Luke took his first tentative step yesterday and naturally (Luke being Luke) he did it on the concrete porch outback. 'Cause you know, that way he can maximize the chance of really hurting himself. He immediately sat back down again, and crawled to his destination, but he definitely took a step.

Of course, everyone says not to compare your kids to each other, but walking -- like talking -- is one of those milestones you can't help but compare. Jordan started walking three days before her first birthday, and it seems like Luke's following a similar trajectory, given that his first birthday is June 14.

Articles like this one piss me off. Men have been hammered for years about not taking an active role in their families, about putting job above family, and all the standard guilt trips that could take you to the Moon and back if only you could clock the frequent flyer miles.

The thing is, guilt trips aren't needed -- in my experience, Gen X dads generally want to spend time with their families, and make job decisions that reflect that. Unsurprisingly, those choices effect their yearly income. So when this story -- which is about the decline in median male income from $40,000 in 1974 to $35,000 in 2004, I just to scream.

Friday was utterly consumed by an all-day staff retreat at work, denying me my normal lunchtime opportunity to write my Game Day column.

But here we go again, one day late, but a little wiser nonetheless as I take some time to look at the new Star Wars: Saga Edition RPG, consider lessons learned during our latest Mutants & Masterminds character creation session and review our latest Khelez-Mar adventure.

Gaming comics top the pile this week as my copies of Knights of the Dinner Table #125 and Dork Tower #36 arrive, augmented by the sword and sorcery (though mostly sword) of Dark Horse Comics' Conan #39.

Rounding out the picks in this pile is the latest issue of Ex Machina, which sees a mysterious future time traveler arrive in New York and tease Mayor Hundred with the secret of his machine-talking powers.

I've got two vacations lined up for Summer 2007 -- one short, one long -- and hopefully a few lazy weekends I can spend ready books on the back porch or down the shore.

As a result, I've slowly started to compile my summer reading list, and I'm looking for suggestions from readers, as well as comments on what you'll be reading at the beach this summer.

I love it when a geeky plan comes together. A few weeks ago I heard a story on the Geek Acres podcast about a grade school teacher who installed Ubuntu Linux on a bunch of iMacs that had been donated to his school. I have a lime-green G3 iMac at home that's been running Mac OS X 10.3 … but is just crying out for experimentation.

I used ScooterDMan's original article as my starting point, and decided to try installing the same version of Ubuntu Linux that he did: the low-profile Xubuntu, which is designed to run on older hardware.

According to the Morning Call, Apple is going to be opening an official Apple Store in the new upscale addition to the Lehigh Valley Mall. This means we'll no longer have to trek to Bridgewater, N.J. for our Mac and iPod goodness.

HeroPress -- a blog that describes itself as "a celebration of all things geek" -- has an interview with me as part of its ongoing "Six of the Best" series.

Topics covered in the interview include juggling your regular and geek lives, how I got started playing RPGs, gaming with kids, geek fitness, the advantages of podcasting, and my favorite comic books.

It's been months since I last wrote about my son Luke, and what an eventful couple of months it's been! Luke learned to crawl at around 6 months and started pulling himself up shortly there after. Now, at 11 months, he's starting to "bridge", moving from one item to another in a precursor to walking. Along with this new-found mobility has come a desire to explore everything … which means we've had to start baby proofing in earnest.

You can always tell how frantic my Fridays are (and thus, how much I really, really need a Game Day) by how long it takes this column to get online. Yesterday I had a working lunch out of the office, and didn't even sit down at my desk until 3 p.m.

Fortunately though, there was Game Day. Kicking off this week's gaming goodness was the arrival of my Savage Worlds core rulebook, which I've been eagerly anticipating ever since I registered for the Savage World of Solomon Kane and Sundered Skies GenCon events two weeks ago.