ripworth gave me the text for this:

click to visit larger image model molemen for The Adventures of DR_SPIN From Grass Dog Studio

A foreboding tome indeed:


click for larger image

I can hear the cries of the Strombrellas now. They beckon with their plaintive whining, splines clicking with hunger...

For those who couldn't view the video for some reason, I made this:

click to visit larger image How to make a non-spill ink lid From Grass Dog Studio

In summary: As the Earth warms, sheep shrink, thus increasing their surface area per mass and therefore reflecting more sunlight back into space...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/science-at-the-bleating-edge/

... happening at the Blue House, if there hadn't been that rule:

http://www.ejb.com/video/20835/Airbag_couch_prank.html

I wrote this story in 140-character chunks on Twitter in two long sittings, in March and in June. It required a different way of writing.

It's a kind of nonfiction poetry, where you can't directly develop a major idea and have to insinuate it, sculpt it with tiny arguments.

(You can read the first draft of this essay at twitter.com/BobbyHayes. The Stranger is at /strangerslog. I post regularly at /paulconstant.)

Learning how to write it was fun. It was play. And there are very few times in life when play is not a good idea.

From Paul Constant Reviews Twitter

Found through ed_dirt (on Twitter) through Amanda Fucking Palmer.


If you want to complain in my presence about Twitter, you should probably read that article first and think about it a bit. I welcome complaints about Twitter, but I just won't believe you've thought about it until, you know, you've read articles like that. Which I suppose is a way of saying, "Oh, you didn't know that already? Huh. I've known for ages."

Mind you, I think there's plenty of room for the next revolutionary fad to add more to whine about to the internet.

I now have a working Go board! Anybody want to do some brain calisthenics with me?

That's it, I quit drawing comics.*

With my luck, the next character to walk into reality will be the faux Fenmere, and that cannot be allowed.

* Note: It's locked, probably to protect the people who own the names and my friend who handles their accounts.

Suffice it to say, a couple of my characters coincidentally share names (and in one case, age) of real people in Bellingham. I should probably not name names here, so as to protect my friends' career. I apologize for the mysterious link!

This needs a little tweaking so that you can have better control over how damn random the deck is, but it's a good start. It also works particularly well with my Epic Level Munchkin rules.

So, whatever level you're playing to (10 or 20), use a die equal to that to count turns. You have until that die reaches its top number to win the game.

Of course, if you spend the first half the game picking up curses, monster enhancements and higher level monsters, you'll just lose. So maybe the clock counter only goes up every time you face a monster (whether looking for trouble or by kicking down the door). To keep it difficult, it goes up by the same number of levels that the monster would reward you for killing it (whether you run away or defeat it or make friends with it). I haven't tried the game this way yet.

We've started playing Munchkin again in our house.

With four players, it's pretty awesome.

We started with Munchkin, Munchkin Fu and Star Munchkin. Then our housemates went out and bought Munchkin C'thulhu. It's a riot!

But it didn't take us long to come up with some rules variations to add length or spice to the game:


Epic Level Munchkin

Play to level 20, using a D20 to count your levels. Only, once you reach level 10, you much now turn over two door cards every time you kick in the door. And once you reach level 15, you can no longer buy levels by selling items. But, you can sell items to buy items on the top of the treasure discard pile. And you can trade in the level up card for the top card of the treasure discard pile.

Furthermore, if you turn over a monster enhancement card and a monster at the same time, no matter the order, the enhancement card applies to the monster.


Which door is it?

If you're playing with more than one of the games, keep the decks separate. Munchkin Fu's treasure deck goes with Munchkin Fu's door deck, etc. When you defeat a Munchkin Fu monster, you pull the treasure from the Munchkin Fu deck. So, when it's time to kick down the door, you have a choice: Do you open Door #1? Door #2? Or Door #3?

This adds a bit of strategy to the game that's quite a bit of fun. Makes two player games a bit more amusing, too.

When you build your character, draw one card from each deck. This may give you more than your usual starting hand, but that's more fun anyway!


V.S.

Works best with two player games, but can be worked for more than that. Similar to "Which door is it?" only at the beginning of the game, you role a die to see who gets to chose their deck first. So one player may play from Munchkin Fu while the other is playing from Star Munchkin. BUT! To mix things up a little bit, you build your character's starting hand from your opponent's deck. Imagine that it's like you're a Kung Fu master who's stumbled aboard the visiting ambassador's spaceship while he's stumbling about Hong Kong.

And remember, you can still help each other fight monsters and there are cards that allow you to steal items from the other player, and you can still trade. Mostly, this just slows down the mixing of the cards.

Works really well with the Epic Level rules.


We've play tested all of these variations and found them quite satisfying.

Seriously. Best paring of paragraphs I've seen in a long while.

First, the abstract:

ANTIFREEZE is an exhibition about the high-end art market delivered within the format of low-end trade. It is the grass-roots answer to hugely commercial art fairs allowing independent and non-commercial practitioners to explore ideas of value, exchange and independence with artists and artist-led organisations responding to the physical, social, economical, geographical and literal situation.

Then, the description:

Manchester's first art car boot fair will be a stroll through the embodied thoughts of over 60 artists from across the UK and beyond, who through no fault of their own have been put in a place beneath and above many others in the art industry. We have given them a platform to vent their airs and graces and woes and praises, present their skills and collections, to succeed and fail, to make money and lose faith, to spend hours in traffic getting here and minutes setting up their work without our help so people they don't know can spend seconds judging them on it.

Sometimes I suspect that the Ivory Tower of art schooling is so tall just to give the students something to be bitter about.

In any case, I wish this event were taking place near where I live. Mind you, it's a totally Bellingham thing to copy someone else's rad idea.

Belonging to whomajigi, this cracks me up:

I don't have any pictures or drawings for you, so I'm a lame con-going cartoonist. But then, I've had such a hard time downloading and posting my photos these past couple years that if I'd taken any you just wouldn't get a report! So, count yourselves lucky.

First of all, my verdict: The con is big enough to be well worth going to, and it is small enough to have only the indy comic authors.

Next year I'm getting a booth, mostly to support the con, but also to attract people who wanna talk. It's a networking con, but then all cons are. Not exactly a place to meeting the webcomic author you love (though I met two of my favorites), but precisely the place to meet somebody you've never heard of before. And the quality of the work present ran the whole gamut.

What was odd were the truly amateur comics. There were two basic types: Those being honest with themselves and those being dishonest with themselves. Those that were honest with themselves were quickly written, drawn and published, and they were the most charming.

Those that were dishonest with themselves also fell into two categories, and this is where it gets interesting. Some of the comics were poorly drawn (not exactly a bad thing, but it just puts them in an obvious weight class) but they were published in the most professional looking way, on glossy paper, with satin, textured covers drawn by someone else with way better art than what was inside. And some of the comics had fantastic artwork but were published on a bad copier and not even stapled.

Unfortunately, I didn't make it to any of the panels, and that's where a con like this truly shines. But if you visit the site, you can see the caliber of their speakers, and they covered quite the range of self-publishing topics. And having seen Erica Moen speak in a ustream broadcast, I can rest confident that this con probably didn't disappoint too many people.

The venue sucked.

Also, I participated in the comics jam that Danger Room Comics held. I drew the third panel. They said that they'd post the comic online, but I haven't found it yet.

As for meeting Christopher Baldwin and Erica Moen, I will have to suffice it by saying I don't think I made an ass of myself and it was a pleasure talking to them (though I didn't really occupy Erica much at all).

"You want to lick my hand, cat? You want to lick my hand? You can lick my hand... IN HELL!!!"


"The Peep will not only explode, it will implode, destroying the whole microwave! And us with it!!!"


"I don't know what kind of crack you're smoking, but it smells like tobacco."

This will be hard to beat:

http://seph-hunter.livejournal.com/106855.html

The term, I believe, is "fucking awesome."

So, I'm talking to crazitalk and reicreature down at the Black Drop about our D&D game, when this guy a table over asks me if I've ever played GURPS, and the discussion devolves into a game system comparison match.

Eventually, I get around to mentioning this game that echodaniels is running for me and my wife and a couple other friends called "Cryptis" that's based on the White Wolf system. I describe it as kind of like the T.V. show Supernatural.

"I couldn't help overhearing you say 'Supernatural'," a woman in line says. She points to the guy next to her "This guy is a producer for the show, and we just down here for coffee."

And that's how I got to meet Jerry Wanek, set designer and producer for Supernatural.

Now, I'd honestly never paid his name much attention, so I wasn't horribly star struck (though apparently Eric was a bit, and maybe Rei). But also, I've been the target of some local fame, so I had an idea of what sort of etiquette I'd expect from myself, so the whole experience went very smoothly and it was a lot of fun.

Wanek is an enthusiastic but calm man, obviously taking pride in his work, but probably very similar to me in his demeanor around strange fans. He's reasonably eager to show his stuff, briefly, and to talk a bit about his job, but he's personable and professional and not too talkative (I certainly differ in that I'm too talkative). In short, I like the guy. Even look up to him a bit, now.

I definitely viewed the whole thing as a good learning experience. But also, it was a lovely opportunity to tell someone I respect "Thank you" for making something I genuinely appreciate.

But what was a real treat for me was to see his portfolio of work for the show. He handed me a hardbound book of set photos to flip through. It was simple, strait forward, and the only text in it was the name of the show, his name, position and his contact information.

Now I have an idea of what my portfolio maybe should look like. Finally. Certainly didn't learn that in school...

This didn't make it through the system somehow, so I'm retyping it (sent around 12:30pm):

I like the automated teller voice at the DOL, but Sigourney Weaver would really rock the joint.