Two of the frequent complaints on another gaming site seem to be dealing with player elimination and dice.  A comment that comes up frequently is, "We played this game for three hours and victory came down to a single die roll".  Another theme that seems to keep recurring is the idea that player elimination is bad.  I say hogwash to both.

On the idea of a game being decided by a die roll and you could eliminate the three hours worth of game play by a single die roll is preposterous at best.  One of the games this complaint seems to be lodged at is Axis and Allies.  Yes, Axis and Allies is highly dependent upon the die rolls but it can't be boiled down to Yahtzee because what you build is as important as how your die rolls go.

I've seen games of Axis and Allies be decided because a person will spend all his money on tech rolls.  Sometimes this works out and most of the time it doesn't.  Tech rolls represent an expense that you should make if you can't figure out what to spend the money on, otherwise don't bother (although heavy bombers can be a game breaker).  Another common thing is having the Soviets spend all their money on infantry.  This pretty much locks the game for them.  I've had success for them when I buy a couple tanks to go with that pile of infantry.  Tanks give me the flexibility to poke at weakness on the German front.

 Although the game is finally decided by a final die roll, there is alot of stuff that goes into that final die roll.  And I think it has meaningful decisions along the way (what to buy, where to attack, what to attack with, how much to move, etc).

Another game this complaint is lodged against is Risk.  Again die rolls are pretty major in a game of Risk but there are other things that lead to that final die roll.  You don't have the choices of stuff that you do in Axis and Allies but placement of your forces and what to attack is pretty important.  You don't want to spread yourself too thin by attacking across a wide front.  Asia's 7 armies is tempting but presents too broad of a front.  I think the North America + South America combo is much nicer (you only have to defend 3 points and I think you get 1 more army because of the number of territories).    Another complaint against Risk is that the person who takes Australia will win.  I don't think so because I think it's too easy to get bottled up in Australia and not have any place to go.

Now player elimination.  I hate to get eliminated from a game.  It sucks.  I either have to watch the game play out or I have to go home.  However,  I don't think it's a bad thing in a game.  Nothing bothers me more than having to sit through the rest of a game where I know that I have no chance of winning or even having a chance of affecting the outcome of a game.   Even in games where there is a catchup mechanic, there are times where you know you are out of the running.  I'd much rather be put out of misery than having to sit through the rest of a game like that.

I think player elmination goes hand in hand with risk in a game.  It gives you one more thing to worry about because the risky/high reward strategies tend to put you in a position where you will be eliminated if they don't work.  I think that is much better than some constraint that will keep you in the game.  Things like that tend to keep the games too close because noone really has to take the balls out strategy.

I can understand the complaint because it ruins the night for the player or players out.  Maybe.  Or maybe they can have just as much fun seeing how the game plays out and handling some of the other stuff in the game.  who knows.

First, although I haven't posted at all these last few weeks, I'm still here. I managed to break two fingers a few weeks ago, and I tried not to read the discussions here much because I usually want to answer with longer posts which are hard to write with one hand... but my hand is better now, so...

I've only played Wrath of Ashardalon once, but it felt a bit more developed than Ravenloft. Wrath of Ashardalon'srules also seemed to adress some of the ambiguities in Ravenloft. So incorporating those rules into Ravenloft makes sense to me. Has anyone else done this?

Mr. White and son go to their first Pokemon League Day.

After publication of HEARTS AND MINDS, KING PHILIP'S WAR, AND LEAPING LEMMINGS, this blog is in response to the many supportive gamers who want to know what else I have in the works. The phrase "Indulgent Wife Enterprises" is unreserved recognition for Jenny, my editor, my therapist and my biggest fan. Although she plays few games, without her, my games would be nothing but dreams. She is my sounding board and my muse.

Today I took the opportunity to bring my three boys to a Heroscapers Tournament,  and it was one of the most fantastic experiences I have ever had at a public gaming event.

You all know what it's like going to an open gaming event where you don't know the people prior to arriving -- you're rolling the dice to say the least.  But today I rolled sevens and elevens all afternoon, meeting the nicest people and having one great gaming experience.  This is how it's supposed to work -- this is what you close your eyes and hope for before you enter the room.  This event was nothing short of magnificent.  Thirty people, every one of them an absolute pleasure to game with.

With three boys in tow it had been my intention to not participate so that I could run interference, but there was a late drop-out and I threw together an army on short notice and jumped in.  Ben the organizer told me that there was no problem if I needed to get up mid-game to help one of the kids so I took him up on the offer to get in on the fun.  I'll be honest with you -- I've had bad experiences with adults around my kids at events like this.  But today I had a dozen deputy parents in the room and my boys were welcomed and treated as equals.  They were completely immersed in the action and treated as equals deserving of respect. 

I may not have had the best army on the tables, but I had one HELL of a good time.  Everyone was well behaved, well bathed, and brought the kind of passion and positive mental attitude that you hope and pray for when showing up at an open gaming event.  The place was raucous and full of hell, but every bit of it was perfect for the kids scattered in amongst the tables.  If this is what Heroscape events are like, I'm a lifetime convert.  During my second game we had a rules question and couldn't find the organizer to get clarification, so I just shouted the question over the noise in the room -- "what's the ruling on the crusted lava?  Roll a die at the end of your movement or at the end of the entire turn?"  The answer came from a qualified voice across the room and we were back in the game.  The whole place was humming like a machine.

I now have three boys that saw a dozen figures (each) that they want me to buy, and they  asked to go straight to the garage to start playing again after five uninterrupted hours at the tables in the tournament.  I have to admit I'll be looking to get a set of Gorillanators for myself.  Gorillas in body armor with shotguns . . . you can't pass that up.  Don't tell me young boys have short attention spans -- they'd have gone another five hours if they could have.

Family Game Store, the venue for this tournament is the epitome of positive game store experience, so I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that the event was so much fun.  We play Pokemon TCG there on a regular basis and that is a great experience as well.  But it lacks the energy that was present today and it may simply be due to the game on the table.  Heroscape calls you to throw your heart into the play, and that's what I saw at the tables this afternoon.

The plan is to do this again in May.  If you're within 100 miles of Savage Mill, Maryland I'd keep an eye out for it, and sign up early -- every single person there today said they're planning to come back.

S.

"THESE DICE ARE DEFECTIVE!!  BRING ME REPLACEMENTS!!!"

.

Myes. All this in the box.

It has been a long road getting to this point, but has finally come. The multi-year one man project to create a full on professional board game is complete. PHZ has been released- actually for a couple weeks now. My apologies, with the whole 'one man' thing and all a lot of time got eaten up actually packing up and shipping the pre-orders (thanks again guys), updating the website, and occasionally, occasionally,sleeping.

If you want to read more about the actual description of the game, blip on over to my website at http://www.thisisacow.com/games/posthumousz. Read about how it's this awesome team based Zombie survival horror game, with nearly 300 unique cards, randomly generated characters and zombie themes, and enough stuff to play with up to 10 people.

Now that I actually have the physical product back from the manufacturers, I have to say they did a truly amazing job. Everything is so... shiny, sharp, and high quality. The tiles are heavy and flat, none of this light junk that gets blown away when someone exhales, or warped like a springboard. Tokens are fantastic looking as well.

The box, oh man the box. The box looks great and is stiff and durable.

I mean look at that! the drama. Isn't that something?

Plus at 3 pounds, I'm pretty certain you could kill someone with the box if you had to. Not that you would, but if you had a pressing need...

The cards are this rather impressive material, that honestly I think actually works better than the linen cards you see often in FFGs.  It doesn't have that texture. They're sleeker and it allows you to see more detail. Some people are really going to get a kick trying to find all the Easter Eggs stowed away on the cards.

It is, indeed, a beast of a game.

Part of these last couple weeks were actually taken up by RavenCon, up here in Richmond Virginia. Let's see, in a standard 3 day con, starting on Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, I ran 27 hours of PostHumous Z. Apparently, I won a number of 'holy crap' awards from various people.

I even got interviewed by a cool guy by the name of Nicholas from Troll in the Corner. You can hear the interview at http://trollitc.com/2011/04/posthumous-z-at-ravencon/ . He's even supposed to do a review of the game sometime in the near future.

Speaking of which, looks like I will be sending out some review copies. So if you're interested in getting a copy to review- send me a message. I'll figure out the details of the policy once I have some idea how many people are wanting in. It's not a cheaply made game so I can't really just send out a lot of free copies of the game, but it'll probably be something like I send you the game, write your review, and I'll give you say a month or two to decide whether you want to just buy the game (discounted at 50% or the like for your services for writing the review) or you can just ship it back.

That's all. Figured the world needed to know it actually happened. From start to finish, notepad to full art, prototype to publish.

For the love of the game,

--

 Nathan Little
Sun and Moon of This is a Cow

The one man project to make a game of the quality and scale of Fantasy Flight is almost here to ship! After 2 long years of hard work, long hours, and literally thousands of pieces of original artwork, the game's manufacture is completely and has been shipped to me a few days ago for the final step in its assembly. It's slated to arrive, no joke, April 1st.

I am Nathan Little. 2 years ago I decided to try and make a board game, Posthumous. This is its tale.

This audacious idea first sprang forth back in December 0f 2008. My friends and I gather together every weekend and do some gaming, switching in between RPGs and board games. We played a lot of 'stab your neighbor'  games, and that kind of stress gets under your skin over time. It was on one such fateful game of Talisman that my bud Delbert, perhaps a bit perturbed at losing his fifth turn in a row, felt the best way to express his discomfort was to flick his little plastic knight to the far end of the basement. At this point I made a conclusion:

If we keep playing these games we're going to kill each other.

Something had to be done. So I figured, what if I made a game? You know, something that was still competitive and thematic, but wouldn't inspire pressure gauge busting levels of nerd rage. Surely, it could be done.

So, as the Christian Calendar rolled over to '09, I got cracking. I made a list of things I needed the game to do:

• Intuitiveto learn.
• Fun, even when losing. Meaning that even when a player felt he was losing, there needed to be both feeling thathe was still doing something and have the potential to recover. No sitting emasculated watching another person grind you out.
• Low Downtime even with many players. The worst culprit I felt for making a game boring was long stretches of doing nothing. The players need to stay engaged and shouldn't have to wait half an hour for their turn. Our gaming group typically has 6 players... and sometimes we have more.
• Replayable with lots of variety.Each game needed to be different, even from the start. This was a must because one, the same thing gets stale, and two, the more math inclined or obsessive could calculate optimal moves outside of the actual game.
• Balancedbut unquantifiable. The mechanics needed to be balanced, but the 'best' move shouldn't be something that could be mathematically derived. The player would have decisions, but their choices should be dictated by style and strategy than a simple mathematical formula.

Now that I had my list, what could I make that could fulfill this demanding criteria? Well, why not make a team based game? That way I could keep the competitive aspects, but alleviate the frustration of doing well and having five of your (former) friends drag you down, just so the random jerk in forth place can nab victory. Not only is it tedious, it feels an awful lot like betrayal. It doesn't matter that its the nature of the game. So what has an obvious team based nature with plenty of excitement, but with a tone that didn't put people into bad spirits.

Well, what about zombies? A group of survivors trying to escape a town with another team  controlling hordes of the undead trying to eat them? Plus, I satisfied a personal compulsion: I love a challenge . . .

And I hate zombies. I think they're pretty lame. While there are some excellent zombie related games/movies/books, the zombie is most often shoved half-arsed into something mediocre as a cheap marketing gimmick.  Who needs plot or balance when you can just stick in some shambling dead folk and it'll sell? What a test of craft it would be to make something with zombies and be legitimately good enough that you didn't haveto be infatuated with zombies to enjoy it.

Which, for those of you that are wondering, is why the game name doesn't have the word zombie in it anywhere.

Over a few months, there were a lot of alpha tests which my friends were graciously subjugatedto. After multiple prototypes, a genuinely good core came together and eventually turned into this!

A picture of Posthumous 2009. Complete with a box and hand made pieces. I made over 20 of these things... doing everything from rounding the darn cards.

The Premise: there's been an outbreak of zombies. A couple cliche characters hide out in the center of town, waiting for rescue. It never comes. Zombie hordes collect on the town, and the characters come to a terrifying conclusion: If they are to survive, they must escape to the outskirts before the undead overwhelm them.

The game has a completely random setup. The town is made up of randomly placed tiles, with locations ranging from a graveyard to a mall. Random events (cards) are placed on each tile at the beginning of the game, which are triggered when the humans move over them. Even the characters and zombies themselves are randomly generated, each by combining three cards, a You With and But for the humans and a They That and Hunger for the zombies. In One game a human could be a 'A Hot Waitress' 'With a Sweet Ass' 'But you have a Stupid Kid', and one zombie player could direct 'Zombie Midgets' 'That Scream' 'and Hunger for Control.' So each game the town's layout and the strengths and weaknesses of each team varies, and its up to the players to exploit their own powers and the limitations of their enemies.

The base rules are simple. The variety comes from 300 cards, which are used to create characters, zombie themes, represent items, random events, and with the H and Z cards deal with everything good or bad that can happen in a zombie movie, from revealing power boosting backstories to conjuring horrible zombie bosses, such as a zombie T rex. Additionally, each card is unique. Even if two or more cards do the same thing, they have different names (no pistol cards, but a glock, a magnum, a beretta, etc).A minor thing, but adds to the flavor.

It can support up to 10 players, 5 human and 5 zombie players. A clever 'stage' mechanic keeps downtime to a minimum, and actions nearly simultaneous. Generally, the playtime is 90 to 120 minutes, only getting marginally longer the more players involved.

After several months of work, it really started turning into something. The thought started to pass around that maybe I could turn this into something lucrative. In February, my friends took me to my first convention. That's right, I'd never even been to a con. I took the game and tried to get some fresh blood playtesting it to see what they thought.

The game had bugs, yes, but the feedback was mostly positive. So I started going to more conventions, running the game as often as I could, taking feedback and suggestions, and generally trying to learn as much about the gaming industry and community as possible.

Finally, after almost a year of work I ran out of game mechanics to fix. The game had rudimentary graphics, enough to make it function. The cards had no art, and the tiles were pictures around my home town that I'd taken and just threw some filters over.  But in my dream version, everything had a unified art style, and each unique card would have a picture. I saw games from Fantasy Flight and I didn't think of it as high end; I thought of it as the standard, a qualitative minimum that had to be met and if possible, exceeded.

But I didn't have the money to hire an army of artists. I didn't have the skills myself so I did the logical thing.

I taught myself. Okay, maybe that wasn't so logical.

So November 2009, after spending a year crafting and playtesting mechanics, I embarked on the second half of the project: to make it pretty. I titled this full art version 'Posthumous Z' and got to work with little more than a pencil, a scanner, and a copy of Corel X3.

I made a big checklist of all the artwork I had to do, but I stopped using it because of how much it depressed me to see it getting marked off so slowly. Designing 10 different types of cards, doing 295 original pieces for card art (I knocked out 5 cards), plus boxart, player aids, new tokens and pieces... took a lot of time and energy. Not to mention all the stuff that I threw out because it 'wasn't good enough.' For months my facebook statuses were just  percentages, with pitiful cries of 'ding' punctuating every 5 percent. I celebrate when I can.

But after another blasted year I got it done. Fully drawn, colored, and assembled by myself and a magical hippopotamus that only I can see, in Scalable Vectors because... I am a nerd. Then in November 2010 I went back to the same convention that I decided to do the art myself, with my new full art prototype, anxious to see what the difference would be.

And oh my it was worth it. The new art made everything easier to keep track of and way more engaging to look at. While feedback over the years had gotten on average better and better, this was exceptional. I ran the game nearly non stop for 3 days, and didn't have a single person who disliked the game.

But the task is not quite over yet. Part of the renovations of Posthumous Z was to turn it into a manufacturable game. I've been corresponding for a couple months now, working out the production details for an initial short run of 500 games. Sometime soon, possibly as early as January 2011, Posthumous Z will be released. If you'd like to check out the rulebook you can download here:

Posthumous Z Survival Guide

If you'd like to support this project by preordering, you can at my website, the ever so amusingly titled This is a Cow

<-- This is a Cow .com

Thank you for your time.

for the love of the game,

Nathan Little

Starting February 14th, 2011, the manufacturing process began on Posthumous Z. The game is being self published.

For those of you unfamiliar, Posthumous Z started 2 years ago, one man's attempt to try and create awesomeness on the same scale that Fantasy Flight might dedicate 30 guys to. A team based zombie game, that's fun, strategic, easy to learn, and colorful to the max. With nearly 300 cards, each with its own card art and flavor, and enough parts to play a desperate 1 on 1 to a full on apocalypse of 5 on 5.

A preview of the front of the box.

The production is taking place in Canada, and they're doing everything but the rulebook and some player aids. The current estimate for completion is a month. So sometime mid March it should be in my hands to pack in the rulebook, aids, dice etc- and be shipping off to all those lovely people who pre-ordered.

On that note, pre-orders will remain open until the end of February. So you've got a little less than 2 weeks to snag this game at $65 and get your name in the rulebook, and even grab a commemorative Zombie Dinosaur piece, hand made with love, care, and a dangerous 11 stage process that threatens to remove fingers on 3 of them. So pre-order from This Is a Cow here while you still can.

Starting March 1st the pre-orders will close and the game will increase into the far less self-starving price of $75.

When March 1st hits, I'll make sure that the latest rulebook is online so any pre-order folk can make sure his or her name is properly spelled and displayed. Additionally, since some have had pre-orders longer than others, all individuals with a pre-order will be contacted to make sure the game is going to be sent to the right place.

The game will include nearly 130 playing pieces, a hundred some tokens of various size, tiles for a modular playing board, plus full color player aids and rulebook to make learning and playing the game both straightforward and engaging. Everything is die cut- and the box is durable, full color, and includes graphics on both front and back.

You can check out my website at Thisisacow.com.

You can check out the Posthumous Z rulebook here. 

--

 Nathan Little

Last time this year I was moving sites - switching servers, switching software systems.  This year, I'm moving storage / warehouse locations.  Yeah, I know.  I'm a sucker for pain.  We made the move over Thanksgiving weekend, and we're still not done.  I spent the entire weekend moving, then the rest of the days putting up shelving in the new location.

We're still not done yet, with 1 last set of shelving to build for our small games.  Then I have to buy 2 new, metal shelves to add.  Overall, we're using about 700 sq ft for just stocking board games.

The amusing thing (for me) is the building of shelves.  While the main floor space we're using easy-build metal shelves; the walls need to have shelves built into them due to an unfortunate wood lip.  So we've got to build shelves with wood supporting beams that start on the wood lip, and longer front-end legs.

Now, having never touched a power tool in my life before this (my dad never had any and my school never had classes for this); it's been an experience learning how to use saws, drills & mallets.  Along with earplugs! Oh yes, earplugs.  Did I mention we're in a basement? Hammering metal shelving together / apart in an enclosed space without earplugs - bad.

So, for the first time in my life, I'm building shelving for games and work-tables & desks for building boxes.  Let's just say that so far, duct-tape & field expedient cardboard stabilisers have been the norm.  

I'm having a lot of fun other than the splinters I keep getting.  I swear, the wood hates me - my employee has over the course of 10 days not gotten a single splinter.  Me? I lost count.

In Z-Man Games blockbuster smash hit PANDEMIC, players are trying to stop wooden cubes from spreading over a map of the world.  The players must band together to end four different strains of the most virulent, insidious infectious disease ever known to mankind- CUBE CONFUSION.  Symptoms include a generalized inability to experience fun, an allergy to dice, increased weight gain, and sexual arousal caused by the scent of painted wooden cubes.  Generally spread by exposure to internet board game discussions and chiefly affecting middle-aged men, Cube Confusion was first discovered by Dr. Steven Weeks and has yet to be recognized by the CDC as the major public health threat it represents.

I got to play through a few rounds of Conquest of Nerath. The game looks like so much fun with all the cool minis and elaborate board- it screams "PLAY ME!" Then you do and you realize that you've played the game before, only back then it was called Risk (really more like Risk 2210.)

I sent a pdf file that contained all of the game maps for Valor & Victory to these guys -- http://www.fabricondemand.com and these are the results.

This photo is blue as hell for some reason so don't use the color to judge the quality of the print.  This is one yard of fabric, with a 60 inch print width.  All the maps were submitted as a combined single image and this chunk of cloth is almost corner to corner of the printable region for a one-yard purchase.  $22 delivered.

The true colors are brighter than these flash photos show, but I wanted to put a few shots in to show the level of detail.  This is on a tight cotton weave.

A very tight close-up.  Valor & Victory maps have big 1.25" hexes and the sizing is dead-on-balls accurate (a technical term).  The smallest print on the maps is for the hex identifiers -- J5 in the center hex above and it is very readable.  The thread grain puts just a hint of ripple in the edges of the pond in the image above.

It's not as clear as paper, but the result is excellent and short of a cigarette lighter likely indestructible.  Spills or smears can be washed away and the ability to fold these critters up and drop them in a suitcase could be pretty doggone useful.  I can imagine an ASL player printing to both sides and having ALL of their maps on a ten foot roll that they could stuff in their suitcase.

S.

Just come back from Prometheuson the big screen in 3D. And just as expected it's a visual spectacle. Some images will last me a long time. Beautiful, scary, just wow.

The sound (as separate from the music) is awesome as well. You are really trembling in your seat when a spaceship blasts overhead.

And it's well paced in terms of action, building up in steady crescendo. It's a chain reaction with few let ups. I'm still releasing tension. So that part of the movie worked very well.

Plotwise, well...

...spoilers from here

The actions of the scientists are just unbelievable unprofessional. No archeologist worth his salt would interfere with the find. Noone would just take of their helmets (especially not later, when you've decided this is a hostile environment).

Also, how can two men get lost in a system that is being mapped by one of them, and while they have constant contact with the ship's crew?

Since when do biologists try to make friends with animals clearly showing their not friendly when you know the environment is hostile?

Why does the captain leave his post when there are lifeforms at large and two of his men out when he know something bad has happened out there?

Why does the face of the decapitated alien look serene, rather than smashed?

But more basically: why are cannisters with very dangerous weaponry neatly arrayed in a room with ceremonial function? And why would people try to hide there?

And how does the captain suddenly understand that the base is meant as a WMD production facility? He hasn't been down in the base and not put any time into tying all the ends together, rather the opposite. He's ignored lots of info.

Ok, suppose you just auto-removed an alien embryo and then had your belly stapled... You then run into the guy that's tried to freeze you in while carrying the embryo. You then just talk to him? You don't try and put a bullet in his head?

And you don't tell anybody of the squid lingering in the operation room? Not even the cleaner?

I also see serious issues of continuity with Alien(the sequel). The guy they're supposed to find in the control room (I always thought he was manning the gun, but that's another story) in Alien. has left. In Alien, nobody notices the remnants of the Prometheus, close by, let alone the human remains of the prometheus crew in the control room.

And actingwise, the performance by David the android with his love for Lawrence of Arabia is very good. All the other roles, I think, are forgettable.

oh well...

I just don't know why Scott chose to go this way. The original Alienworks much better in terms of suspense and pacing, while at the same time keeping the movie coherent. The acting gets much more time to shine making it interesting from that point of view as well. This all makes the choices and actions of those involved much more believable.

Is the modern blockbuster just incapable of telling a good story, so as not to interfere with the action sequences? Makes me sad.

But let's start on a positive note: the Engineer at the start of the movie, who drinks a cup and dissolves. What was he drinking. Why did he do it? Guilt? Suicide? As a means to start the outbreak? Fascinating and unresolved in the movie.

This is just my take. There's a much better reviewfrom a more cinematically versed Scott fan that I really recommend.

ps I have started blogging in my own place as well, because there's stuff that doesn't fit in with F:AT. Have a look if you like. Upside is: since I will be blogging more, more stuff will end up here as well.

Well crap.

I just bought my first magic cards in about 7 or 8 years... Went to the local game store to buy other gaming supplies and started talking to the great guy behind the counter about Magic and how different it is now, etc. I've tried to keep up with it a bit, but I dont know what the NEW HOTNESS is for sure. I'd wanted to just buy a block of commons to maybe build decks and play with the wife, but all they had were sealed packs they'd put together of commons of one color from a specific set. I wanted something a little more basic for getting back into myself as well as teaching my wife. So I almost left without any cards purchased until he spied a few neglected CORE preconstructed decks. Badda bing, badda boom - I've got the green and black decks.

 So of course all this geets me thinking - IS THIS THE RESURRECTION OF MTG FOR SKABARON? I guess we'll see how my wife likes it and if she does, then that'll definitely put it up there as a possibility, but really I just dont think I'll have the time/money to get back in full time. Ideally, the most I'd ever wanna get back in would be to know the scene well enough to competitively booster draft.

The store runs Friday night magic which is booster draft which was what I really started to get into before I jumped ship - it's just the best environment for the cost to play magic competetively I feel. Everyone's spending the same money and the rest is skillz. Unfortunately my commute means I don't often get home in time on a Friday and really, I'd rather spend my little free time with my wife doing something we *both* enjoy.  Sooooo, I'm gonna introduce her to Magic (hopefully this weekend) and see what she thinks. I just hope that *I* remember enough to teach *her* what the heck this whole thing is all about (correct answer: pwning nOObs).

Recently I've found myself drawn to reprinted or reimagined
genre classics of old, pulp and otherwise. There's imagination to spare
and yet they're not too taxing. The writing isn't terrible but by and large
if bad writing drives you insane...look elsewhere. Hopefully I'll be taking
sporadic looks at little-known works.

In this installment: Graphic Classics (http://www.graphicclassics.com/)

We made up for last weekend's failure to make two dump runs, by hauling FIVE  truck loads to the dump this weekend. It was hot, dirty work and and I still have a few aches and bruises today. We found out the town had changed one of their rules to our benefit - electronics can be dropped off for recycling for free. We were able to put together an entire load of old computers, monitors, printers, TVs, VCRs and DVD players. I know that sounds nuts to have been storing this stuff for years, but as I mentioned in the comments of a prior entry, you used to have to wait for a specific collection day to get rid of electronics, and we always forgot which day it was.

The old dump guys are real characters. The Dump Master reminded me of a short "On Golden Pond" Henry Fonda, complete with fishing hat and fatherly advise on how to load and sort our junk. There was an almost carnival like atmosphere over at the crushable, combustible junk compactor, with one of the dump guys shouting out encouragements like "throw hard," "aim for the middle", and "good toss", as people attempted to throw their junk about 6 feet to hit the compactor opening. The dump guy over at the wood bin took notice of some of our wood, and asked us how old our house was. He mourned the rotted condition of the old beam we were tossing, and managed to salvage a bundle of wood trim  from our pile to keep for himself, explaining to me how it was originally made.