Over on his blog, Yudhishthira’s Dice, Brand Robbins lays out an interesting RPG setup that he wants to play: Law enforcement on a generation ship. (more)

I love input and reading forums has been a big source of input for me for the last decade or so. I don’t start, or participate, in threads much (i.e. I am a lurker) because [A] I discovered early on that I want to spend a reasonable amount of time thinking about what I want to say and by the time I’m ready to say something the conversation has moved on and [B] I frequently feel that I don’t have much to add to a conversation.  So, I spend a fair amount of time just gathering information on forums.

In the past, this has meant that I’ve been able to keep up with the goings on in the gaming industry such as what new game is coming out when, whether a product has been delayed, and what the opinions of a good-sized group of people are when it comes to the more widely available gaming products.

Lately, though, I am less interested in new products and the movements of monetized gaming output.

In part, this is because I no longer own, nor dream of owning, a gaming store. I no longer need to know about new products and their availability so that I can pass it on to others.

For the other part, it seems to me that there is an endless retreading of well-trod ground. I no longer care what the favorite superhero RPG of the populace of RPGnet is or who has most recently jumped on the ‘D&D 4e is a tabletop MMO’ bandwagon.

So, I’m going to try to take a break from forums. Maybe I’ll do some writing with that time.

So, I was playing around with my Google Calendar the other day and started thinking about my Gaming Calendar, which is where I keep all of the information I’ve gathered about local gaming conventions and events. Then I got to thinking that I should share that information with other people. (more)

A while back I read Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. It’s another one of those productivity books but geared toward creative types.

Unlike the other books I’ve read like this, I found Art & Fear to actually be useful. It really provided a wonderful perspective into another person’s creative process and also brought home the notion that other people are afraid when they create, too.

Seriously, having a professional artist tell me that he gets scared to show people a new painting or to even start a new work because of how people might judge him made a lot of difference.

Realizing that it isn’t just me makes all the difference.

I finished reading The Power of Less by Leo Babauta yesterday. Meh.

I’ve been reading more of these productivity/self-improvement books lately and they just feel like a waste of time. Much of what they say is repetitive and, in many cases, obvious. If I want to accomplish something I should reduce distractions and try to focus more? You don’t say.

Also, it may just be the books that I’ve been choosing but they seem to be primarily focused on the office work-space and that doesn’t actually help me much.

Anyone out there know of a good productivity book for people that work in retail and try to do creative work in their spare time?

I haven’t felt much like writing for the last few days. Yesterday, I started three blog posts but the all meandered horribly and had little worthwhile to say. Less than usual, even.

Maybe I’ll feel better after the weekend.

I was thinking about this this morning. Production in general, and publishing in specific, is moving more and more toward just-in-time and print-on-demand technologies. This is good for more than one reason.

First, we tend to make too much stuff. The shear number of books, cellphones, and other crap that are produced but never used is simply ridiculous. If products could be made to order quickly and efficiently I can only imagine the waste that could be prevented.

Second, the ease of production has made niche products more viable which is pretty freakin’ fantastic, frankly. I would love to be able to get produced-on-demand shoes, books, and other stuff that I want. POD would mean that I can get this stuff made to my tastes without the need for a company to make a bunch of others that might not sell.

The downside is probably going to be higher costs but I think the upsides are worth it. Now to convince the rest of the world.

I’m sure I’ll think of more but that’s what I got right now.

If you got an email from me recently inviting you to join Spacelocker.com you are not alone. I do not recommend that you sign up for that company’s service.

More specifically, if you do decide to sign up for a Spacelocker account please do not use the ‘invite your friends’ form to do so. If you use that form to create an account the company harvests all of the email addresses that it can find from in your email folders and sends those people invitation emails.

When I signed up for an account I did not know this or I wouldn’t have used it. As far as I can tell there is nothing in the company’s ToS to indicate that this is what they do. This has pissed off a lot of people that received invites from me. Those people have a right to be angry. I’m angry!

I sent a sternly worded (i.e. pissed off but time-delayed for calmness) message to the company indicating that I was unhappy with them because of this. The company’s response: I was notified that my account has been deleted.

I slept better last night but I still had crazy dreams. This time out, a Kryptonian excape capsule containing one child fell to Earth and was appropriated by the government. With some effort and no explanation, the government was able to keep the alien boy in suspended animation while attempting to map his DNA.

Though not entirely successful in their efforts, the government was able to create superhuman hybrids using the little bits they were able to decypher.

Then there was some fighting and at some point the alien boy woke up unexpectedly. Who’s to say what will happen next . . .

If this keeps up I’m going to have to start a dream-blog or something.

I’m tired this morning. I spent what felt like most of last night dreaming that I was trying to catch someone who was poisoning a small child. I don’t know who the child was, or who I was supposed to be in relation to the child, but the child was being harmed and it was my responsibility to stop it. I was convinced that the culprit was putting atropine in the child’s food and that this was giving the child brain-damage.

So, that sucked and I didn’t sleep very well. I don’t remember my dreams very often, nor do they usually effect me much when I do. I frequently wobble in my opinion of whether this is a good thing or not but, if this is what dreaming is about, I’m happy to return to my blissfully lacking original state.

I used to play a fair number of collectible card/miniature games. I started with Magic when it first came out, then picked up Jyhad/Vampire: the Eternal Struggle, Netrunner, Babylon 5, Shadowfist, Mythos, Rage, Pokemon, Wheel of Time, DC/Marvel Vs., Heroclix, the Lord of the Rings CMG, Diskwars, Red Alert!, Pirates of the Spanish Main, Rocketmen, etc.

I’m sure I’ve missed some titles in there but the point is that I’ve played a ridiculous number of collectible games and much of the accumulated cruft of doing so still litters my house. (more)

The fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons has been on shelves for nearly a year now. I still haven’t played it. I really want to play it.

This is not an unusual situation. (more)

I finished re-reading A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin yesterday. It is still fantastic. If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend it.

After a month-long hiatus, the gaming group got together on Sunday to play my Brave New World campaign.

(more)

A moment of silent contemplation is a little thing.

On a day set aside to honor the men and women that have lost their lives while in service to their country, take a moment to honor and acknowledge their sacrifice. Your other plans will still be there when you’re done.