY, YOU HEREBY GRANT AN IRREVOCABLE, NONEXCLUSIVE, PERPETUAL, WORLDWIDE, ROYALTY-FREE AND FULLY SUBLICENSABLE LICENSE TO USE, PRACTICE, MAKE, HAVE MADE, REPRODUCE, MODIFY, ADAPT, PUBLISH, TRANSLATE, CREATE DERIVATIVE WORKS FROM, DISTRIBUTE, PERFORM, AND DISPLAY YOUR SUBMISSIONS AND THE INVENTIONS EMBODIED THEREIN FOR ANY COMMERCIAL OR OTHER PURPOSE, WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGMENT OR COMPENSATION TO YOU.

That's pretty clear. Don't send us anything. Because if you do, and we like it, thanks so much for the donation.

But then there's this stuff, laying in wait on the Wizards resources site, the place where DMs will go for content, and the place that hosts the forums

1. User Content

By posting or submitting any text, images, designs, video, sound, code, data, lists, or other materials or information (such User-submitted content, collectively, "User Content") to or through a Site, including without limitation on any User profile page, you hereby irrevocably grant to Wizards, its affiliates and sublicensees, a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, non-exclusive, and fully sub-licensable license, to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such User Content (in whole or in part) in any media and to incorporate the User Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed. The foregoing grants shall include the right to exploit any proprietary rights in such User Content, including but not limited to rights under copyright, trademark, service mark or patent laws under any relevant jurisdiction.

Here's the problem--in order to get to the reference material that a good DM needs, the DM is forced to sign this. It's the only way, for instance, to get at Dragon magazine while online.

So, while the amateur author of modules is bound to heap their opening efforts with cliches by the handful, once in a while something bright, shiny and good drops out of the pile.

And if its been posted on the so-called "community" forums, with honest critique invited from honest gamers all over the planet, guess who just got screwed?

Not because any of the "community" is going to steal the thing.

Because the friggin host is.

But you agreed to their terms, so I can't call it stealing.

But that's what it is. Baiting the trap. Setting the table. And waiting for others to serve good food on it.

I've been blessed to hit one or two really good ideas in my gaming life. Good ones, ideas that were so memorable people still talk about them today, even though they may have encountered them over a dozen years ago. I didn't make any money with them; at the time I didn't know how. That doesn't matter. What matters is that even though I didn't cash in, I still owned the copyrights to the story narrative.

That won't happen on the Wizards.com site.

Next comes the really insidious part:

The terms found on the Wizards site are invalid. The really nasty ones are here, from the Gleemax site. Which you can't get to from the Wizards unless you're applying for a Wizards.com login.

You can find it here, on the Gleemax site:

2.                   User Content; Intellectual Property Ownership; Rights Granted to You

a. User Content

Except with respect to User Content (defined below) relating to those non-Wizards games that have an official Gleemax.com webpage as set forth under Exception C under Section 3(b) of these Member Terms, if applicable, by posting or submitting any text, images, designs, video, sound, code, data, lists, or other materials or information (such User-submitted content, collectively, "User Content") to or through the Site, including without limitation on any User profile page, you hereby irrevocably grant to Wizards, its affiliates and sublicensees, a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, non-exclusive, and fully sub-licensable license, to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such User Content (in whole or in part) in any media and to incorporate the User Content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed. The foregoing grants shall include the right to exploit any proprietary rights in such User Content, including but not limited to rights under copyright, trademark, service mark or patent laws under any relevant jurisdiction. It is not the intention of Wizards to commercially exploit User Content through the foregoing license grants. Rather, our lawyers tell us that this license is necessary to protect Wizards in those rare circumstances where Wizards has ideas or business plans similar to User Content.

With respect to non-Wizards games that have an official Gleemax.com webpage as set forth under Exception C under Section 3(b) of these Member Terms, by posting any User Content relating to such games on or through the Service, you hereby grant to Wizards a worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such User Content solely on and through the Service.

You represent and warrant that: (i) you own or control all of the rights to the User Content that you post or you otherwise have the right to post such User Content to the Site, (ii) the User Content is accurate and not misleading, and (iii) use and posting of the User Content you supply does not violate these Member Terms and will not violate any rights of or cause injury to any person or entity, including without limitation the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights or any other rights of any person. You agree to pay for all royalties, fees, and any other monies owing any person by reason of any User Content posted by you to or through the Site.

For audacity, I like this part. It's at the end of the first paragraph, if you want the context:

"It is not the intention of Wizards to commercially exploit User Content through the foregoing license grants. Rather, our lawyers tell us that this license is necessary to protect Wizards in those rare circumstances where Wizards has ideas or business plans similar to User Content."

That's good.

Someone just put a label on a red box.

The label says "White box."

Does that make the box white?

Confluence II: The Return

Some times, things flow together so sweetly it leaves you shaking your head in wonder.

My wife has the most expressive eyes.

And right then, as we stood like two buoys moored against the human currents racing around us, the expression within was, "You left your brain in your other pants, didn't you?"

I concede the point. I had been carrying an umbrella, a digital camera, and a train schedule. Which of these had I left behind at the hometown train station?

And now, in the middle of the Gallery mall, we were having a clench-jawed discussion as to whether or not I should grab the next train back in hopes of finding the thing.

On the one hand: Jill would be leading the grandkids on a six block walk through downtown Philadelphia's historic district, enroute to the ferry crossing the Delaware by herself while I chased after a slim hope.

On the other hand, that camera was a gift from my wife to me, and it had a lot of images in it, some of which I hadn't downloaded yet. Way too much here to lose without at least trying to get it back.

Jill nodded, and I handed her our wad of cash, and pointed her out of the Gallery. "Walk east until you hit the river." Then I was heading back through the mall to Market East station, praying for a train.

I arrived just as the train heading west did. Ten o'clock. I had been away from the Gladstone station for 17 minutes.

It felt like I'd been gone a week.

I chose a seat on the south-facing side of the train; that way I could see across the tracks to the station. Except by the time we rolled into the station, I was already standing up.

The pedestrian walkway, a boardwalk of 12 foot-wide planks, crosses the tracks between the two station houses at track level. I was the first one off the train, and I stood there glaring at the massive steel car as it sat blocking the walkway.

Two more people climbed down the steps before the conductor finally waved off and the train pulled away.

To reveal the Inbound train sitting on the other side.

Blocking the walkway.

Manga has a great way to express speechless disgust, frustration, exasperation. Ellipses.

Character A says something inutterably stupid. Character B glares and says, "..." Or, "...  ..."

My ellipses would have punched holes through to the other side of the train, had they been tangible.

But they weren't, and eventually the unholy train pulled away.

The station was empty. Even the grungy old bulletin board, weatherstained gray and staple-ridden, was empty. I saw that as I crossed the walkway planking. No camera case waited for me on the brick windowsill.

I forced myself to search the station. Bare walls, an open front, two open windowframes. Bench seating along the back. About as many places for something to fall behind as a glass bowl.

I paced the outside of the building. Pawed through the trash can. The recycling can. Retraced my steps across the tracks and searched the other station, where nobody had been. Back over to the car, where it sat baking in the sun. Inside the car. Over. Under. Through.

Nothing.

Returned to the south side, down the steps, down Manayunk Training Drive to the lane beneath the trestle. Back up to the station.

Sagged against the wall, beaten.

Ow.

A bent staple stabbed me in the shoulder. The grungy old bulletin board.

Where I could hang a message about my lost camera.

There's a running joke in my family: I'm not dressed unless I have a pen in my shirt pocket. Honest. My tee shirts have pockets.

I grabbed my pen and headed back to recycling bin. Tons of paper there. I had just sifted most of it.

The trouble with that idea came to me as I dug through a week's work of newspapers.

I was staring at the reams of printing, wishing for a blank piece, when my phone went off.

Jill, texting: "Find it? We at ferry."

I called her back and told her. I felt rotten. She had sweated for months to save the cash to buy me that camera.

I still had twenty minutes to go before the next inbound train came by. I thought I had some scraps of paper in the car.

I headed back around to the front of the station.

A woman was standing in front of the bulletin board. Holding a lovely long piece of yellow legal paper. Staring at the bent staples and lack of thumbtacks.

"They should leave something to tack notices up with," she said. The baby in the stroller at her feet burbled.

I agreed with her and the baby burble. "We might be able to fake something with some of these staples," I said. Then I asked her if she could spare me a few inches from the bottom of her announcement.

"I just lost my camera," I said. "I'm hoping if I get a note up quick enough it will come back."

I waggled my pen. "I just need something to write on--um,...what are you looking at?"

She blinked, stopped staring at me, and showed me her sign.

In big block letters, she had printed:

"Lose a camera?"

The baby burbled again.

So did I.

All the way to the Aquarium.

With the camera case firmly looped onto my belt.

Confluence I: The Leaving

Some times, things flow together so sweetly it leaves you shaking your head in wonder.

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I took our grandson Austin and granddaughter Autumn (different parents, same fixation on the letter "A") to the nearby Aquarium, just across the Delaware River. We had a great time. I recommend taking children there during the summertime instead of the zoo--it's indoors, well out of the 90F heat of Philadelphia afternoons. Zoo trips are wonders unto themselves, but at two in the afternoon the last thing I want to be doing is explaining to a sweltering child why he can't jump into the penguin pool to cool off.

I planned public transportation for the trip, both for economy as well as fun. The trip would be a mix of train, walk, and ferry ride. 

I had assembled all the gear we needed the night before--maps, umbrella, timetables, tickets--and Jill handled the carry-tote for our water supplies, so getting started Friday morning was a snap. As I headed out the door, I thought, "pictures!" and snagged my camera case by its belt loop from the bookcase. It was a nice move. Too bad the only ones around to see it were the cats. Of the four of them, only Elwood expressed any admiration.

We arrived at the station from the north end, pulling into a spot beneath some happy shade trees. The station borders a nice neighborhood of single homes and back yards. There's an apartment complex at the south end.

So I'm standing there at the train station, slightly distracted family guy once removed, juggling umbrella, etc. when Austin points up the tracks: "Why's the middle yellow?"

Our train lines run outbound and inbound, I should mention. So there are actually two sets of shade-covered rails running as far as you can see. Very different from a number of subway surface lines around here, which can have anywhere from one to three sets of rails laid down, depending on ...whatever the number of railsets depends on.

Anyway, about 150 yards west of the station, there's a swatch of yellow, running down the line between the inbound and outbound rails. Bright, screaming-canary yellow. It's a safety feature.

"That's so the workmen walking the tracks don't fall through," I said. "That's a train bridge over there."

There's a look a nine-year old boy gets when he thinks you're messing with him. Like telling him there's an elephant on the school bus.

"I'm serious. You just can't see it because the bushes hide the drop-off. But there's a cliff there."

I could tell from the eye-rolling that Autumn wasn't buying it, either.

I juggled some more. Looked at my cell display. (I don't wear a watch. That's what the phone's for!)

Ten minutes to train.

Plenty of time.

I put the camera down on the station-frame's brick window sill, propped the umbrella against the wall.

"Back soon," I said to Jill.

Then I led the kids back behind the station, heading south across the parking lot.

To the steps descending to the driveway below.

Now is a good time to mention we live in a place called the Delaware Valley. Which implies a great deal of river/creek-sliced terrain.

The driveway itself is two lanes, since it supports the cars coming up to the parking lot as well as to the apartment complex. It is a slope. A wicked slope, which the kids were currently having a blast running down. Cyclists could train for the Manayunk Wall on this, except it's not long enough. Plenty of trainers and runners know about it, though.

The driveway ended in a crossing street which is more a narrow lane than street, speed limit 15mph. From there, you could look up and see the train tracks running overhead on their trestle bridge. A great, old-fashioned trestle bridge, a hundred feet in the air, with iron girders and bolts and rivets the size of your fist all over the place.

Austin's eyes were huge. "Wow," he said. A big, breathy wow, no less.

Autumn was grinning, watching Austin's reactions.

A hit with both kids. Score one for Poppy Joe.

The hike back up the hill was a lesson in slope management. Even Autumn the soccer player was winded.

Back on the platform, the distant light of the train was a'coming. Jill snagged the umbrella and the waterbottle tote; I had the kids, tickets, and everything else. Or so I thought.

We were off the train and all the way into the Gallery mall when I realized I didn't have my camera in my hands.

Time to Besmirch Advanta....

Last weekend my cousin, Jen, sent me a note inviting me to check out the designs of a friend of her's. If I needed a further explanation, I could go here and watch some YouTube. (Side note--thanks to a recent court decision, Viacom will now know that I did, and when.)

If I liked the designs, would I please vote for her friend. If she won the vote, she'd be awarded $20,000 towards funding her designs.

I went.

I saw.

I liked.

So I went to vote.

There are times I wish I didn't read so much.

The contest is run by Ideablob. Ideablob is "inspired" by Advanta.

And doesn't want you to say anything nasty about them, ever again.

I'm not kidding.

In order to vote, I had to sign up on the Ideablob site. Create an account there: username, password, the whole thing. Just to vote for a freakin line of clothing.

And then there's these things.

• ideablob.com Website Terms and Conditions
• ideablob.com Submitter and Voter Terms and Conditions
• ideablob.com Official Contest Rules
• ideablob.com Privacy and Security Statement

By signing up, you agree to every word on all four documents.

Including this part, item I,E of "Submitter and Voter Terms and Conditions":

"You agree not to disparage, or to make any negative statements or participate in any negative publicity regarding Advanta, its products or services, or the Ideablob.com Contest."

That line's a lawsuit waiting to happen. There's no limiting language on the document, nothing that says where the boundaries of enforcement stop.

At least this line, which sounds like people submitting ideas are signing their idea away wholesale, has some redeeming quality to it. I've boldfaced the redeeming portion at the end:

"When you post your Submission for consideration in the Ideablob.com Contest, you grant Advanta, its affiliates, and their respective service providers, a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, and fully-paid limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, broadcast, and distribute such Submission(s) solely on and through the Ideablob.com Contest websites located at www.ideablob.com and on and through any medium or format in any advertising or promotional material for the Ideablob.com Contest,
although you continue to retain all ownership rights in your Submission(s)."

But that other bit?

Awful. Despicable.

These four documents are laced with this kind of language. And from the amount of materials posted to Ideablob, a tremendous number of people have agreed with the terms outlined in the documents. That's a lot of ticking bombs.

Hell, if I had gone ahead and voted, and then wrote this post, I'd be in breach already.