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For two years now I've been sending
out a
congratulatory letter to new Eagle Scouts whenever requested.
This week, this little service has gone co-ed! Congrats to Christa
Rose Kelly, the first Girl Scout Gold Award recipient to get
a letter from me congratulating someone for that accomplishment! |
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At PenguiCon
6 I was amazed to encounter a group playing my game Chrononauts
with the Timeline arranged vertically rather than horizontally.
Instead of taking up a space on the table of about 15" tall
x 20" wide, their Timeline had a 29" tall x 10"
wide footprint. It looked really strange to me, but they seemed
to prefer it that way. Well, like I always say -- House Rules
rule! |
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I was very pleased by the news that Zombie Fluxx
had been nominated
for an Origins Award for Best Card Game of 2007. It's also
nice to see that Hobby Games: The 100 Best (of which I
wrote 1%) got a nomination too. However, I was also shocked and
disappointed to note that Stonehenge
was passed over for such honors in the Board Game category. Oh
well, perhaps it will get that special Vanguard award... |
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This week I finally got a gadget I've been lusting
after for as long as I've had a cellphone: A Hulger
P*Phone! It's an old-style telephone handset -- you know, on
a cord -- which plugs into my cellphone. I greatly prefer using
this larger, more comfortable phone for anything but the briefest
of calls. Plus it's just looks great, in a zany, retro way, to
be talking on a classic-style telephone handset in random public
settings. |
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"But in the ensuing months, the government's
case unraveled, exposing some unsettling truths about the way
jailhouse informants are used in America's courtrooms. In December
2006, all charges against the family were dismissed. The federal
judge who presided over the trial was so upset about what happened
in his courtroom that he has since taken the rare step of speaking
out about it publicly. The legal fiasco was partly attributable
to familiar themes of racism and overly aggressive prosecution.
But the Colomb story is mostly about the war on drugs. It shows
how the absurd incentives created by the unaccountable use of
shady drug informants by police and prosecutors can quickly make
innocent people look very guilty." -- Radley
Balko, "Guilty
Before Proven Innocent" |
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We had a mysterious lapse in postal service recently,
which suddenly resulted in the arrival of a bunch of never-delivered
mail from weeks and even months ago. The stale mail came with
a cover letter from our local postmaster, apologizing for the
mishap and hinting at some sort of strangeness that had been
the cause. Apparently our carrier (who'd always seemed like a
nice and reliable guy) had begun hiding peoples' mail in his
truck rather than delivering it. I wonder what went wrong here,
and what will happen next, and if I'll ever hear anymore about
our former mailman. |
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Holland
has exempted cannabis from their pending ban on public smoking,
thus protecting the future of the Amsterdam
Coffeeshop, which
is currently a $6 billion industry and a major element of Dutch
tourism. |
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"Our government has kept us in a perpetual
state of fear, kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic
fervor, with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there
has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign
power that was going to gobble us up if we did not rally behind
it." -- General Douglas MacArthur, in 1957 (heard quotes on 3/31/8 on Countdown with Keith
Olbermann) |
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As I learned from the very enjoyable History
Channel show called History of the Joke, all jokes are
a pair of different stories unfolding at the same time. First
there's the story you think you're following, and then there's
the reality of the situation which is suddenly revealed at the
end. The punchline clues you into what's really going on, and
the assumptions you made earlier become the source of amusement.
Twilight Zone stories, with their shocking twist endings,
do the same thing. So Twilight Zone episodes are basically
just extended jokes. |
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As a fan of Battestar
Galactica, I really enjoyed the 8-minute synopsis of the
first 3 seasons called "What the Frak is Going On?"
which is currently playing at the official website. An awful
lot has happened in the series so far and with the 4th season
finally about to start it's a great way to be reminded of the
events up to this point. And the narration is hilarious! Of course,
it's total spoilerage, so avoid it if you've never seen the show
and think you might try to watch it all on DVD someday, but I
think it's probably pretty entertaining even if you've never
watched a single episode. (Incidentally, the same can all be
said about Lost.) |
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There's this dream I've had a few times recently,
in which I finally manage to travel back to Amsterdam.
I'm not sure who I'm with, but it's someone who's never been
there before, and I'm showing this person around my favorite
city. And we see and do various fun things, but for some reason
I can't seem to find any of my
favorite coffeeshops. The more I search, the more it becomes
clear that all of the coffeeshops are gone, that they've somehow
disappeared since my last visit. (I guess I'd have to call this
a nightmare, not a dream...) |
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Some people say that deaths come in threes.
In my last update, I mentioned mourning Gary Gygax; just before
that, we lost William F. Buckley, conservative
supporter of drug legalization; and this week it was Arthur
C. Clarke, one of the greatest science-fiction authors of all
time. Goodbye & farewell, gentlemen... |
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"Since declaring war on drugs nearly 40
years ago, we've been demonizing our most desperate citizens,
isolating and incarcerating them and otherwise denying them a
role in the American collective. All to no purpose. The prison
population doubles and doubles again; the drugs remain. 'A long
habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance
of being right,' wrote Thomas Paine when he called for civil
disobedience against monarchy - the flawed national policy of
his day. In a similar spirit, we offer a small idea that is,
perhaps, no small idea. If asked to serve on a jury deliberating
a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit,
regardless of the evidence presented." --
Ed Burns, Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David
Simon, "The Wire's War on the Drug War" |
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This week, we in the adventure game industry
are mourning the loss of game designer Gary Gygax, creator of
Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax represents the pinnacle of achievement
for someone in my profession: not only did his games create infinite
hours of fun for never-ending numbers of people, they also revolutionized
the culture, inspiring countless other such games, not to mention
computer games, books, cartoons, jokes, movies, clubs, businesses,
and so on. Goodbye Gary -- and thanks for all the fun. |
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"The genius of D&D is the way it parcels
out rules and fantasy. The game tethers the imagination just
enough to keep you focused on an imaginary world (main goal:
slaying nasty things for profit) without putting limits on what
you could do inside that world. Dungeons & Dragons is like
the greatest Etch A Sketch on earth: It gives you the tools to
create whatever you want." -- Jonathan Rubin,
"Farewell
to the Dungeon Master: How D&D creator Gary Gygax changed
geekdom forever" |
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We've decided not to attend GenCon
this year. As
I mentioned last month, we're on our own again as far as
running a sales booth at the big summer game trade shows, and
we're choosing to run such a booth ourselves at Origins
but to skip GenCon
entirely this time around. Hopefully we'll be back in 2009! |
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"These two horrific scenarios are a result
of the way the War on Drugs has morphed from a well-intentioned
campaign to discourage drug use into a war against American citizens,
a war in which we are not even awarded the noncombatant rights
our soldiers give to foreign civilians. The use of SWAT
teams, police paramilitary units, has become commonplace in raids
against non-violent, suspected drug users and dealers. The United
States used to be a place where its citizens didn't have to fear
the government, proudly standing in contrast to the USSR and
its terrifying secret police. We can't honestly say that
today." -- Ryan Langril, "War
On Drugs Must End" |
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Speaking of GenCon, we were shocked
to hear the news this week that GenCon has filed for Chapter
11 Bankruptcy protection, apparently as a result of a lawsuit
from Lucasfilm over unpaid bills. Hopefully GenCon will get their
house in order and recover from these problems, but I'm suddenly
worried it won't be there anymore by the time we're ready to
attend again... |
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I've been a fan of the music from
Sweeny Todd ever since 1982, but I approached the Tim Burton
movie with apprehension. I finally went with Renee (she's a huge
fan - this was her 9th viewing) and I did find a lot to enjoy.
The violence was way too over-the-top for my tastes, as I was
expecting, but it was always well enough telegraphed for squeamish
people like me to look away as needed, and most other elements
were really quite good. So at first I liked it. However, I became
increasingly disappointed later, when I listened again to the
original album and realized how much of my favorite music was
missing from the film. Not only are whole songs missing, but
key verses are gone from many of the songs they did include.
So if you see the movie and crave the music afterwards, get the
original album (featuring Angela Lansbury) rather than the movie
soundtrack. |
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I've just discovered that OlderGames.com
(the company which published my long-awaited sequel to Icebreaker
last summer) went out of business in December. The company that
bought their assets has been using eBay to liquidate their unsold
goods, but all their copies of Icebreaker 2 are already gone.
Now I wish I'd gotten a few extra copies of it while I had the
chance! Oh well, at least it finally got through the encryption
process and is playable now in a few places other than just my
house... |
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Last week I got a big kick out of
seeing the characters in the webcomic Weregeek
playing a card game which is clearly Fluxx. Apparently the
action takes place in the future, since they're playing a Pirate-themed
edition I haven't invented yet; either that, or they've loaded
up their deck with a bunch of Fluxx
Blanxx and their own wacky ideas... |
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This is the best year of the decade
for the mistake of writing down the previous year's date, since
it's easier to turn a 7 into an 8 than any other pair of sequential
numbers. |
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"It's only late
once, but it's bad forever." -- Mike Selinker, commenting
on why he's just as happy that the Stonehenge
expansion I helped design was delayed, since it gave them more
time to get everything perfect |
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I wish everyone in the country would
read the inspiring book by Jim Collins called Good to Great.
Then it would be clear to all that we need to elect a Level 5
Leader as President and start a National Stop-Doing List. |
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I had a great moment with Shiro
the shoulder-riding cat this week. I've put her up onto my
shoulder countless times and she's gotten great at finding a
comfortable spot and hanging out there for awhile, but for the
first time ever, she hopped up to perch on my shoulder on her
own! Sweet! |
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"We're the folks walking toward
a festive house saying, 'How long do we have to stay?' Or we're
the ones in the center of the room assessing others' interactions,
and slowly backing toward the door. Introverts crave meaning,
so party chitchat feels like sandpaper to our psyche. Here's
what introverts are not: We're not afraid, and we're not shy.
Introversion has little to do with fear or reticence. We're just
focused, and we prefer one-on-one because we like to listen and
we want to follow an idea all the way through to another interesting
idea. That's why small talk annoys us. So does pretending to
be happy or excited or anything that we're not."
-- Diane Cameron, "Happy
Introvert Day" |
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I'm super-bummed that the new time
travel series called Journeyman was canceled
after just 13 episodes, particularly since the last two ("The
Hanged Man" and "Perfidia") were the best of the
bunch and really showed the kind of potential this series had.
I wish they'd gotten on with episodes that good a little sooner,
perhaps then the show would have grabbed the audience needed
to continue it. |
