Asymptomatic

I'm a subscriber to Pyramid magazine, and some days I think the only reason I have to do so is because it's an inexpensive, consistent flow of game news. It's because of articles like the one I read today that I fail to fathom why I continue to pay them at all when less expensive tripe can be obtained more abundantly from many other sources.

The article in question is available only to subscribers (sorry), but involves a game that I discovered while meandering around the exhibit floor at Origins. The game is Rock! by Out of the Box Publishing, and is one of the more interesting new card games I saw while at the game fair.

Here is the summary of what the article said about the game, Rock!, besides ranting for several paragraphs about the quality of the materials from which the game was built:

Sadly, the artwork and the tin are the best features this item has to offer. … Alas, Rock! doesn't really rise above its "source material," and the underlying game is an inexpensive way to pay too much for what amounts to a gimmick.

Not only does that make no sense ("inexpensive way to pay too much"?), but it's outright wrong. Let me explain what Pyramid completely overlooked about this game. more

Over the past weekend, we took the usual summer pilgrimage to Johnstown. This time, Berta's sister Therese was in the process of moving, so while they packed up some of their things, I watched the kids. This turned out not too unpleasant. During the time going out and while the kids were entertaining themselves amicably, I was able to do some more reading.

When last Pat as in town, he loaded up my Kindle with a few sample books. I started reading one by Vernor Vinge called "A Fire Upon the Deep". It was both interesting and strange. We also started listening to an audiobook prequel to the Tales of the Otori trilogy, "Heaven's Net is Wide", by Lian Hearn.

A Fire Upon the Deep is, as I said, strange. It's been a while since I've read true space sci-fi, and this certainly qualifies. It will be difficult to explain some of the many layered characteristics of this book, which set to establish axioms by which Vinge's world operates....

I've been working on some improvements to Pastoid lately. It started out as more of a response to the URL shorteners that keep popping up everywhere and getting all the press, which Pastoid languishes in obscurity.

For those that don't know, Pastoid is a site that serves two major functions. First, it functions as a URL shortener, like the ubiquitous TinyURL. Second, it functions as a pastebin, like pastebin.com. It has a few little extra features that set it apart, and I have a lot planned for it that will break it out as something really different and special from those other tools.

I recently updated the look of the site. It has been getting mostly negative reaction. I think people don't like the grungy purple. Maybe I'll revise it again, but it does affect the change I wanted where the sidebar is moved to the left to allow code sections to expand in the liquid layout on the right. In addition to that, I've been working on the thumbnail improvement project, which is the true impetus for this post....

Over the weekend, I visited Columbus, not just to hang out with skippy at ComFest and buy too much crap at Origins, but to attend and lead a session at PodCamp Ohio.

The side dishes to this entrée are actually better than the meat, but the meat was the point of the dinner, so that's what I'll talk about here. I'm all about focus here. Focus.

I showed up right on time for the welcome session on Saturday and checked in. I hadn't been able to show up for the Friday night meetup because of the previously mentioned "side dishes". I checked in and was shown to the "Speaker Lounge", marked off by signs with martini glasses (with olive!). After a brief welcome from another couple of session leaders in the lounge, we all shuffled down to Room A for the introduction.

I'm not going to do a play-by-play of the rest of the day, because that's already feeling tedious. Let me cover briefly a couple of sessions I did attend, and my overall impression of the camp. more

We're trying to get things ready at the house for the BBQ next Saturday (if you haven't RSVP'ed yet, you're almost too late. If you know me and you didn't get an invitation, I must not have your email or it got caught as spam, because I invited everyone, so RSVP anyway.), and although Berta is doing a great job of spiffing things up, we still have the perennial issue with the garage entry area. Between the powder room with the diapers and the litter box for the cats, that area is expectedly a little bit more smelly than I'd like.

Combined with an interest to obtain the usual supplies to take care of that, I also noticed that I was running low on deodorant. Nothing like making the house smell nice and then not smelling very fresh myself. So I decided it was prudent to make a quick grocery run at lunch time to pick up some of these items.

While standing in the deodorant aisle looking for my usual brand, I saw the Axe brand body sprays. I had bought one of these once just to see what they were all about, and it turns out that they're just really, really strong deodorant-smelling perfume sprays. Not really a surprise, given the commercials. But a lack of another product on the shelf led me to recall the following character-building story from my jaded youth....