engage thy brain

Coming in August to a store near you! Come read my fascinating essay (and the fascinating and amusing essays of others!) regarding the best 100 family games EVAR! *grin*

Here's a list of the participants:

FAMILY GAMES: THE 100 BEST
Mike Gray: Foreword
James Lowder: Introduction
Wil Wheaton: Afterword
David Millians: Appendix (Games and Education)

ESSAYISTS:
Andrea Angiolino
Keith Baker
Wolfgang Baur
Carrie Bebris
Uli Blennemann
Bill Bodden
Mike Breault
Richard Breese
Todd Breitenstein
Alessio Cavatore
Leo Colovini
William W. Connors
David “Zeb” Cook
Monte Cook
Luke Crane
Dominic Crapuchettes
Elaine Cunningham
Richard Dansky
Karl Deckard
Dale Donovan
James Ernest
Matt Forbeck
Anthony J. Gallela
Richard Garfield
Marc Gascoigne
Stephen Glenn
Eric Goldberg
Andrew Greenberg
Ed Greenwood
Jeff Grubb
Scott Haring
Bruce Harlick
Jess Hartley
Fred Hicks
Will Hindmarch
Kenneth Hite
Joshua Howard
Steve Jackson (GW)
Steve Jackson (SJG)
Paul Jaquays
Seth Johnson
Matthew Kirby
Corey Konieczka
John Kovalic
Robin D. Laws
Matt Leacock
Jess Lebow
Jon Leitheusser
Ken Levine
Nicole Lindroos
Ian Livingstone
Michelle Lyons
Hal Mangold
Jason Matthews
Erik Mona
Alan R. Moon
Colin Moulder-McComb
Bruce Nesmith
Kevin Nunn
Peter Olotka
Phil Orbanes
Andrew Parks
David Parlett
Sébastien Pauchon
jim pinto
Mike Pondsmith
Chris Pramas
Lewis Pulsipher
John D. Rateliff
Sheri Graner Ray
Philip Reed
Thomas M. Reid
Susan McKinley Ross
Charles Ryan
Steven Schend
Robert J. Schwalb
Emiliano Sciarra
Jesse Scoble
Mike Selinker
Bruce Shelley
John Smedley
Lester Smith
Jared Sorensen
Warren Spector
Stan!
Gav Thorpe
Dan Tibbles
Jeff Tidball
John Scott Tynes
Monica Valentinelli
James Wallis
James M. Ward
Darren Watts
Tom Wham
Bruce Whitehill
John Wick
Kevin Wilson
Ray Winninger
Teeuwynn Woodruff
John Yianni

It will be totally awesome! More information when I can post about it. :)

Authors & Publishers:

Do you have a new book or game coming out this summer?

I'd like to run more previews on the Flames Rising site to help promote these products.

Examples of previews:

Demon Mistress - Yasmine Galenorn

Amazon Ink - Lori Devoti

Ghosts of Albion Preview “Faerie” - Eden Studios

Equinox Road - White Wolf

So, if you have upcoming horror & dark fantasy products you'd like me to preview, let me know. Shoot me an e-mail and we'll work out the details.

It's been a long, hard weekend, for reasons that range from valid and true to completely illusory, from practical considerations to sheer lunacy. I've been fortunate, though, that on the nights I had the worst time, someone called me. Two someone's, in fact, one of whom we later realized I hadn't actually seen and talked to in... years. It doesn't seem possible, but it was. And thanks to their help in sort of forcibly redirecting my brain, I coped and felt a lot better and was able to turn off the worst of the emotional tap without any serious damage to myself or others.

It's odd to realize, but I tend to forget that I need people like that. I mean, not literally. I know when I need to get out more and I know when I want to talk to someone. But I forget that I can actually call people when I feel awful. I forget that being around people more often keeps me from brooding or even wanting to brood. It doesn't help me write, unfortunately, but sometimes not brooding and even making up stuff to brood about is more important.

I love my mom. I can't talk to her about my life or things that are wrong, even if it's just my emotional reaction that makes them so. She freaks out and it stresses her terribly to see me emotional. So with family not an option, it falls back to friends, and I feel awkward about imposing on my friends with emotional stuff. What I am going to endeavor to remember, however, is that I really need to get the fuck over myself. I don't need to take over someone's life, but I know people who would be happy to lend an ear and chat at me about their lives and just generally visit for a while until I felt better. I don't need to limit the pool of people for that nearly so much as I do.

So... yeah. Doing better. Thanks, Don and Nicole. You both did me a big favor, and I won't forget it. Love you guys.

Follow its flight
It will lead you toward the light.

Sshh. Someone's coming. Quick.

Close the door.

Consider the flash mob.

Consider the idea of a flash corporation.

Why not?

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=28329.0

-Andy

Originally published at The Whitechapel Project (for MP3s and polls, click this link). You can comment here or there.

For those who have followed my Twitter and LiveJournal for the past few weeks, I’ve made a few cryptic remarks about an upcoming fiction project (which, by the way, is totally unrelated to my work at my day job with CCP/White Wolf Publishing). After a while, I dropped the name “Whitechapel.” After weeks of messing around with a variety of things and seeing what works and what doesn’t, I’m now at the point where I can make a formal announcement about what the hell I’ve been working on.

Whitechapel is an interactive serialized horror novella published both in text and as an audio podcast (read by me, the author). It’ll be primarily hosted on this website (whitechapelproject.com), but I have a lot of avenues to get it in front of your eyes and into your ears as time goes on. Every two weeks, a new episode will be released, which will end with a plot point unresolved and a poll in which readers can vote on how they want the story to proceed. After a week of voting, the most popular option is used to help write the next episode.

The first episode is written, and I’m hoping to have it recorded in time for release on Wednesday, August 5th, but that’s just a hopeful target, not a firm release date.

I tried to predict a lot of potential questions, which I’ve placed below the cut. There will also be an evolving FAQ on the main site.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

I have tickets for Monday. Comedy and headliner passes have to be gotten on site the day of the concerts. So, do I try for Patton Oswalt or Franz Ferdinand/Modest Mouse? And if I can get either, which one do I want?

So Q'doba down on 55 was the place we would go if we happened to be at the Target near there and were in the mood for MexicanIsh, or else didn't feel like driving to the much more delicious Torerro's.

Anyway, before I went I was researching the nutritional information on the Q'doba website, and decided that I would roll with a "Naked Burrito": Basically, all the contents of a burrito but without the shell, in a plate. And then with half rice.

Turns out: DELICIOUS. Dunno what it was about having it not in a shell, but wow. Totally changed my mind on the place.

(Chicken and Queso, BTW)

In regards to a recent breakup of two friends:

Deej: When we break up, I hope we're as amicable as they were.

Handsome, Heroic Me: (eyes Deej suspciously) You mean IF we break up, right?

Deej: Oh! Oh yes. Ha ha! If we break up. Slip of the tongue there, ha ha! (puts on a top hat and monocle)

Misunderstood, Protagonist Me: Enjoy your Top Hat and Monocle Party.

(some of this might be exaggerated for humor)

If you've been seeing a lot of posts appearing and disappearing from my LiveJournal, you're not missing anything. I'm testing some new software and how it interacts with LiveJournal, which means dozens of posts that last a couple of minutes as I review how they look before I delete them. Nothing to see here -- move along.

I'm currently fascinated by a weird-ass idea.

Consider this statement:

Institutions, whether the state or the market, neither produce nor consume anything at all.  People produce and consume things - Institutions are simply mechanisms through which people coordinate their production and consumption of wealth.

That's a perfect-world statement, and a good one, too.

Now, imagine if that were purely true of some institution (let's say, a retail outlet).  What would that institution look like?

http://chun.sega.jp/428/

This is the first ever console game visual novel to hit #1 in game ranking charts. Anyway, it had a huge storm of buzz around the fact that it was involved, featured a really solid plot and characters, and so on. Won Famitsu's best game of 2008, among other awards ("Futuristic Association's Best Japanese Console Game", etc)

But it was for the Wii. So, even if you wanted to play it in the US in moonspeak, you can't without a Japanese Wii.

Anyway, the PS3 version (and PSP), I just found, is coming out this September.

Gotta finish these projects, it's gonna be a busy winter...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBglXV_llF0

-Andy

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

(They didn't have a d12. Everyone forgets about the d12.)

Lawyers are assholes.

A couple months ago, I was driving through Grand Rapids and ended up pulled over because my tabs had expired (yes, an obviously bored cop). I didn't realize this, thought I'd just bought new ones (realized later that I had, for my car, right before it broke down. Oy). Anyways, he ticketed me and we went on our merry way.

After about a month-and-a-half I receive the Notice of Hearing in the mail for the ticket. I'm not driving to Grand Rapids, because I don't have the money, so I get ahold of the county screener/collector like I'm supposed to and ask if there's a way I can plea bargain the fine down.

The ticket is for $110, which I just can't afford, I realize I made a mistake, and I bought my tabs immediately afterwards. She tells me to get ahold of the prosecuting attorney, and we set me up on a payment plan, which she says we can change later if the prosecutor agrees to a reduced fine.

I try to get ahold of the prosecuting attorney all week. He finally calls me back this morning and says he can't reduce it any further because the minimum is set by the State. His attitude is dismissive and haughty. He also claims I can't work with the screener/collector and she has no authority, despite the Hearing Notice stating the complete opposite.

Further, he tells me the fine is $125, not $110, which is what the Hearing Notice states and what the screener/collector told me. So I'm not sure I buy his statement about not being able to reduce it or about what he can offer me, given that the notice states $110, and I spoke with the screener/collector for that county as directed and set up a payment plan for $110. It seems clear $125 is not the minimum possible. And the line about not being able to plea for a reduction is a load (I know the court can dismiss or reduce fines, it is one of their well-established powers).

Lawyers are lying assholes.

(And I say that not just because of the above, but because every time I've ever had to deal with one of them they have been dipshits: my incompetent defense attorney in a case many years ago screwed me over and not by mistake, the slimy administrator at the tech school who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars total from dozens of people and the city itself was a lawyer, etc.)

So I'm certain I'm being jerked around.

I love that our justice system is in the hands of people for whom telling the truth is anathema (or whom, should I give the benefit of the doubt about their motivations and ethics, are at best utterly clueless).

Anyone who thinks that Speed Racer (2008) utterly sucks, let me know so I can remove you from my f-list.

Halfway thru ANOTHER DVD viewing, and I am still CONSISTENTLY impressed by story ideas, sfx, and occasional acting.

This movie (like Popeye and Flash Gordon) is better than you snarkily think it is.

I don't know if it has the culty glow of Big Trouble in Little China or Hudson Hawk to it as of yet.

But it is good. At least, to me.

One of my greatest regrets is never meeting John M. Ford in the flesh.

One of my greatest blessings is to have interacted, oft-times regularly, with John M. Ford on the Pyramid messageboards and in email.


God grant I am half the writer Mike was, and I will be happy.

I have, for quite some time, labored under a mis-conception about Buddhism that I understood to be inaccurate, yet was clearly still entrapped by given my choice of words in thinking about and discussing the subject. That confusion was my use of the concept that Buddhism encourages detachment. And I have a feeling that many Westerners share that misconception.

Despite what you may have heard or think you know, Buddhism is not about cold, irrational Vulcan detachment. Quite the opposite. It is about a passionate, rational experience of life.

From drivingblind

To celebrate our four ENnies nominations, you can get all four of our Ennies-nominated products for $19.99 -- a savings of over 40% -- at RPGNow:

http://flamesrising.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=63523

You can also pick up both of One Bad Egg's PDFs individually at RPGNow, IPR, or the One Bad Egg bookshelf at a buck off each.