Recently in Personal Observations Category

At Origins this year, I picked up a copy of Song of Blades and Heroes, a fantasy miniatures game from Ganesha Games, who are, as the name implies, based in Italy... Er, right, anyway, the wonders of globalization aside, they were nominated for an Origins Award this year for Best Miniatures Game, so I figured I'd give them a look (sadly they were beaten out by Classic Battletech for the award).

I'm quite glad I did. It's an excellent set of skirmish rules with a surprising degree of depth crammed into a small page count. The rules are simple and game play moves quickly, but there a number of troop options and they can interact in interesting ways, which makes for an enjoyable game. Even better, the author has released the point system used to generate unit costs on the game's Yahoo group, so you can stat up any figure in your collection if you'd like.

Which brings us to today's post. Over the weekend, I decided to cobble together a point calculator and warband builder in JavaScript. Why? Because I was bored. Reasonably happy with the end result, I uploaded it to the Yahoo group for the game. Apparently the author of the game liked it enough to submit it to the news queues at The Miniatures Page and Tabletop Gaming News. No, it's not the world peace prize or anything like that, but it's kind of cool to have people think something you wrote was useful.

My Beloved Wife: Are you eating a lemon drop or something?

Me: Yes, why?

Wife: Oh thank god. I thought you were drinking lemon Pledge.

Me: No, today wasn't quite that bad.

We received the“2007 Fun Guide” circular from the city’s Division of Parks & Recreation today. It’s a directory of all of the city’s recreation facilities as well as schedules for this summer’s recreation and athletic programs. Subtitled “get out and play!” it’s 45 pages brimming with things to do in the great outdoors. It is with no small amount of irony that I must report that the back cover of this chipper little book is a full page ad for a personal injury law firm promising to “get you the money you deserve” for “death & serious injuries” and “slip & fall.” You’d have thought Parks & Recreation would be a little more selective in who they accept as sponsors for this sort of thing, but apparently not. "Get out and play, fall down and sue" I suppose.

Starring Clayton Lebouef - baltimoresun.com

Our friend Gena, a journalism student at the University of Maryland, has her first real byline on this Baltimore Sun article.

Yay, Gena!

Easy way to tell I'm from Georgia, just watch the mental disconnect whenever I see the white stuff falling from the sky. Like this morning when I stepped out to find every non-pavement surface (like, say, my car) covered in an inch or so of unexpected snow, 'unexpected' here to mean 'surprising to those who never watch the weather forecast.'

've lived here almost a decade now, so I should be used to this, but uniformly, every year, my first thought is never "crud, I need to get this off the car" or "wow, it's cold out here, time for heavy jackets," or anything passingly normal. No, this morning, it was "where's it coming from?" with my eyes wide like I've never seen snow in my life while the geese flew low overhead, honking "So long suckers, see you when it's warm."

Maybe next year I can manage the weary-eyed stoicism of those grizzled snow veterans who just roll their eyes and haul out the snow brush. I'm not holding my breath though.

DragonCon was a blast this year, despite a madly hectic time getting to Atlanta and back. I thought flying down would be less trouble than driving. Silly me. As it turns out, working a full day, then rushing to the airport, then a hop to Charlotte, a layover, then another hop to Atlanta is actually a lot more stressful than just driving for seven hours. I'd never realized how much I relied on the drive to Atlanta to decompress and recuperate until now. Next year, I am taking a full day on either end for travel, whether I fly or drive.

I still remember the store, I still remember the book. It's been over two decades, but I still remember. Now, after all these years, the doors will finally shut.

Walk with me a moment, if you would. Indulge a tired man a few reminisces. Forgive me if I overstay my visit to the past. It's owed, owed more than I can rightly say, and it pains me that this is all I have to offer as eulogy.