Ken Newquist 
It’s been a little over a year since my gaming groups started playing D&D 5th Edition. We began with the D&D Basic Rules when they were released in July 2014 and quickly moved to the core rules (Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual) as they released. My Sunday group ran two playtest campaigns during … Read more
It’s been largely a comic-book-free summer in Easton, Pa. thanks to Marvel’s Secret Wars. The publisher canceled all of their existing comic book titles in favor of new crossover Secret Wars books that revisited classic storylines (Civil War, Inferno, etc.) while creating a “battle world” for superhero smackdowns. I read none of it. Instead I … Read more
I bought an Apple Watch. It’s pretty cool. I’m not one for buying expensive new gadgets. Like most geeks, I buy my share of technology, but my upgrade cycles tend to be long, and if I do get something bright and shiny, it’s because it satisfies a specific need. My original iPod, for example, let … Read more
Back in July I wrote about my “One Awesome Summer” list — the big list of all the stuff I wanted to do this summer in spite of being in the middle of an all-consuming project at work. That project had me regularly working 12-14 hour days in late June and July, and it threatened … Read more
Jaws, one of my favorite creature features, returned to theaters for a one-night-only screening on June 21st to honor its 40th anniversary. I was there, and as I watched one of my favorite movies in the company of a few other Jaws lovers, it got me thinking about having another ofNuketown’s Monster Weeks. There have … Read more
I’ll admit it: I was feeling sorry for myself. I’m the lead for a major project at work, and that project doesn’t launch until the last week of July. Until then my summer’s going to consist of a never-ending series of meetings, reports, and general cat-herding aimed at making sure everything goes perfectly in high … Read more
Begun, this summer reading list has.
The core of my summer reading list should look pretty familiar. There are new Lost Fleet and The Expanse novels, earlier volumes of which have been on my list for years. There are also new novels by some of my favorite authors — Neal Stephenson, Alastair Reynolds, Ernest Cline — that I’m eager to read.
This winter’s never-ending parade of Northeastern snowstorms has played havoc with two things in my life: skiing and gaming. The storms marched through the region with exhausting regularity on Sundays and Mondays, spoiling the Sunday game and then canceling skiing.
My family’s big Christmas present this year was an Xbox One. The kids and I are loving it — I’m battling my way through the Halo: Master Chiefedition, and the kids are questing for the Lonely Mountain in LEGO: The Hobbit. Unfortunately while Halo looks great and the voice controls are very 21st century, the damn thing unexpectedly turns … Read more
In December 2014 I decided to post every day for a month. I had two goals: get back into the habit of daily writing and establish a baseline “active month” for Nuketown in Google Analytics. My secondary goal was to increase traffic to the website (both year over year and month over month) but I wasn’t sure what percentage was reasonable, but I wanted to see increases in unique sessions, unique users, and unique page views.