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Pixels
I'm Not
An Artist
"The Looney Labs room at Origins is one
of the best areas in the entire show, year after year. Great
job again. Thanks for doing such a great job." --
David J Radzik commenting
on a photo of me on Facebook
Rash provides
another batch of links and commentary on topics including: The
Lost Washington Painting, ten crazed captchas, ten cars which
refuse to die, Snapshots from the American War in Afghanistan,
Where Gulf Spill Might Place on the Roll of Disasters, Doubts
Cast on Food Allergies, Ten Most Amazing Stained Glass Ceilings,
Apollo Astronauts' fascinating Insurance Covers, The Last Roll
Of Kodachrome, Guy Walks Across America, Awesome Stormy Sky photos,
the dilemma of blogging, the History of Everything, Floating
Point and (Autumn), Harvey Pekar (RIP) in the Metro, cyber-tourism,
Streamlined Train Wonders of the Art Deco Era , Kitchen Appliances
that Bite, Why Betty and Wilma laughed like they did, his bicycle
crash and trip to the hospital, Latino USA: a Cartoon History,
What in life did it take you a surprisingly long time to realize
you've been doing wrong all along?, 9 pairs of photos of rock
stars, How the East Was Lost , those enigmatic short-wave 'numbers'
stations, new Dentistry technology, the 21 most important works
of architecture created since 1980, Norman Rockwell and the collectors
of his works, three ruined urban areas, Wooden USB keyboard/mouse,
No Big Deal at the World's Best Ever, 21 Things You Should Never
Buy New, We are not Time Travelers, alt.1977, the Sandwich Registry
, Making of the Moscow Metro map, the Haight street fair, Update
on the DSCOVR spacecraft, Craziest Bridge Ever (for transit between
drive-on-the-left and -right countries), Undulatus asperatus,
penalizing restaurant customers who don't clean their plates,
History of Anthems, Fanboyism and Brand Loyalty, and Caring for
your online introvert.
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Origins, InConJunction, and
Dolly Sods |
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 Wow,
what a summer we've been having!
We had a great time at Origins,
where I'm delighted to say we received another Origins Award,
this time for Are
You The Traitor? in the category best Children's, Family,
or Party game of 2009. Woo-hoo! As you can see from my foolish
grin, it makes me really happy to win one of these.
It was a great Origins in lots of other ways... we had a better
space for our Big Experiment than we've ever had before, a truly
cavernous room in a very convenient location. Also, the great
location we were in (and our status as official sponsors) allowed
us to create something extra cool -- a trail of big colorful
daisies on the floor, leading all the way from our Lab to our
Booth in the Exhibit Hall. It was impossible NOT to find us!
Of course, we ran lots of events, from small seminars to big
tournaments, and we gave out 34 prize medallions like the one
Evie is proudly sporting here (and that's JP giving the double
thumbs-up):
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Lots of other great stuff happened at Origins, but those are
a few highlights. Here's a big thanks to all the Looney
Game Technicians who helped us make this awesome event happen.
You all rock! Here's this year's official group portrait:
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Almost immediately after returning from Origins, Kristin &
I were whisked away again, to be the Gaming Guests of Honor at
InConJunction, a Sci-Fi convention held in Indianapolis every
year. We had a lovely time just hanging out and playing games
(instead of hosting events and running a booth). Of particular
note was the session we held of Andy vs. Everybody, in which
I achieved what I think was an all-time high win ratio, of almost
40%. (I won 18 and lost 28.) This was a great come back from
the last session at Origins, where I hit an all-time low win-rate
of just 10% (3 out of 28).
Thanks again to everyone at InConJunction, for hosting us
as your Gaming GoHs! (Especially ConChair Kat!) It's always a
great pleasure and honor, and we really do appreciate it. Thanks
also to Bart and Sam and Mike and all the other fans who showed
up to help us have fun!
 For the past
decade, Alison has been telling me and Kristin about this awesome
chunk of wilderness out in West Virginia called Dolly Sods. It's
an area she'd grown up backpacking through, during excursions
from the Burgundy Center
for Wildlife Studies, that being a nature camp where she
continues to work each summer (and where EcoFluxx
was first developed). Anyway, last week we finally managed to
get out there, and we had a grand time. (What finally made it
possible was the idea of renting a cabin and doing it as a series
of day hikes, rather than taking on the full challenge of a multi-night
backwoods backpacking trip.) We had so much fun we're thinking
to make it an annual thing (planned around blueberry season,
of course).
Here are just a couple of views of the spectacular sights
we saw. We climbed up and over Rocky Point, we picnicked in a
splendid grove of pine trees, and swam in a river by a beautiful
little waterfall. And since it was a weekday in a designated
national wilderness, we saw no one else at all that day, during
any of these adventures, except as we were departing, when we
encountered another group in the parking area.
Unfortunately, I lost my hat somewhere on the mountain top,
and my aching feet tell me that I've got to get a new pair of
hiking boots before I go anywhere like this again. So I need
to go shopping! But otherwise, it was a great trip.
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 Looking
ahead, Alison and I are about to leave to attend GenCon, again
out in Indianapolis. Although Looney
Labs has exhibited at GenCon in the past, we're just attending
and playing games this time. I'm also planning to run an impromptu
session or two of my Parsely
game, Muffins!
Looking further ahead, Kristin and I will again be Gaming
Guests of Honor, when we go to Los Angeles for Strategicon:
Gateway, which is taking place over the Labor Day Weekend.
Since that's when our
big fall release is hitting the streets, you can be sure
we'll be celebrating it big that weekend!
And speaking of that, I'm happy to report that everything
has been officially approved by the licensors, the game is currently
being printed by our
card printers, and we're totally on track to meet our September
3rd release date. For more details, check out the new issue of
Notes
From The Lab!
Well, I'm off to GenCon. Thanks for reading, and have a great
Whenever!
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We've decided to find new homes for part of our collection
of vintage video arcade machines, specifically: Joust, Qix, PacMan,
and Roadblasters (the last one being a multi-game platform that
converts to 4 other games including Marble Madness). All are
in need of service, the middle two being non-functional. Let
us know if you're interested. (Update: Qix has been
sold -- the others are still available!) |
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"So they invent a completely implausible superweapon
that they've never mentioned until now. ...and then, in the entire
rest of the show, over five or six different big wars, they never
use the superweapon again. Seriously. They have this whole thing
about a war in Vietnam that lasts decades and kills tens of thousands
of people, and they never wonder if maybe they should consider
using the frickin' unstoppable mystical superweapon that they
won the last war with. At this point, you're starting to
wonder if any of the show's writers have even watched the episodes
the other writers made." -- Scott (Squid13)'s
analysis
of WWII as it if were a TV series |
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"Even if the thesis of a show is Pie is Awesome, the
host is still going to wake up one day and see headlines about
a pie recall because some tainted filling killed 173 people.
Guess what: he still has to do a show that day about why Pie
is Awesome. He will manipulate B to make it fit A, even if he
has to lie. He doesn't draw a paycheck otherwise." -- David Wong, "Why Talk Radio is a Terrible
Source of Information," from "The
10 Most Important Things They Didnt Teach You In School" |
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