This year, in addition to enough new geeky ornaments to push the tree over its carrying capacity, the Geek Tree’s skirt gathered several new pen-and-paper role-playing games as well as their video game kin. On the video game front, I got Spider-man: Miles Morales for PlayStation 4 (Sony | |Amazon). The game builds on the … Read more
It finally happened … the Geek Tree is at capacity. A few years ago, I bought myself some time by getting a 9-foot-tall narrow tree (replacing the earlier 6-foot-tall version). The new tree bought me some time, but alas unless we get a bigger house (so I can get a bigger tree) I’ll need to … Read more
The ‘Caspian Sea Monster’ rises from the grave – I’ve posted about the 380-ton “Lun-class Ekranoplan before. It’s a massive ground-effect vehicle, which means it’s basically a huge, low-flying aircraft/ship that’s designed to evade radar by skimming across the surface of the ocean. This one’s being towed to a new home, where it will become … Read more
After one false start and two 5-mile primer day hikes, our Philmont crew finally went on an extended backpacking trip. We did a two-day hike in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in New Jersey. Friday night we stayed at campsites next to the Millbroad Road Trailhead. On Saturday, we hiked from the Millbrook … Read more
The Labyrinth – New Narrative Art Book by Simon Stålenhag – The creator of Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood is back on Kickstarter with a new art/fiction book. The Mysterious Bronze Objects That Have Baffled Archaeologists for Centuries – Stashing this away for use in my Weird Pulp campaign. ‘Superhabitable’ planets could be better for life than Earth – … Read more
Tor: A Games’ Short Star Wars: Squadrons Film Hunted is Everything I Want in an X-Wing Series – Damn you, EA … you’re making me want to love this game. On Venus, mysterious traces of gas tease the possibility of extraterrestrial life – As Dr. Ian Malcolm says, life finds a way. Blade Runner: San … Read more
After six months on the trail to Philmont … we finally got on the trail. In August, we went hiking twice: first a 5-mile day hike on the Monocacy Creek Trail in Bethlehem, Pa., then a more rigorous 5-mile day hike on the Rattlesnake Swamp Trail and Appalachian Trail (AT) in Delaware Water Gap National … Read more
‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Returning To Planet-Of-The-Week Stories & TOS Optimism, Says Alex Kurtzman – Yes, please! Invisible rogue planets without stars? NASA’s new space telescope could find hundreds of them – Speaking of strange new worlds, NASA is looking for some. Racing to Stay Alive – When I run, I just run. I don’t give a … Read more
There could be 36 communicating intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, study says – The most famous equation for calculating the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy is based on the Drake Equation, which equally famously has a lot of variables that can’t be known. This study tries to get at the same answer through … Read more
The long, winding trail to Philmont continued in June as I launched into training for a 10K race. I don’t have a particular race in mind, and given the state of the COVID-19 world, it’s likely any race I do will be virtual. That said, this is very much a journey-before-destination sort of thing, so … Read more