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| Monday, July 7th, 2008 |
gobi
|
6:21a |
Early morning game designer epiphanies aren't that epiphanous
Back when I was working on Luchacabra, I had some trouble explaining succinctly why I was so compelled to make as may games out of as few pieces of game paraphernalia as possible.
To use video games as an analogy: With the exception of Cheapass Games, most board games are marketed and sold as if the console and the video game are inextricably linked to each other. Here are the bits for Carcassonne. You can play Carcassonne with them. Maybe a variant or expansion, but that's it.
I like making games for the Chess console, the Go console, the Deck-of-Cards console, etc. By decoupling the game from its artifacts, it allows you to make more games that use those artifacts.
So yeah, it's years too late, but if I start making new board games any time soon, I'll definitely say something like that if people ask. :P |
| Sunday, July 6th, 2008 |
gobi
|
8:46p |
Mix dry basil, oregano, red and black pepper in 1/3 cup of olive oil. Slices of toasted and/or slightly stale bread for dipping. Is good. |
gobi
|
7:06p |
General Update Oof. They say if you're carcoleptic like me on a long drive, especially at night, you should pull off on the side of the highway and take a nap. Supposedly ten minutes of sleep is better than any number of cups of coffee. What they don't tell you us how maddeningly terrifying it is being one car's width away from 70mph traffic, the wind buffeting and shaking your car like the friggin' TARDIS. Made it home okay anyhoo. Heading into the office a bit later than anticipated, but hopefully I'll be finishing A Dirty World today. Sent Ryan a bushel of initial logo sketches, but I'm not feeling 100% about any of them just yet. Just working out the cobwebs, I guess?  I think once I've got ADW off my plate I can focus on that more properly. Textured the cover so it looks like a paperback you find in a gutter or something. Almost done with the interior layouts, just character sheet left to go.  After that, it's back to the pile of chicken scratch notes from editing Do.   And yes, I am providing visual evidence of the ongoing projects to re-assure you guys and myself that I'm not just procrastinating. :\ |
| Friday, July 4th, 2008 |
gobi
|
4:48p |
|
| Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 |
rowangirl
|
10:38p |
alright Today is going pretty good. It's been a lot of Evelyn and me time, which has been nice. We had Gymboree in the morning, went out to lunch with my mom, and then I stayed at home and uploaded pictures while Evelyn was napping. That is always a project. I put it off and put it off until I have three or four months of pictures to add to my online photo album and then it days hours. Ugh. But I'm glad that I finally got it done. People have been bugging me for a while now to get some new pictures up. So I added 187 pictures today! That should keep them busy for a while. I want to apologize for my recent bout of melodrama. I'm sorry for letting it spill over into some of your lives. I tend to get down at night sometimes, and I really should just keep myself away from the computer. But I really appreciate all the kind words. Also, sinuses getting better! Yay! :) Now I'm going to eat something hugely unhealthy and watch Burn Notice with Jenn. Because that is some good shit. Current Mood:  hungry |
shadmere
|
3:52p |
Woo!
I'm here and safe.
No dying on the highway for Jacob! |
punkjr
|
11:38a |
Recycling is Bullshit I too was a believer that my recycling would help save the environment... However, it seems that I was misinformed. Click here... 30 minute video |
gobi
|
11:10a |
Countdown to Retirement, cont'd Sent covers of Houses of the Blooded to John yesterday. Also, as repayment to Ryan for editing Do, I am designing the branding for RPGpodcasts.com and BoardGamePodcasts.com. Sketches: adapting elements of the RSS icon.  |
| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 |
fmphoenixhawk
|
6:49p |
Optimus Prime 4, Megatron 3 So I've been getting some good deals on stuff from eBay. (Yes, I know I'm broke, but these deals are pretty freaking good. And I do have a bit of cash.) Today, the two Megatron semi-poseable statuettes arrived. One is clear and one is solid, with Lazerbeak on his arm ( Pictures behind the cut, one is NSFW... )Well, that's about it. I have a close up shot of the two Megs on the desk, but you'd get a better view of Rei rather undressed. So we won't go there. I also got a bunch of D&D Minis for ultra-cheap (With shipping both loads were under $12 each.) that I will need for GenCon. The only thing I'll be getting in July is probably RAM for the lappy and maybe the tower (Yes, that will have to go on the card) and then pay bills. Need job soon. Stupid gas station not hiring.... Current Mood:  happy |
reviewingchris
|
3:54p |
Concert Review- Less Than Jake and Goldfinger    Less Than Jake and Golfinger w/Big D and the Kids Table, Tuesday, July 1, Royal Oak, MI@ The Royal Oak Music TheatreThe second annual edition of Less Than Jake's Shout it Loud summer tour rolled through the Detroit area on Tuesday night, bringing Goldfinger, Big D and the Kids Table, and The Suburban Legends along. The 2007 tour came to the same venue with Reel Big Fish and Streetlight Manifesto in tow. Apparently the latter two acts are worth several hundred more people than Goldfinger and Big D, because this year's show played to a house that was maybe 80% full, while last year's concert was packed to the gills. The package did bring in a surprisingly diverse crowd, though. There were old-schoolers in their late twenties and thirties, plenty of high school kids, some very young teens, a few folks who seemed well into their fifties, and multiple families with very small children. We arrived at the show just before Big D and the Kids Table played, so we missed out on The Suburban Legends. Big D has been around for years doing a variation on the ska-punk thing, but I had never really gotten into them. However, my older cousin, who remains a total punk rocker to this day, recommended their live show, telling me that they would probably be the best act of the night. So we made the effort to get there in time to see them, and it was sorely disappointing. Their set ranged from fast and punky to slithery lounge music as well as a goofy anthem that seemed to be about the Ice Capades. The musicians in the band, from the guitar and bass to the horn section, seemed like competent players, but it was all undermined by Big D's terrible frontman David McWane. As a lead singer, he can't sing, speaking and sort-of-shouting his way through the songs, and as a performer he has zero stage presence. You'd think, after over a decade of relentless touring he would've figured out how to have some energy onstage, but there was none of that in this performance. Perhaps it was because the band's van broke down on the way to the show and they arrived just in time to play their set. They even had to use the Suburban Legends' drums, so maybe I'm being too harsh, but I was not impressed at all. Next up was Goldfinger, ostensibly a co-headliner on this tour. I was a gigantic fan of Goldfinger back in the '90s, and I still think their first three albums are some of the better punk to come out of that decade. But since 2000's Stomping Ground, the band has had a host of missteps that resulted in a pair of terrible albums. First, lead singer/songwriter John Feldmann became a militant vegan and decided the rest of the world needed to hear about it on the preachy Open Your Eyes. Then Feldmann spent years producing albums for a host of mediocre emo-punk bands, which led to the poorly-written, shamelessly-poppy Disconnection Notice. It was a blatant attempt at getting mainstream rock and pop radio airplay, and it was predictably ignored. The band has since retreated to indie lable Side One Dummy and attempted to regain some credibility with this year's Hello Destiny album, but you wouldn't have known it from their live set. Sticking largely to material from those first three albums, the band put on a solid show felt more like a nostalgia trip than an active, working group. Curiously, both Goldfinger and Big D gave pandering shout-outs to Detroit's most famous punk band of the past twenty years, The Suicide Machines. That band broke up a few years ago after a long decline and the only reason to mention them seemed to be to get a cheap pop from the audience in attendance- "Hey! They mentioned The Suicide Machines! The Suicide Machines were from the Detroit area, just like we are! WOOOO!" At least Feldmann, in contrast to Big D's McWane, knows how to work a crowd. The consumate frontman, he was all over the stage, standing on monitors and exhorting the audience to sing along with Goldfinger classics like "Counting the Days" and "Here in Your Bedroom." He invited anyone in the crowd who had seen the band play before to join them onstage to sing along with "Mabel", an ultra-catchy classic from their first album. What looked like 150 people eagerly complied, bouncing around and looking overjoyed to actually be up on the stage. Surprisingly, they all politely filed back off at the end of the song to let the rest of the set continue. The band also had a pair of saxophone players along with them to play on a handful of their tunes that have horn parts. These two guys looked very young, so we were wondering if they were nephews or children of some of the band members or crew. They did a very good job, though, particularly on "Superman", possibly the band's best song. Drummer Darren Pfeiffer brought the show to a screeching halt near the end of the set by getting up from his drums, giving instructions to the audience, and then jumping in to wander around the crowd for a good five minutes. It wasn't a song and it wasn't funny, although the kids down front probably loved it. The couple of songs the band played from the Open Your Eyes album got noticeably less crowd reaction, and they stayed away from Disconnection Notice entirely. It was telling, though, that they only played a single song ("Get Up") from their new album. For a group that was supposed to be a co-headliner touring in support of a new release, Goldfinger's set sounded suspiciously like a band that knows its best days are behind them. Less Than Jake, on the other hand, opened their set with "Does the Lion City Still Roar?" from the brand new GNV FLA album. They went on to play a wide-ranging, slightly goofy show that was full of highlights. From the start, though, something seemed off with the group. The band's saxophone player, JR, was conspicuously absent and replaced by Suburban Legends trumpet player Luis Beza. Beza quickly traded off his spot to Matt, one of the saxophone players from Goldfinger, for the next two songs, the LTJ classic "Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts" and the laid-back "The Science of Selling Yourself Short." Lead singer/guitarist Chris Demakes then explained that JR was attending his grandmother's funeral and that they were grateful for the help from the other bands' horn players. Beza and Matt continued to switch back and forth (and fill in ably) throughout the set, and there were a few songs where the band just played as a foursome, with trombonist Buddy as the only horn. Early in the show Demakes apparently made a disparaging remark about Toledo, Ohio, offending an audience member from Toledo in the process. A few songs later, he invited the guy onstage, apologized to him, gave him a beer, and let him watch the rest of the set from the side of the stage. To go along with the color scheme of the new album, the band's light show was filled with pastel shades of lavender, sea green, and pink. It made for a decidedly different onstage appearance from the typical rock show. The band played fan-favorite "Look What Happened" to a massive audience sing-along that filled the whole theatre and was impressively on-key. A special request a little later on, "Al's War", did not fare so well, as Demakes admitted that they hadn't rehearsed it at all. It was easy to tell as the song suffered during its multiple slow-to-fast transitions. The wacky asides continued as the show went along, with Demakes briefly discussing his childhood growing up in Michigan and mentioning that he had 21 family members in attendance. He also brought up an elderly couple to dance while the band played "Sugar in Your Gas Tank". Despite his over-the-top exhortations to "dirty dance" and "get really nasty", the couple did manage to dance all over the stage during the song and seemed to be having a really good time. Demakes finally went too far about two-thirds of the way through the set when he brought a member of the security staff up and offered him a beer. The guy politely declined because he was on the job, and despite Demakes' pleading and cajoling, he never did take the beer. At this point Demakes became insulting, which caused bassist Roger Manganelli to defend the poor security guard and gave him permission to "Kick (Demakes') ass after the show." Despite the multiple instances of chatter, Less Than Jake knows that the focus of their shows is the music, and they delivered a typically high-energy, dynamic set. Regardless of whether they're playing the speedy "Last One Out of Liberty City" and "All My Best Friends are Metalheads" or the more subdued "Krazy Glue", they always seem to be putting forth maximum effort. It's this effort and energy level that set them apart from many of their now-defunct mid-'90s peers, and a big part of the reason why they continue to outshine their fellow headliners and opening acts. They finished their Royal Oak show with the one-two encore punch of "Gainesville Rock City" and "Plastic Cup Politics", followed by a heartfelt thank you from the band to the audience for allowing them to continue to make a living by making and playing music. |
gobi
|
2:12p |
|
andpuff
|
10:55a |
Movie Addendeum
In a telling sort of way, I forgot that we also saw:
7. Indianna Jones and the Crystal Skull -- While I quite liked the story -- ignoring the 'where the hell did they come from' warriors in the wall -- that was some of the WORST dialogue I've ever heard. As well as sloppy CGI/matt work and a requirement to not so much suspend disbelief but wack it over the head with a brick until it slipped into a coma. Thank gods for Cate Blanchett and Karen Allen who looked like they were having fun. |
gobi
|
7:58a |
Random Idea for ZOMBIES!!! I love ZOMBIES!!! especially with the expansions. Unfortunately, with all those extra cards based on location of stores or proximity to other players, you frequently find yourself having to discard useless cards. This negates one of the most interesting aspects of the game for me, that you can be engaged with other players even if your shotgun guys are in completely separate areas of the town. Proposal: Each color of shotgun guy has a special power. Don't ask me what, it's too early in the morning. Maybe a few classes modeled on Team Fortress 2 or D&D4e, with zombie movie archetypes: "Honest Joe," "Rat Bastard," "Tough Cookie," "Nutjob," that kind of stuff. An archetype's power is fueled by discarding cards. So no matter what, you always have some use for those cards. They never go totally wasted. |
| Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 |
rowangirl
|
11:30p |
Better Today was better. I woke up in a funk still, but Chris called and that helped a lot. It makes me so happy just to hear his voice. Later I went with Jenn to see Iron Man again. She almost never wants to go out, so I figured that since this was something that she really wanted to go that I'd go along. It was still a good movie the second time around, which says something. Oh, I also went the doctor today to get some meds for this stupid sinus infection that just won't go away. Hopefully it'll be all cleared up in no time. I really need to go back to the gym, but with this stupid sinus thing I just haven't had the energy. Tomorrow I will feel better, have more energy, and get some stuff done. Yup. Current Mood:  sleepy |
karen25
|
10:22p |
OMG! This is exciting!I can haz mor diet dr pper? Seriously, no one is allowed to tell me I drink too much soda anymore. Bwahahahahahaha! *disappears into the night* Current Mood:  crazy |
gala_pope
|
7:16p |
random top six The final song can make or break an album. I'm one of the few people left that listens to albums, and not just random tracks, when I listen to music, and (especially now) I find it more impressive when an artist takes care into the track lists and creates an album with a certain flow and not just a collection of songs. It doesn't even need to be a theme or concept album, but just needs to have... almost a narrative to it. Final songs are best when they're either used an as (to continue the analogy) either an epilogue or a climax. Or both. They are so very important; even, if not more so, that the opening tack and are sometimes even the best song on the album. At least I tend to think they should be. Coincidentally enough, there are a good number of my favourite songs that are the final songs on albums. Anyway, enough rambling, I'm sure by now you've figured this is the top six album closers. Sometime later this week (or, whenever) I'll put up the obvious companion of top six opening tracks, but for now, submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I give you: Top Album-ending Songsin no particular orderBorn To Kill & Running For Home by Matthew Good Band (from Beautiful Midnight)* Collapse Light Into Earth by Porcupine Tree (from In Absentia) It's All Gonna Break by Broken Social Scene (from Broken Social Scene) Untitled 8 by Sigur Rós (from ( ) ) No Cities Left by The Dears (from No Cities Left) Release by Pearl Jam (from Ten) Honourable Mention: In Our Bedroom After The War by Stars (from In Our Bedroom After The War) *Yeah, it's two songs, but it works so well as a pair to end the album that I had to include them both. Also, I couldn't find either song on hypemachine or a live version on youtube or anything, so those videos are... well, pretty crappy fan made videos, so just... put them on ina background tab and listen. :p Same with the Porcupine Tree video, for that matter... Why is it so hard to find some songs??? |
gobi
|
9:46p |
[Do] Edits, edits, edits Just spent about four hours on the phone with Ryan hashing out the bulk of the "how to play" section, which is actually woefully mistitled as we soon discovered. Key points for my own reference. Might not be clear to anyone but me and Ryan: - Do is a story-telling game, not a story-playing game. Be explicit about that. Realize it might turn off some potential players, but better to know what the game is and have reasonable expectations.
- Instead of "Narrate," which is a term used so frequently that its definition is nebulous, say "Tell the story of..." This reinforces the story-telling as opposed to story-playing.
- Always say "your pilgrims" and only use "you" in reference to the players.
- Remove the rules concerning placing stones on trouble cards entirely. Instead, incorporate rules about laying trouble cards on top of each other as a sequence of prerequisite resolutions. Be clear about trouble-ownership issues.
- Text thus far has focused on mechanical procedures, but provided few tools or guidance on the story-telling. Fix that.
- Be consistent and universal in the TV episode metaphor when segmenting time in the gameplay. Instead of turns and rounds, they're scenes and acts.
- "Bag" and "Bowl" are similar words and can be confused with each other. Consider changing or amending the terms.
All this among many other broad and minute revisions to be made. We didn't even get to the endgame mechanics yet. |
reviewingchris
|
9:48a |
|
| Monday, June 30th, 2008 |
gobi
|
6:15p |
Countdown to Retirement
First Year of Our Reign is at Lulu's, pending production. Out of my hands for now.
Houses of the Blooded is almost done, pending one small edit to the covers.
A Dirty World is in the midst of Phase 3 layout. Text is flowed, assets gathered and cover designed. |
andpuff
|
4:04p |
2008 Six Months In: Movies |
tmbg
[ omgfifikins ]
|
1:52p |
I have a friend who's roommate is a newscaster 'On the street' for my local Fox17 Tennessee Mornings news show.
Check out his intro.
|
rowangirl
|
12:38a |
Curse you, Hollywood I am succumbing to the curse of the Chick Flick. I am being drawn into the sappy, sugary clutches of a genre where men are expected to be charming yet disarmingly goofy, have brilliant, sparklingly witty replies to every day conversation, and be able to look you deep in the eyes and with a few (charming) sentences tell you everything that you've always wanted to hear. Oh, and there are to be effusive amounts of romantic gestures, such as filling an apartment with your favorite flowers, making a mix tape of only songs you two have danced to, or remembering your favorite book and buying you a first edition copy. This is a slippery, slippery slope. It's not fair to hold a normal person to Chick Flick standards. But it seems like we all do it at some point. I don't think that it's our fault though, as girls we have Prince Charming shoved down our throats by the time we're two. But I think that I might have to put the kibosh on the romance movies from Netflix for a while. Just until this passes. Current Mood:  lonely |
shadmere
|
1:36a |
20 minutes =)
Or, as some people might say, "two Nightwish songs."
I ran 20 minutes tonight without stopping. I'm fairly proud of being capable of doing that.
I nearly passed out when I started walking after the 20 minutes, but still . . . neat. |
| Sunday, June 29th, 2008 |
tmbg
[ jake_is_dead ]
|
10:55p |
Particle man stylophone
Hey there everybody, long time lurker first time poster here.
I was out in town today and managed to pick up one of the new stylophones in a record store sale and I remembered a version of particle man that was played soley on a stylophone from a little while back.
I checked tmbw but any entry for it seems to be gone. Anybody remember anything about it and more importantly does anybody know the notes for it? i'd love to learn to play it. Thanks. |
karen25
|
4:49p |
Do I have to have kids to be a MILF?
I was mowing the lawn last night, bent over with my back to the street picking up a stick, and a car full of teenaged looking boys drove slowly by, yelling, grinning, and making the 'smack that ass' gesture. It was... weird. I suppose they could have been mocking me, but I can't think of anything mock-worthy about mowing my lawn. ("HA-ha! You're taking care of your things!") I prefer to think they were cat-calling. ;)
Oh, and a 20 year old and a 22 year old have messaged me on OKCupid in the past few weeks. I guess my stock is hot with Gen Y. Or something. Heh. |
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