Random Thoughts on LOST Season 4

Why was the the Looking Glass station setup to connected to Penny’s office? We don’t know where Penny, or more specifically, her father and his corporation, fits into the larger LOST conspiracy, but I think its safe to say that Ben is interested in anyone who’s interested in the island. My guess is that the … Read more

Why WotC is Slash-and-Burning Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition is coming, slashing and burning all that has come before to create a new game that ignores the tropes of classic sword-and-sorcery in order to embrace the always-on, always-cool mechanics of digital fantasy. We see it at every turn. The lack of a 3.x-to-4.x conversion guide. The admonishment to wrap-up … Read more

Top of the Pile: Uncanny X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Red Hulk, Nausicaa

My comic collecting has entered the mid-winter doldrums; the big X-Men crossover has just ended, and while DC’s Countdown is approaching it’s end, that means little to me since I haven’t been keeping up with it. Instead, I’m waiting for the first few issues of the rebooted X-men titles and checking out the occasional one … Read more

Game Day: Gating to Random Destinations

This week’s Game Day sees us returning to the Dark City campaign to wrap-up our quest to save a bunch of kidnapped kids from some dungeon-dwelling kobolds. It’s a fun adventure, but I find myself straining to connect it to a Game Day column. So instead I’m going to stick with the semi-random rambling approach … Read more

Impromptu Take Your Daughter to Work Day

My dad was a science teacher, and I spent many a day going to work with him, on Saturdays or summer days, while he set up his classrooms, rebuilt bulletin boards, and generally did teacher stuff. I have pleasant memories of wandering through empty schools, exploring new corridors, and taking the occasional break to draw … Read more

Game Day: Mutant Meanderings

I didn’t have enough time for a full-fledged Game Day column this week, so here are some random thoughts relating to Mutants & Masterminds inspired by Friday’s session. The new Infinity Storm blog is coming along nicely. I’ve got an HTML mock-up mostly working in Safari and Firefox; Internet Explorer still has issues (but really, … Read more

Game Day: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Back in November, when I was working on my novel, I wrote a scene in which the main characters got together for a graphic novel book club. When I mentioned this to my gaming group, they thought it was a great idea … and that we should give it a try in the real world.

After much discussion and a few delays, we’re finally doing it. Our first-ever Graphic Novel Book Club will take place tonight at WhichBrew, where we’ll be eating good food, drinking local beers, and discussing Alan Moore’s classic (if highly depressing) graphic novel Watchmen.

It’s a tough novel to start with because it truly feels like a novel. It’s dense and literary, with some chapters that spin the narrative wildly out of control, and an ending so depressing it could drive you to drink. It’s dystopian alternate history 1980s has almost no sympathetic heroes; there are plenty of reasons to hate them, and almost none you can admire.

Nuclear Midnight is now 5 p.m.

I’d settled into a good routine. Get off work at 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., go to the gym, and then get home by 6:00 to 6:30 p.m. in time for dinner with the family. Take care of the kids – giving them baths and cleaning up the house – and help herd them into bed … Read more

Radio Active #61: Leopard, 4th Edition, Secret Lairs, Google Code, Kobold Quarterly

Radio Active returns to its somewhat regular schedule as I talk about family visits, getting more sleep, hacking Moodle and trying out Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. In Netheads, I talk about getting a sneak peak at D&D 4th Edition through already-released products like the Book of Nine Swords, discover a new Secret Lair for … Read more

GoodReads Catches Fire

GoodReads is a social networking site for readers, allowing users to add their book collections to online bookshelves and then share those collections with friends. Books can be stored on different book shelves, rated, and reviewed. You can compare your collection to that of a friends, with the site giving you a side-by-side comparison of … Read more