Ken Newquist I looking through the various movie trailers on Apple.com, and saw one called Sahara. I was slightly intrigued, since Clive Cussler had written a Dirk Pitt novel with the same name. I devoured Cussler’s nautical adventure books as a kid–I read Raise the Titanic when I was in 5th grade, and didn’t stop reading his … Read more
The first edition of Nuketown Radio Active, the ol’thermonuclear’s podcast, is available for download. The podcast includes a review of Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, speculations on the need for Marvel’s 10th anniversary Age of Apocalypse mini-series, thoughts on Elements of Style applied to e-mail, and a quick review of The Incredibles movie and … Read more
Listening to podcasts quickly became part of my daily routine after I discovered the phenomenon last fall. I wrote about a few of the podcasts I’d found, and then settled into a groove listening to these new, increasingly familiar voices during my morning and afternoon commute. Recently though, I’ve made a concerted effort to seek … Read more
There are great movie soundtracks, ones that resonate with your soul, invigorate your blood flow, and generally kick ass. This is not one of those albums, but it is a very amusing album, and one that fans of 1980s “B movie” horror flicks should enjoy, if not outright love. The Deadly Spawn (Amazon) was one of … Read more
Truth is corrupted by fiction in an e-mail chain letter that tries to warn about the dangers of the recalled drug phenylpropanolamine. The FDA asked drug makers to recall the drug–used in several over-the-counter cold medicines and some weight loss products–and it has been connected to a minor increase in the chance of hemorrahgic stroke … Read more
Games Quarterly is a print magazine covering a variety of non-electronic games; from RPGs to board games to collectable games to war games, if you’ve ever picked up a pair of six-siders, this magazine has something for you. The magazine’s content is diverse as its subject matter. It includes the expected industry news and interviews … Read more
When I launched Nuketown’s latest design in June, I consciously switched it away from an “issue-based” model in which content was published on a set schedule, to a blog-like model, in which content was published when I felt like it. The goal, on my end, was to relieve some of the self-imposed stress of trying … Read more
CrystalBall is the best damn D&D RPG tool on the Mac. The fact that it’s also one of the only D&D RPG tools for the Mac is beside the point. Available as a shareware trial download (Internet Archive), the program is comprised of a dozen or so different utilities for your game that can be … Read more
Last weekend my wife and I were out computer shopping. Her for a new Dell laptop, me to dream of the laptop I might be able to buy around about 2007. We traveled to the King of Prussia Mall in southeast Pennsylvania, where Dell allegedly had a store, and to keep me quiet during Sue’s … Read more
The latest editions of Dungeons & Dragons went to great lengths to abstract the combat system, eliminating weapon speeds, dropping call shots, and creating area-of-effect templates. All of this abstraction comes at a price though. Some of the exceptional aspects of the game — liking being able to put an arrow through an enemy’s eye … Read more