Blog

Tron: Cupcakes

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A pyramid of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes decorated with blue grids. Some of the cupcakes have lightcycles and other items from Tron on them.

Tron CupcakesLast week my wife surprised me with a Tron-inspired birthday party (my birthday’s December 17, the same day that Tron: Legacy was released). As part of that, she asked the good folks at Cupcake Ladies to create Tron cup cakes.

Which they did. The photo at left was taken by my friend Jason Alley (view the full-size photo on Flickr) and yes, the cupcakes did taste as good as they look.

The cupcakes made my day, and were the perfect prelude to heading to King of Prussia to watch Tron: Legacy in IMAX 3D with my friends. It was a good movie — I describe it as pure, distilled 1980s wrapped in glass. My 12-year-old self loved the film. My 39-year-old self was happily distracted by the beer sampler I drank at Rock Bottom Brewery before the movie.

Summon WebScryer: 2010 in Review

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My “Summon WebScryer” column for Knights of the Dinner Table kept rolling along in 2010, continuing a run that began in 2000. Some months it’s a struggle to come up with ideas, other times the stars align and the column writes itself, but it’s always fascinating to see how folks are using technology to promote, … Read more

Indiana and the Temple of Zzzzs

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Indiana comes home.Indiana, our new puppy, came home the day before Thanksgiving. He’s a yellow Labrador Retriever, and after a few days home I can safely say he tends toward the marshmallow end of the Labrador spectrum (the other end, of course, is hyper spaz).

Of course, it’s not all thoughtful looks and puppy naps — he can be a holy terror, particularly in the mornings when he’s chasing kids, chewing on shoes and doing all the things puppies do. He’s far more laid back in the afternoon, lounging around the house, napping frequently, and more or less doing the perfect impression of a yellow marshmallow.

Star Wars Talk to Your Kids PSA

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Advice for geek parents on when to introduce kids to Star Wars, and how to tackle the delicate issues of Luke Skywalker’s father, the correct order to watch the movies, and the heresy of the special editions.

MEPACon Fall 2010 Wrap-up

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Black and grey dice with red numbers sit on top of role-playing game source books.

Another MEPACon has come and gone, taking with it two weeks of frantic game preparation and 12 hours of actual play. The convention was held in Clarks Summit, near Scranton Pa. on November 12-14 and looked to have the typical attendance of 100 gamers playing a mix of board games, organized play, and one-shot RPGs. … Read more

We named the dog Indiana

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Indiana as a puppyThe day before Thanksgiving a new four-legged friend will be joining our family. He’s a yellow Labrador puppy named … Indiana.

Indy succeeds (never replaces) Madison aka Mad Dog, our yellow Lab who was an enthusiastic member of the Newquist household for 13 years. She passed away in June and left a massive hole in our day-to-day lives. Yes, it can be a lot of work to keep up with a dog, especially at the end of her life, when we were cleaning up messes every morning, but she was a constant presence and the one member of the pack who would always be happy to see you.

Not having her here was like losing my shadow.

Enter Indiana.

MEPACon Fall 2010 Events: Star Wars, Ragnarok, and Pathfinder

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The villains of the Legacy era.

My events for MEPACon Fall 2010 are up and ready for registration on Warhorn. The convention is being held Friday, 11/12/10 through Sunday, 11/14/10 at the Ramada Clarks Summit in Clarks Summit, PA. I’ll be running three events — “Catch and Release” (Star Wars: Saga Edition), “The Champions of New York” (The Day After Ragnarok), … Read more

Farewell to Mad Dog

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Madison Up CloseMadison, my Labrador Retriever, died on Monday after 13 years of unrelenting enthusiasm for life, liberty and the pursuit of food. She was the quintessential Lab — super happy, eager to say hello, an amazing swimmer, an even better retriever, and the kind of dog who knew how to take time to stop and eat the roses. And brownies. And cup cakes. And…

We knew she would be a challenge from the beginning: as we were signing the check to buy her, she tried to pull one of her litter-mates through a fence by his tail. It took us six months to train her to lick instead of bite, and two tours of puppy school to get her to agree to basic obedience commands.

Unless she was on the water … in which case the only thing she’d pay attention to was her kong-on-a-rope. Or maybe ducks — Madison once tried to catch a mallard on the Delaware River, not realizing that ducks could, you know, fly. I had to jump in the river and swim after her to get her attention. Fortunately she turned around before we got to New Jersey.

Looking for Geek Holidays

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One of my upcoming “Summon WebScryer” columns for Knights of the Dinner Table is going to be on geek holidays, those annual events of keen interest to (and usually created by) geeks. Knowledge of these events is usually spread online, and they’re frequently the subject of Facebook updates, Twitter tweets, and blog posts, not to mention more than a few podcasts. Here’s my preliminary list … what am I missing?

FollowFriday: 5/14/2010

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Here’s my Follow Friday list for Friday, May 14, 2010: @richard_iorio Game designer at Rogue Games (Colonial Gothic, Thousand Suns) @fredhicks All around cool guy, Evil Hat Productions honcho (SotC, Dresden Files) @theonion The best fake news. @FastRPGReviews RPG reviews in 250 words. @timoreilly Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Publishing, the tech publishing juggernaut. Alpha … Read more