Thursday, November 29, 2007

Happy thoughts are a good thing.

A quick update for those of you who have been sending happy thoughts to my stepfather.

His lung biopsy results came back today and it turns out that whatever is wrong is completely reversible with some pretty heavy doses of steroids. He'll probably be in the hospital for awhile yet, but it looks like he'll be going home when his treatment is over.

Keep sending the happy thoughts his way, it seems to be working.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

So, wow.

I went to the Mt. Olive store yesterday, as noted in my twitter. I had fun, their framers are quirky but really nice and a lot of fun... and so accustomed to their shop running behind that they don't even care anymore.

All in all, I was glad to be back in my shop today, even though we did have about 10 huge pieces that had to be done today. Doesn't anybody in Easton have small artwork!?!? Damn.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Tree is up!

Well, we had the tree trimming party on Friday and we didn't actually get to the tree trimming part until everybody but Sarah left, but the tree looks good and everybody had fun. And I finally got to meet Sheila, and Troy's son Luke.

Sheila seems really sweet and her and Dave get along well. And she seemed to like us - so even better.

Luke is a really sweet kid, and got along more or less really well with Lyam and Aiden, which we were a little worried about because of the age difference.

All in all things went well.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Happy thoughts, please

My step-dad is in the hospital and not doing so good. He's hopeful and we'll know more on Monday. If you have a moment, send happy thoughts his way.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Do Something Good

"Josh Mirman of Puns and Nerds is trying to raise money to buy toys for children in a place called Yemin Orde. I've known him for a few years and he's a trustworthy sort who really wants to do something good. Look his site over and, if you're so moved, help out. "

(quoted from Something Positive by RK Milholland)


If you know me, then you know that I would love to donate to every worthy cause and that I would love to buy enough merchandise to keep the all the web comic artists (and one particular author) that I read well paid but as I can't afford to do that, I pass things on in hopes that they reach someone who can afford to do something.

*sigh* hate building mechanics

So I'm trying to come up with anything that even resembles a workable mechanic for the short story game. I've got something I kind of like, but Carl doesn't like the way I want to use fudge dice. He said it's not that it's bad, it's just that it's not what they're supposed to be used for.

I said "So? Besides, you don't have any and it would be any excuse to get some." The responsible adult in him wanted to say no, but the gamer in him couldn't argue with an excuse to buy more dice.

I clarified my explanation and I think that he would be willing to give it a shot. I want to use them to represent stress. The characters in this game will have all sorts of abilities, but very little practice with them outside of a classroom setting. I want to use the fudge dice to make it so that you can fail your roll and still pull something off, or pass your roll and do too well.

The example I gave was this: Ok, your character took a class in Pyrokinesis, so she can, in theory throw fire balls. She rolls, hits her target number. But she's never done this outside of class. She rolls her fudge die (or dice) and they come up all positives. Over-successful result. She doesn't throw a fireball so much as she shoots a laser beam through her target, and the guy behind him, and the guy behind that, her buddy behind him and so on.

Basically the dice dictated that she panicked.

I like that idea, I just need to work it out so it's not so messy.

Dave will be here shortly, I'm gonna run it by him. See what he thinks and maybe run it past the whole game group on Monday, if I don't work.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Semper Fidelis Tyrannosaurus!

Yay! We've got another Venture Bros. fan! Dan's hooked! I showed him a couple of the "Top Ten Supporting Characters" on America Loves Lists and he said "Oh, my, God! I have to see that show!"

So we gave him the Season 1 DVDs to borrow and he watched both of them in like 3 days. Then he watched all the commentary. Now he wants to borrow Season 2.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Twitter!

I've signed up for Twitter now. You'll see the widget in the sidebar of this blog. Now you can check out what I'm up to when it's worth mentioning, but not worth a whole blog post.