Kitkowskiland!

I have Keith Sen|owski’s untitled here in my hands. I haven’t gotten through the whole thing yet (it will be a while0, and haven’t gotten through the CD yet, but it’s pretty slick. Game-as-art. I’ll have a realistic review of it eventually after the Honeymoon stage is over (I don’t want to give people wrong impressions and the like). If you ever watched SE7EN in that scene where Morgan Freeman is looking through the killer’s notebooks, and thought to yourself, “Man, I’d pay $5 to take a peek at those journals”, this may be the game you were looking for.

Also, thanks to the help of my awesome dad this last weekend, we got the ceiling fan from the guest bedroom upstairs brought down into the dining room where it is much needed (for some reason air just does not circulate well in there naturally). One step closer to Ultimate Gaming Room. Inshallah, the new Gaming Dining Table will be here this week. Hopefully in time for Wednesday’s Burning Wheel game, but if not that’s ok, it’ll be there by next episode.

What else… hmmm…

Still exercising. I’m now doing walking 1-2 times a week (approx 5 miles). I haven’t done DDR for a while, nor Power Yoga, but I’m doing the EMBARRASING (but demonstrably successful) “Turbo Jam” workout that I picked up for a third of the list price on eBay. In college, I used to go with my friends out to the gay bar at least twice a week in Green Bay, because not only was Za’s (the club) the best place for mixed drinks in the area, it had incredible music and awesome people; but make no mistake, it was very mucha gay bar, complete with “transsexual olympics” every Sunday night. Turbo Jam is like 2.3 times gayer than Za’s. BUT, now I’ve got this weird feeling in my stomach these days, and I came to the realization after a day or two that… Oh My God… Those are MUSCLES down there underneath six years of sloth! And they’re trying to get out, but ever so fragile and slow, like watermelon seeds buried in a sandbox. I do Turbo Jam 4-5 times a week (there’s a scheduled ‘program’ to follow for max results, and I’m trying to follow those as much as possible).

Finally, I got this computer program called “Yourself! Fitness” which basically creates workout programs for you on the fly. I’m loving it for mixed cardio and step-exercises and handweights. The 3d CG character is a little too robotic for my tastes at times, but the workouts are solid. I do this about 2-3 times a week.

That’s about it. This week I work Mon-Wed (but doing work training, so it’s pretty light compared to my normal work schedule), then I have Thurs-Fri off; Then I work Saturday, and have Sun-Tuesday off. That’s a lot of time to fix broken stuff around the house, update websites, push more game translation (Tenra Bansho), and maybe finish up another gaming thing of my own.

i ask because i care

So, I drink coffee every once in a while. Often I’ll make a pot of coffee for a cup after dinner, then chill the rest for ice coffee for the next 2-3 days.

I remember that I used to drink coffee a LOT at work. And not just my iced coffee (which is pretty much bought entirely from Southern Seasons; all that awesome good stuff), but like “work coffee” from the big thermous-jugs. I was kinda wondering why things changed.

I’m on Day Two of the 7-6, four days a week shift, and suddenly I Remembered. Those times that I drank coffee all day long corresponds exactly to the time that used to I spent on this shift (last year, for about five-six months) getting an average of 5 hours of sleep a night. I’m already looking forward to next weekend. This shift isn’t horrible or anything like that, far from it. It just takes a lot of adjusting, and I’m not entirely comfortable with all the adjustments required.

So yeah, I forgot if I mentioned it or not, but I rolled back to the Wednesday to Saturday shift to help some folks out at work (we’re dying on Thursdays and Saturdays). I’m just that nice a guy. But I’m also nostalgic for those three day off weekends.

But I’ve been meaning to turn around my sleep schedule a bit, and make sure I sleep and wake up within a reasonable amount of time (+/- 1-2 hours) so I don’t throw off my sleep schedule every weekend, like I used to.

Monday I had it down. Bolted up early, got a lot done, bed at 11 or so. 12? I forget.

Today, from a combination of being tired, pulled muscles and stuff I didn’t get up until noon. Oh well. I still might be able to pull of a return to a well-rested sleep schedule in preparation for the week IF I’M ASLEEP IN THE NEXT 4 MINUTES.

Oh, today we found out the difference between WALL PLASTER and JOINT COMPOUND.  Turns out, you don’t cover walls with wall plaster unless you want to make a lot of trips to Home Depot and become very, VERY frustrating. Rather you want to use Joint Compound when effectively re-plastering walls. This realization gave me a lot of experience in home repair, cost a bit, and gave me at least three new combinations of words that I cannot use in polite company.

The DIY trial continues. After we get the small bathroom done, we’re going to try to peel off the wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom, as it sucks (”Scottish Golfers of the 1800s” Wallpaper theme>. WTF?), but also because unlike this bathroom the upstairs bathroom’s wallpaper was hung properly, and will most likely easily come off. If it doesn’t, I’m going straight to the phone book.

It looks like, after doing research on several home subjects, things usually come down to this:

Small jobs in the $80-100 range? You’ll pay a lot for what you don’t know.

Larger jobs in the several hundred dollar range? You’ll pay about 50-60% more than buying the tools and stuff and doing it yourself.

When I think about the time and frustration involved, I can totally live with that.

I dunno what it is, but I’ve been a bloggin’ fool these past few days. Let me know if it gets too much.
First off, here’s stuff I’m selling on eBay. Uh, if something catches your eye, BUY! It’s mostly graphic novels and games. I’ll cut a couple bucks off the price for buddies (in relation to the cost of the stuff).
Next, interesting day today. Went to remove the poor wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom. Found out that there was bad plastering in an AWESOME way, we pretty much removed all the plaster from the drywall in one long, grueling sitting and will be re-plastering tomorrow, perhaps painting this weekend.

Today was a DIY nightmare. But I also learned just about everything common there is to know about drywalling, wallpaper removal (it sucks, but not nearly as bad as putting it up. We will NEVER put up wallpaper, EVER), and I even completely took my toilet apart (water line, complete seperation of bowl and tank, etc) to get behind it, so I even raised my plumbing skill by like +2. I’m excited to get going for tomorrow. (I work Wednesday, so it’ll be interesting to see how far we get, considering we’ve never done this kind of thing before, and we’re learning it from DIY sites on the net).

There was something else, but I can’t remember.

One thing I’ve come to realize is that I need to get another desk, one set aside (sans computer) for the sole purpose of paper design (journalling, perhaps nuts and bolts game design) and especially for language learning. I just really haven’t been cracking at Japanese as much as I used to, without a solid table or desk to work at that isn’t cluttered with computer junk and the like. Time to thumb through the IKEA catalog, and see if it can beat out some stuff I saw at Furnitureland South (most likely it will, as I was aiming at something simple and cheap anyway).

It looks like our new Gaming Dining Table is expected in at Furnitureland South* in just one more week or so.  That means we should have it in our house in the next 2 weeks or so, inshallah.

We quiver in anticipation for that fateful day. The Gaming Dining Table will rule the world. Just wait and see.

* Furnitureland South is the largest furniture showroom on the planet, about 70 minutes from my house, and it is an incredible place. They only take cash or check (no credit cards), but their inventory is MADE as you purchase it from the original hand-maker manufacturers, and costs just a fraction above cost, which means you pay about half list price on anything. People fly here from all over the world.

Yes, it’s my third blog post in a day. I’ve got a lot of coffee in me, tomorrow I have off, and I’ve got a lot on my mental plate.

Anyway, I’ve had this game cooped up in my brain and just needed to get some things out “on paper”. So it’s more for my edification, so there’s no real directed questions, but if you have an opinion (even, “this sucks”) feel free to chime in, though don’t feel you need to.

I’m assuming if you’re reading this that you’re familiar with The Shadow of Yesterday by Clinton “All A’s and a B. AWESOME job buddy!” Nixon. If not, then feel free to tune out cause you probably won’t understand (most of my posts are for everyone, but this is specifically for my gaming buddies). So I mentioned elsewhere that The Shadow of Yesterday is my fantasy game of choice (system-wise). It’s white hot. My weekly gaming group played (both versions of) it for about a full year, maybe a little more.

I’ve been having a lot of issues recently with the Fudge Dice. Namely this aspect:

Bringing Down the Pain. Usually gonna involve lots of die rolls. What happens is that with Fudge dice there are a lot of ties. A lot of rerolling to get that +1 advantage. Without switching to an ability (or using boosts, secrets etc that give you a huge advantage) it takes a while.

That’s pretty much my only issue, but it makes me long for the simplicity of numbers, without the “steps” bit from the original game (borrowed from Eden’s house system IIRC). I think I might have come up with a middle ground between both editions, in a way that:

1) Keeps things simple (no extra charts for “steps”).
2) Makes BDTP go faster, in a way that’s still exciting.
3) Adds that fun granularity of smaller numbers over Fudge’s longer steps (note: I’ve loved the Fudge system forever, and don’t usually think much of the “granularity” factor- It normally totally works, but for BDTP it’s personally gotten in the way sometimes).
4) Opens up cool, fun new avenues to wonk around with the nuts and bolts. New ways to create bonuses and disadvantages, basically.
5) I always think of Penalty dice after the player is like halfway in the middle of rolling dice, which is a big problem for me, because in the current TSOY you really have to have that all sorted out from the beginning before you roll dice (as penalties cancel out bonuses, and vice versa). That, again, is an Andy Issue but it turns out I’ve been able to address it in the rules to make a more Andy-rocking version.

OK, long prelude aside. It’s pretty simple: For every roll, you roll 3d4, preferably on those Crystal Caste bones-looking dice (because they’re more elegant IMO than the ‘ol Caltrop).

Then, every time you get a “Bonus Die” in original TSOY, you simply increase the die size of one or more of those 3d4. Like, if you get two “Bonus Dice”, you can roll either 2d4 and 1d8 (1d4 to 1d6 to 1d8) or 2d6+1d4. The max is 1d10. Therefore if for some reason all the stars align, you get full support from buddies, all your secrets max out, you can get up to 3d10 to roll.

Every time you get a penaly die, someone else (GM or opposing player) rolls a 1d4 against you. If you get more penalty dice from circumstances (max 2 penalty dice, just like the rules) or from opponents (they may have secrets that don’t give them bonuses, but rather give others penalties; or they can simply decide to spend their bonus dice to exchange them for opponent penalty dice), you can increase the number of d4s rolled or their die step: 3 penalty dice become 3d4, or 1d6+2d4, etc. (For sake of fun, I might institute a rule something like “To give a 1d8 as a penalty die they must have at least 5 penalties stacked against them; To give 1d10 as a penalty they must have 8 penalties stacked against them; However this will require playtesting to make sure).

…and that’s about it. Here are other things I have sorted out:

1) This system opens up all sorts of new avenues for funky Secrets. Some secrets can give you bonus dice. Some can give you TWO. Some only give the opponent penalty dice. Some may influence the way you get to stack dice (”Any time you roll “2d6″ you get a +3 to the result” or somesuch). Some may just bypass the bonus die thing altogether (”+2 to any roll involving X”. Kinda like how “weapons” work).

2) Skills start at +1 and go up to 9, where 10 still equals transcendent. That way it sticks to the original design goal of “on a good day, the underdog rolling no bonus dice still has that chance of beating the grandmaster on a good roll” (3d4 with a +1 in skill = 13 max, 3d10 at its lowest is “3″, plus 9 skill = 12. Almost impossibly improbable, but it’s still there, just like the original and revised). With this, though, the experience/advance system will need reworking.
Here’s what I’m waffling on:

1) How damage works. I really, REALLY love the original TSOY’s “hit points” system, but love the new system’s way of splitting it across the three pools. I may end up with a hybrid of hit points and wound levels.

2) The target number for actions. Probably gonna be 7. Another part of me just wants instead to have every action (even against “no antagonist”, like “I climb the wall”) be resisted by an opposing 3d4. I’m thinking of saying that Every Obstacle can have the pain brought down upon. Each obstacle would get a simple rating that the GM can keep in her head: like “Cliff Wall? Sure, that’s 3d4, 1 penalty die because it’s raining. And it has 5 ‘POWER’. and ‘1 DAMAGE’ ” So if the player beats it in one roll, they can simply climb it. If they fail, then can stop. But if they really want to push, they
take damage, and the 5 POWER becomes the cliff’s “hit points”. The GM or opponent takes the role of the obstacle almost as an animistic thing (”You’re buffeted against the cliff face as the rains fall, the handholds you saw before just aren’t there anymore. This cliff is out to boot you off of its face. Do you press on or retreat?”).

3) Adding more crap. I’ve been thinking of perhaps making a modular Pool system (changes per campaign, but there’s a solid list of examples). Been thinking of creating a new fantasy setting to tie TSOY: Power In Numbers to, and from there add more crap (a new mechanic for relationships, or a new category for bonus dice based on your personality or other HeroQuest-like adjectives), etc. I might leave an opening for New Crap, some up with some New Crap on my own, and encourage others to make up their own. I’d leave a gap in the character sheet for people to paste in their own New Crap or whatever.

… hmmm. That’s all for now, I guess. More later after I give it a whirl with some pre-gens.

So on numerous occasions my personal productivity grognard buddies (I count myself in the clan, although I don’t attend monthly area productivity meetups and the like) have been raving about this relatively new system called Getting Things Done by David Allen, and how it’s been really revolutionizing the way they… er… get things done.

I’m more-or-less firmly in the Franklin-Covey system, and have been for the past 14 years. The thing is, though, lately I keep finding holes where I’m simply not fast enough to fill them. Back in college, and in Japan, when I wasn’t working from emails (and the necissity of Fast Work), I was so able to easily rule my life by Franklin Covey, but haven’t been able to keep up so easily recently. I wasn’t able to put my finger on why, though.

Anyway, this Getting Things Done system seems to incorporate a lot of the original thought behind the Franklin Planner, but the actual tasking is done in a way that’s compatible with a life of answering dozens of emails a day, or being swamped with hundreds of tasks at once, in a way that Franklin doesn’t seem to keep up with.

I’m just now working through the first few dozen pages of Getting Things Done, and it’s really talking to me. I definitely wanted to put this on Beth’s radar, as she’s been interested in personal productivity, and wanted to throw past Judd as well, as we’ve both been hard-line Franklin-Covey dudes for a long time.

I wanted to poll my other friends out there, though: Do you use this Getting Things Done system? If so (or if not) why? And is it working for you?

As I get through the book and start utilizing some of its elements, I’ll report on my journal.

Oh, incidentally: I lost five pounds in the past two weeks (most likely in the past week alone, actually). I haven’t really changed my eating habits too much (in fact, I ate a bunch of junk food on Thursday and Friday afternoons), but I’ve been really giving them new ECCO boots a workout, going walking some 3-5 miles, 2-3 times a week. Nothing revolutionary, but it’s paid off. I expect to hit a wall soon unless I also delve deeper into the Yoga and “Turbo Abs” stuff that I’ve been sloooowly getting into. I’ll keep y’all posted.

Seriously. I said it before, and I’ll say it again.

Your awesome games are simply too much for me to continue to bear. They are costing a lot of money, but more than that, they are simply too much to even consider playing all of them.

Jason M hooked me up with the games I asked him to pick me up fron GenCon, and I’ve got a small pile of fully-playable, gorgeous (in either layout/graphics, or design/purpose) games. And from hearing folks’ playtest reports, I have to now buy even more, to basically buy all the games I didn’t buy at GenCon.

I thought it had finally come to the point where the indie game crowd was making such a variety of games where I would say, “OK, I have to stop buying Everything. I have to instead carefully look at what’s out there, and decide if this game is absolutely something that I’d be interested in trying. The games are too varied to pick up everything and hope that I’d be interested in them all.”

Unfortunately, I’m interested in them all. Well, most of them anyway. From the trad play with indie sprinkles of “Cold City” to the groovy hippiness of Shooting the Moon, there’s maybe like 3-5 Forge Booth/indie games that came out out that I’m just plain not interested in.

This is the golden age of gaming.  It’s too golden, though. I’m suffering under its gorgeous weight.

Here’s what Jason got for me (among other doo-dads):

Burning Empires. The Brick. It is not only a gorgeous RPG, it is also a handheld weapon. I’m really not too into the crunchy stuff, but I’m clearing my plate to dig into some crunchy prime rib here.

Contenders. This is one that Jason picked up for me (I asked him to “nab anything that really jumped out at you”). It’s a game about boxing and hope. Basically what the boxers fight for: family, love etc. Looking forward to throwing down this one, maybe with my dad.

Mortal Coil. A gorgeous game, diceless, about magic (and how it works). As Jason pointed out, it is one of the two games in the set that features “man-junk”, which will be the new standard of an RPG’s worthiness.

AGON. Agon is about Greek Warriors who fight stuff. The book stabbed me in the neck with a Javelin when I picked it up. It looks like some serious awesome.

The Dictionary of Mu. Judd’s Sorcerer supplement, the second game featuring “man-junk”. It totally blew away my expectations in terms of layout and presentation. It looks like TRIBE 8 got in a fistfight with HOL and this game emerged. It’s very non-linear, though. The game itself is described almost entirely in this random-setting style which is kinda hard to get used to (mainly because the fonts aren’t as easy to read at a glance). Because of the planned disorganization, which is cool on its own, it makes it a little harder to get the main points of the setting down.

However. I used to be a setting junkie back in high school and college, but these days I get bored soooo quickly when reading setting pieces.  Like, almost immediately. Tell me how many people live in Town X, and I’ll skip ten pages ahead. Dictionary of Mu doesn’t do any of that crap. It takes a little bit to get through, but I think the crazy moon-setting underneath is worth it.

Panty Explosion. This is the only game I got on a whim. I am iffy on the ideas behind the game itself, but it features Japan (namely Japanese schoolgirls, who are bitchy and psychic) so I had to pick it up. This is probably the lowest on the “must play” scale of the above, but I will if I have a chance.

Mob Justice. This is the game that Iain McAllister came up with last year. He had in his mind a game about brotherhood, betrayal, and justice. But last year, the rules were all about shooting things and chasing things in cars. Then a couple of designers got to him and got him to rethink his game: “If the game is about brotherhood and betrayal, why isn’t that in the rules instead of this car chase crap?” So Iain redid the game completely, and I’m interested in giving it a shot. There are rules for a Yakuza setting, I might roll with that.

QIN: The Warring States. “Oh great”, I thought, “another trad game set in China”. I decided to pick it up anyway, as my success with other recent China-themed games hasn’t pulled through. Turns out that Qin is pretty impressive in its simplicity. The rules are evocative without being too complicated. There’s a lot of setting stuff so you don’t have to go, “OK, you go to a tavern. Uh… hmmm… what would an ancient Chinese tavern be like, anyway? Hmmm…” It’s solid, and the production value is high, so it’s going on my must play list for this year.

That’s all, but not for long. Tomorrow I’m sending Keith S a check for his work untitled, which I’ve been excited about for months, and this week I’m putting in an excessive order at IPR to pick up, effectively, every other new Forge Booth game that I didn’t happen to buy.
Exciting gaming lies ahead.

So my brain has been a whirl recently. Work (real work) is busy as heck, as we’re currently at about half the staff levels we need to be. But with the whole GenCon thing going on, my thoughts have again turned to gaming.

Here’s a quick status of Tenra Bansho, that game I’m translating for release into English. It’s coming along fine. The last of the translations will be complete in September, after which begins the slow, painful editing process. It’s during that time when we’ll be adding the New Text to the game. New background, New setting explanation, New rules, Name lists, Microfiction, that sort of thing. Early next year is DTP and layout, and late spring come printing and publishing. I’m fully expecting the game to be ready by GenCon 2007 if all goes well at these early stages.

Speaking of which, I posted an enthusiastic post about the thing over on the Tenra developers journal here: http://www.tenra-rpg.com (follow the blog link in the text section). As we get closer to the game’s release, we’ll be leaking more and more information about the game. Next I expect to upload a sample character or two.

Anyway, it’s hard to keep doing this when my brain is firing off impulses and storms about my own games that I’m trying to develop myself- Where I have to push those thoughts down until later, or Tenra will simply never come out in time. But I’m taking some of that creative energy into reworking the Tenra rules. For the most part, they’ll stand as they are. However, there are some areas that will simply have to be rewritten for clarity, others revised because in the intervening 7-10 years since these revolutionary rules were made in Japan, over in the US we’ve found some ways to do the same thing, but cooler or easier (some scene framing; getting rid of needless dice rolls; setting stakes in conflicts; making “singing” and “leadership” do damage, just as swords do (to the spirit rather than the body), to make the rules-y parts of the game be used for more than simple combat, etc).

Anyway, I’m putting together a playtest package right now. I expect to have it done within a week, and from there I’ll be running around the area running sessions of it to further understand and refine the game (and test out alternate rules).

That’s what my creative brain has been up to recently.

…since the Jean Benet Ramsey slaying. I gotta say, I too was in the majority pool of “her crazy parents did it”.
I don’t mind eating crow on it, especially when justice is in the works.

So, we just got back last night. I haven’t touched a keyboard in a week and my hands feel sooooo good now. Today (Sunday) I’ll be spending unpacking and cleaning the house, carrying over to Monday (which I took off), where I plan to reorganize my life for the next few months, as well as head over to Lowe’s to get some House Fixin Stuff (wallpaper remover, etc).

So, how was Gatlinburg? Interesting. It was a haze of hiking, more hiking, strange people, tacky attractions (passed, not visited), relaxation and TV. Some bits:

* We walked no less than four miles every day. It was about a mile and a half from the borrowed timeshare to downtown Gatlinburg (”a 10 miunte walk”… not quite, but totally not bad at all. Refreshing, even) where we were assailed with the sights, sounds and smells of the town.

* There are no fewer than like seven FUDGE STORES within a four-block area. Lots of tacky stores (”candles shaped like clowns from 1920! Your face etched in lasers on a crystal! martial arts weapons!” etc) and a few cool ones (the tea/coffee places were really cool, as well as the deep, authentic crafts houses where the artists work and live from).

* My last trip to Gatlinburg was 10 years ago on a pass-through during Spring Break with my roommate. Before that was probably 10 years previous. Sometime in that time period the place got an injection of Atlantic City. Not the seedy stuff, just the “tacky tourist” stuff. There is a singularity of Mini Golf, Go Carts, Fudge, Outlet Stores and Steak Buffets that no other place on this planet could ever hope to match.

* We were interested in seeing some attractions, mainly to get the Real Feel of the place, but everything was surprisingly expensive. The Aquarium (apparently the most popular aquarium on the East Coast, but I think it’s because it’s open late and there’s nothing better to do) was like $18 per person. Dinner shows were all around the $30-40 per person mark. I totally was into seeing The Miracle just for the kicks, but when I found out it was like $40 per person… Naw. So we skipped almost everything (including the Alabama Grill - That is, a grill/buffet where they play full concert videos of the band ALABAMA while you eat. I think it’s some sort of extreme endurance thing). And yet, we still did a lot.

* The first day we decide to really bust out and hike was the day that I realized that my ACG hiking boots, which I’ve worn in the US and Japan for almost (or over) 10 years, died. The sole on the right foot just tore up, and if you know shoes you know that super glue is just a bandaid. Luckily, with an ECCO shop in Pigeon Forge, I was able to buy a rocking pair of European hiking boots (I’m a size 44 in Euroland), and they served me well. Here’s to 10 more good years of hiking. Hiking boot shopping is really hard for me. I hate Timberlands and most hiking boots, because while they’re solid as heck, the ankle is stiff as heck and is hard to bind to my ankle without tons of pressure. Sure, wearing them every day for like 2 years eventually wears them in, but I want something softer at the ankle so that I can wear them NOW, not in 2 years of blisters and chafing. Anyway, ECCO had some solid shoes.

* On that front, I tried out a ton of MERRELL shoes, including Merrell hiking boots, as my paid of MERRELL MOCS are the most comfortable shoes out there (they saved my butt at GenCon last year). They have some good walking shoes, but the MOCS are their most solid wear, I think. Durable (I went hiking in mine for a day with no problem), reliable,
soft, and not too tight. If I had a million dollars I’d buy all my friends the Merrell Jungle Moc, and keep the disease going.

* We went to town every day, a hike of about 4-5 miles at least. We went on some 5-mile hikes about three times. There’s so much beautiful nature in Western NC/Eastern Tennessee. It’s just grand imagining how this place naturally developed over eons, and the hiking’s awesome to boot: Not too extreme, and there’s always something new and cool to see.

* TV. We don’t have cable at home, so a little bit of the fun of staying somewhere else is watching the occassional interesting Discover/History/TLC/Comedy Central show. Daily Show is pretty much a given. We were highly entertained (as in, couldin’t peel our eyes from) by The Dog Whisperer on National Geographic (I love how the dogs are so easy to pull out of bad habits, yet humans, because of their reasoning mechanism and rationalization, are much harder to train- Like the owners of the dogs, who say “Oh, I see now!” when they obviously haven’t drilled in the new info yet). The other I watched a lot was Miami Ink on TLC, which was really interesting and exciting (because of all the people and all their problems and different tattoos) without being all competitive and destructive and stupid.

* I brought about 25 books, I only finished about 6. I didn’t even touch the Japanese stuff there, but that just convinced me I need to build a desk and Japanese study-work area at home to get into that more. Later I’m off to IKEA or Target to find some of that crappy throw-away table/desk stuff to use. We also hit a famous used book store, where I got about 4 books and 6 William Ackerman CDs (I had always planned on collecting them all- The price was right to get started).

* After reading Greg Egan’s Axiomatic, a collection of short SF stories, I’m totally a fan now. The stories, while short (almost too short/abrupt at times), were really well thought out. They took one element or Shock and really dug out the possibilities. I got a few more of his works at the used bookstore, and plan on reading his stuff for a while. Thanks to Dan Reid for that rec. I’m hooked.

* Orie and I like food. It may be the Japanese thing of “Every place has its own special cuisine”, but when we go places we seek out local restaurants (sure we eat at chains and stuff too, but at least a few meals we hit up local joints) and eat local foods. Charleston, Tampa, San Francisco, etc all have great local places. Gatlinburg is like a festering chain-store wound. However, we were able to get to a few local joints. Tennessee foods appear to be STEAK and PANCAKES (as that’s about all we could find). We found the pancakes to be incredible, though. The steaks were “ok”. We also managed to find some Tennessee Barbeque (that is, “pulled pork cooked with marinade”), being big NC barbeque fans now. Turns out that TN BBQ is very much like NC, but it has a tomato component to it as well. That is to say, unlike northern “BBQ sauce” (pure tomato/ketchup base, with seasoning), it rather tastes like a tomato/ketchup base has been thoroughly mixed with NC-style vinegar-base/marinade. The best of both worlds. It’s a very complementary taste, and we hope to find (or make) some more in the future.
* I lost a belt size with all that hiking. But I didn’t lose any actual weight. Weird. Goal: Get my ass moving. Planning a thorough Yoga, DDR and aerobics plan for the next few months. We’ll see if I stick to it.

* After doing all that hiking, we decided to dig around to find local parks and walking trails in NC. It’s gonna be much hotter than the mountains, but we were both bitten by the nature bug. We’ll probably go hiking once a week or so, on the weekends, starting with 6-8 milers and going from there.

That’s about it. We got back, the cats were very happy to see us, the package from Amazon arrived, and I’m getting back into the swing of things. Probably going to spend a day putting stuff on eBay that I’ve been meaning to get rid of for a while. Looking forward to getting back to work… somewhat (I have to do more to prevent stress and shutting out), and really looking forward to meet up with friends; going eating, gaming, walking, whatever.

Cats are taken care of, housesitter is sitting, we’re getting the last of our stuff together to the roadtrip to Gatlinburg.

At last count, I’m bringing 28 books (that’s including a notebook for writing and a Japanese Kanji dictionary), we’ll see how many I get through.

Also, I’m giving myself a challenge: By the time I return the following Sunday, I’ll have the framework (that is, it’ll be playable) for not one, not two, but three fully playable games.
I’m not bringing a computer, so it’s going to be all written up on paper and in my head, but still.  I’m thinking that the Ghost Killers will see full playable draft status, plus possibly a tactical game, plus something else.

I’m kinda waffling on bringing the Playstation, though: I’d only be bringing it so that we could do our Yoga DVDs, but it seems like a pretty big item just for three DVDs (they’re awesome DVDs, though).

Unfortunately, I won’t be at GenCon this year, but my proxies are going and buying me wonderful loot, so I’ll have to live the experience vicariously through them.
So, here I go, packing the last of my gear, see y’all in a week.

http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/dice/dice.html

It’s both pretty simple and really awesome. it actually reminds me a lot of the classic and fast strategy game “Lords of Conquest”.

Here are other games by the same guy, “Gamedesign”:

http://www.gamedesign.jp/index_en.html