Bryan
Overworked, Creatively Exhausted
Wednesday, November 21, 06:13 AM
As you might have noticed, my postings of late have been lame.
Lame, lame, lame. I'm at a creative brick wall. Plus I've been
working a lot and really only have a few hours at home most
weekdays. I have so many uncompleted big projects that working on
the small projects or the filler posts seem like a waste of time.
Work is very busy lately as well, so I am unable to focus much on
Things there either. Does anyone like the month before
Christmas?
I have a big project that may be a Christmas present, but can't
corral the time or energy to finish it. So, here's what I want to
do: work on it an hour a day or a minimum of five hours a week
until it's done. That's more time than the stupid filler posts and
is actually working toward someThing. And posting about it would be
stupid. It's also a bit of a waste of time and your energy to read
the post.
So if I lose, I lose. But I'm going to post only when something is
done.
I have a backlog of projects I'd like to finish. Big projects that
hopefully you'd enjoy as well. Time, lack of energy and a feeling
of creative exhaustion are killing me.
Hope to have something big soon.
Wedding Pics Part Two
Thursday, November 15, 11:52 PM
Wedding Pics Part One
Wednesday, November 14, 11:55 PM
A few months ago, Shelly and I took some pictures at a wedding reception for a work friend. Today's Thing is fixing all the photos. Tomorrow, I'll have a DVD for the couple with a menu and photos. Fixing the over 130 photos took a while because the lighting was low and everyone had red eye. It was tricky finding the right exposure, color temp and saturation. There were a few good shots in the set, but because of a weird pause on the digital camera, almost all of the bride shots caught her with a strange expression on her face.
Oh well.
Caffeine Comic
Tuesday, November 13, 03:18 AM
The Budget
Monday, November 12, 11:37 PM
Today's Thing is a budget page to track the bills. I made all the charts. The numbers in the chart now are phony, but, for years, I've just been logging the bills on scraps of pages. This way, with the help of a real Numbers program, I can see where the money goes each month. I hope to be completely out of debt in about four to five years. And I've finally paid off my student loans this month. So, woo-hoo!
Netgear Port Mapping
Thursday, November 08, 11:44 PM
Ice Cream Maker
Tuesday, November 06, 07:54 PM
Mmmm, mmmm. You can create your own ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. This is a morning ice cream with chocolate covered expresso beans, hazelnuts, dark chocolate and other goodies.
Yea, morning ice cream.
Dapper
Monday, November 05, 03:17 PM
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There's new web based programs to make mash-ups on the web. You're taking content and repurposing it. I made this simple test using Dapper. There's also Pipes where I made a TTOTD flicker feed. I was lead down the mash-up rabbit hole with this cool ad generator.
Action Figure
Friday, November 02, 11:45 PM
Older Brother's Records - New York
Wednesday, October 31, 11:22 AM
Oct Pics
Tuesday, October 30, 11:06 PM
Pushout Graphics Final
Monday, October 29, 11:47 PM
This is the last Pushout post for a while. I'll still be working on it, just not posting. I finally have the final graphics locked. It takes about 15 to 30 minutes to make a six-card page. There's 216 cards, so if I just make a page or two a day, I'll be done in under a month. It prints out nice and I'm also making the electronic versions of the cards.
Pushout Half Graphics
Thursday, October 25, 11:08 PM
I've made 366 'half graphics' for the game. Each half is one half of the cards. I've also made only 36 of the 216 cards. It took over two hours just to make the 36 cards and I plan to scrap that and remake them because I didn't like the look. The half graphics took over five hours.
The game is creeping along.
Pushout Math
Wednesday, October 24, 01:39 PM
Every spare minute of every spare day between now and Saturday while I'm near the computer will be spent making the game. There's much more work to be done than I thought on this complete game overhaul. I probably won't have the rules finished in time or a downloadable PDF, but I should have all the cards made. There are 216 cards, each different. Today's Thing is designing those 216 cards. there was some math and chartwork involved and yet it may still be hopelessly broken. We'll see. The good news is I've also made a card making factory and have split the graphics into each half. I'll have, when I'm finished every possible card half available to cut and paste. There's 12 to a page and one page for each of th 28 mechanics, so that's 336 card halves for the 212 cards. Then I have to assemble the cards, eeek, back to work.
Pushout Graphics Overhaul
Tuesday, October 23, 01:29 PM
This weekend, there's a few small game cons in Lincoln. I'm hoping to completely overhaul Pushout to make it play faster, with more strategy and with an eye to a four player expansion. I hope to demo the game this weekend. Above is the new designed card with, as you can see, two new abilities. I'm rewriting the rules and changing a lot. I'm also preparing the game for an electronic version and redoing the way I make cards. Thanks to Jesse for helping me play test. I am leaving the game open for expansions. This one card represents a lot of work and thought.
Although, the final version will probably have a different font.
PCI Card
Wednesday, October 10, 11:28 PM
My warhorse mac is over six years old and still chugging along. I'm expanding the mac with a bigger external hard drive and a better DVD burner, but I have to install a USB 2.0 card to upgrade. I've never installed a PCI card before and it turned out to be pretty easy. No drivers or nuthin'. The hardest part was getting all the dust out from inside the mac, that was three-fourths of the time. For those with older computers, blow the dust out of them every six months or so. I must have aired out a pound of dust, all sucked in by the fan system. Anyway, here's some photos:
New Pushout Cards
Tuesday, October 09, 09:42 PM
I'm working on some new Pushout cards. I plan to have a
graphical overhaul of the game. (These graphics will be changed)
Plus I'm making 60 or more different cards. The guys at Lackey are helping
me port the game over so it can be played over the internet using
their super awesome program for playing CCG's. You can read about
it here. I hope to have a more formalized version of
the game by Monday or Tuesday. The old version is here.
Game Collection
Monday, October 08, 04:57 PM
Over
the weekend, I added all the games in the house to
Board Game Geek.
We have over 150 games, just in the house. We didn't even look
downstairs and I know I have some games at Kel's house. The goal is
to use this random selection to get us to play games we haven't
played in a long time. I can think of 10 games off the top of my
head I've never even played that I've bought. I admit it, I'm a
game-a-holic. So, take a look around, refresh the page and discover
some games you'd like to play.
I also added the random selection of games to the sidebar.
I also added the random selection of games to the sidebar.
Dice and a Badly Painted Mini
Friday, October 05, 06:26 PM
Pushout the Game
Thursday, October 04, 11:34 PM
HERE'S the game. Pushout is under half a meg.
It's a nine page PDF with all the parts you need to play including 30 cards (printed off twice to make the 60 card deck), the card backs, the fully illustrated rules and a page of variations.
Download it now. It's not big and it's a full free abstract strategy card game for two players. Yea! I wrote a new game. And this one's pretty good.
An addition to the rules after play testing a bit:
A left/right movement may push itself off the board, lemming-like, leaving a hole. All normal side rules apply.
If a face down card is pushed off the side of the board, it comes under control of that player's side. The player has two options, discard the card or place back into the newly created hole in it's starting orientation. The player does not get to chose the card's orientation as all flipped and drawn cards onto the board are treated this way.
Pushout Graphics
Wednesday, October 03, 04:24 AM
Today's Thing is part one of a new abstract card game I wrote called Pushout. Today, I spent a few hours on creating the templates, formatting, design and layout of the 30 unique cards of the game. The picture you see is the set-up for a bigger variation of the game called Double Pushout. There are seven pages of printable cards, including a page of card backing for double-sided printers. The nut of this Thing for me was developing a system to make the cards easy to assemble in a factory-like way. This will make it easier to add expansions down the road.
When the game is finalized, it'll have graphic examples of game play and some game play variations. Tomorrow, I write the rules and will post the PDF.
So, warm up your printers for a free game tomorrow (probably late) and help me play test Pushout.
Game Theory
Tuesday, October 02, 03:26 AM
My biggest enemy is time for these daily Things. I have about 7 or 8 big ideas, but no time to really finish them to my satisfaction. Most of these projects actually have some work completed, but with the draining, but necessary work still ahead.
For instance, today I wrote an abstract card game based on a mutual player use of cards. It's got thirty cards in the game. I know what I'm putting on the cards and the rules aren't too complex. The problem is graphics. That's the time suck, making each card graphic for the PDF and the one or two graphic for the rules to show the table layout for the game. Here's a mock-up of one of the 30 different cards in the game. It took me fifteen minutes and it's not my final idea. Ugh.
So, today's Thing is a quick run down of some of my larger projects, mostly games.
1. The game you see above. It's a smallish card game.
2. The big game. It's a word/tile game with modular, scalable rules. This game, if it works, is the one I want to get published. There's 144 cards in the first expansion and 200 small tokens, 50 of four different colors. There's still a lot of math to do, plus writing the rules and the 20 or so variations we've already dreamed up, making each individual card in four colors.
3. My two-player RPG, still in the very early stages.
4. An evil office game that's mostly written. It uses a deck of cards and could get you fired. It's a social game to help spice up the question, "So, how'd work go today?" You can play by yourself even. It's less a game, than an organized prank.
5. A different fame/RPG based on the Dreamblade miniatures, adding a storytelling aspect to the game.
6. An RPG using CCG cards like Magic or The Spoils as a sort of GM for the game and character creation.
7. A Hybrid game using OctaNe and The Roach.
8. A fake TV Guide to the new season, I have the graphics finished and some of the comedy written. I hope that's done by Monday because comedy grows stale quickly.
9. An OctaNe adventure.
I know this is mostly gibberish, but it's a reminder of what I have yet to do. Most days it's easy enough to slap out a comic or create some goofy TTOTD web page or generate bad abstract art. I try to be finished in an hour or so, but the large projects still nag at me. Even the new podcasts take about 4-5 hours.
One last note, The Cashington Roach setting I made for The Roach of Al-Hib Shari was noticed and linked by the game creator, Jason Morningstar. It's HERE, cool. He posted it weeks ago and I finally noticed it, duh. I also posted The Walking Dead scenario to Board Game Geek.
Older Brother's Records - Big Beat and Trip Hop
Friday, September 28, 06:13 AM
Two more radio shows from the archives today. Both shows are hosted by my computer friend, Electronic Filler and the Big Beat show has lots of fun cutting and shenanigans. Off to Nukecon.
Get the
Older Brother's Records Big Beat Show HERE.
Get the
Older Brother's Records Trip Hop Show HERE.Soon, I'll be all out of old shows and have to make new ones.
Gamecon Bizcards
Thursday, September 27, 01:18 PM
Last Night on Earth Scenario
Tuesday, September 25, 12:53 PM
Shelly and I picked up a new game this
weekend to get ready for Nukecon, plus the game is one I've been looking
forward to for a while, Last
Night On Earth. It's a zombie game where one player plays the
heros and the other side are zombies. There's a real cinematic feel
to the game and you can play a game in two hours or so. Monday's
game even had the full plot of a B grade zombie movie. The four
heros arrive to town find the bio canisters that are causing the
undead out break. The drifter was lucky early on finding the first
canister in the hospital and getting to the truck. As the others
spread out, farm girl Jenny held off the zombies in the cornfield
and the sheriff came along as back up. Track star Billy was the
real early hero finding the other canister, but on the way to the
truck he was killed and turned into a super zombie. The zombies
swarmed around the remaining canister. The Drifter, trapped, died
in the hospital. The only female, Jenny, got to the canister as the
Sheriff died protecting her. The heros won, but only the buxom
Jenny drove away alive. Shelly won.
Ok, the rest is just for the nerds who have the game and I'll post this scenario to the Board Game Geek page. This is a rough draft.
The Walking Dead (20 Turns)
The Walking Dead uses the zombie rules found in the comic The Walking Dead. Basically, if you die, you come back as a zombie, period. This scenario is best with only two people and is meant to build and escalate. The hero player starts with only one hero. He's gotta find all the other heros, join up and save all the townsfolk, get to the truck and get out of town.
Set up
The board uses the Manor center with the four random L-Shaped pieces around the Manor AND the remaining two pieces forming a square in the middle of one of the edges of the large square. The truck is placed in the middle of the farthest piece from the Manor.
The hero player can if they want put all eight characters in any order in a pile to start the game. It's more fun if it's random. The hero starts with one character at the truck and draws three cards to start. A random building is with each of the 1-6 L-shaped pieces given a die number. The next Hero is placed in that building, but is not activated or able to play yet. How a Hero is activated one of two ways: either a current active player searches the building the dormant Hero is in or at the start of the third Hero turn after the dormant Hero was placed. When a Hero is activated, they may draw two cards and only two cards. When a Hero is activated, another dormant Hero is placed in a random building. You can have up to eight active Heros.
Zombie set-up
The Zombie player gets twenty zombies. At the start the roll only a D6 and place the Zombies. There is always Zombie spawning. It is equal to the number of active Heros.
The Objectives
The Hero wins if they rescue all eight townspeople and all the live Heros leave town in the truck. The Zombie player wins if all Heros are dead after turn five. Heros can replace their last character until turn five. However, once a character dies, it is removed from the game. The Zombie player cannot win on a Hero deck depletion, the cards are just reshuffled on the next zombie discard. To rescue a townsfolk, the Hero must guide the townsfolk into the center four squares of the Manor. Once in these squares, the townsfolk is safe and cannot be attacked for any reason. The townsfolk are items for the Hero. When a townsfolk is drawn, roll for a random building, that's where the townsfolk is. You must search in that building to find the townsfolk. If a hero is killed or chooses to leave a townsfolk, the townsfolk can survive on their own. The get to draw one card and keep any item, but must discard any events. They are a two wound character with no special abilities. If the townsfolk is killed, set aside their card. At the start of the next Zombie turn, the townsfolk is a Super Zombie in a random building. The Super Zombie must be killed before the regular townsfolk is placed again in a random building.
After all of the townsfolk are rescued, all of the Heros must make it to the truck. They are safer once on the truck square. Zombies can only enter the space on a roll of 4+. However, the game is not won until all active Heros are on the truck. The Zombie Player may play the Locked Door card on a remains in play card on the truck only. Then the Hero needs the keys.
Super Zombie
All Heros and townsfolk who die will become a Super Zombie. That's just how it is in The Walking Dead. However, as an extra action, a Hero in the same space with the newly dead may immediately use gasoline and fire to burn the body and prevent the change. The good news is the Super Zombie does not turn right away or even where they died. The new Super Zombie is placed at the beginning of the zombie turn.
I think that covers it for the rough draft. Enjoy.
Ok, the rest is just for the nerds who have the game and I'll post this scenario to the Board Game Geek page. This is a rough draft.
The Walking Dead (20 Turns)
The Walking Dead uses the zombie rules found in the comic The Walking Dead. Basically, if you die, you come back as a zombie, period. This scenario is best with only two people and is meant to build and escalate. The hero player starts with only one hero. He's gotta find all the other heros, join up and save all the townsfolk, get to the truck and get out of town.
Set up
The board uses the Manor center with the four random L-Shaped pieces around the Manor AND the remaining two pieces forming a square in the middle of one of the edges of the large square. The truck is placed in the middle of the farthest piece from the Manor.
The hero player can if they want put all eight characters in any order in a pile to start the game. It's more fun if it's random. The hero starts with one character at the truck and draws three cards to start. A random building is with each of the 1-6 L-shaped pieces given a die number. The next Hero is placed in that building, but is not activated or able to play yet. How a Hero is activated one of two ways: either a current active player searches the building the dormant Hero is in or at the start of the third Hero turn after the dormant Hero was placed. When a Hero is activated, they may draw two cards and only two cards. When a Hero is activated, another dormant Hero is placed in a random building. You can have up to eight active Heros.
Zombie set-up
The Zombie player gets twenty zombies. At the start the roll only a D6 and place the Zombies. There is always Zombie spawning. It is equal to the number of active Heros.
The Objectives
The Hero wins if they rescue all eight townspeople and all the live Heros leave town in the truck. The Zombie player wins if all Heros are dead after turn five. Heros can replace their last character until turn five. However, once a character dies, it is removed from the game. The Zombie player cannot win on a Hero deck depletion, the cards are just reshuffled on the next zombie discard. To rescue a townsfolk, the Hero must guide the townsfolk into the center four squares of the Manor. Once in these squares, the townsfolk is safe and cannot be attacked for any reason. The townsfolk are items for the Hero. When a townsfolk is drawn, roll for a random building, that's where the townsfolk is. You must search in that building to find the townsfolk. If a hero is killed or chooses to leave a townsfolk, the townsfolk can survive on their own. The get to draw one card and keep any item, but must discard any events. They are a two wound character with no special abilities. If the townsfolk is killed, set aside their card. At the start of the next Zombie turn, the townsfolk is a Super Zombie in a random building. The Super Zombie must be killed before the regular townsfolk is placed again in a random building.
After all of the townsfolk are rescued, all of the Heros must make it to the truck. They are safer once on the truck square. Zombies can only enter the space on a roll of 4+. However, the game is not won until all active Heros are on the truck. The Zombie Player may play the Locked Door card on a remains in play card on the truck only. Then the Hero needs the keys.
Super Zombie
All Heros and townsfolk who die will become a Super Zombie. That's just how it is in The Walking Dead. However, as an extra action, a Hero in the same space with the newly dead may immediately use gasoline and fire to burn the body and prevent the change. The good news is the Super Zombie does not turn right away or even where they died. The new Super Zombie is placed at the beginning of the zombie turn.
I think that covers it for the rough draft. Enjoy.
TV Big Shot
Monday, September 24, 11:32 PM
It's game week at TTOTD.
But, today's little Thing is a pointer to TV Big Shot---it's like Fantasy Football for TV Nerds. You buy shows, create a mini network and see how they do in the ratings. (BTW, I'm doing really well in the Fantasy Football league I was coerced into joining, who knew?) So, I bought some shows. I balanced cheap shows like Kitchen Confidential and Reaper which may pay off benefits in moderate ratings for a low price (Isn't that the modern TV programmers modis operandi? That explains the glut of reality shows.) with high profile shows like Private Practice and Ugly Betty. We'll see how it goes.
One show I picked is a drama I screened a few months ago, Dirty Sexy Money. I think this show might be big and have at least one big season. It's a big old-time soap with an okay mystery at the center, a great cast, fast pacing, clever writing and more edge-pushing than most soaps. There's really only one likable character, Peter Krause as the family lawyer, Nick George. As you've probably gathered from the promos, Krause is running around getting the evil, rich spoiled family out of trouble. The great thing about Krause, as he was on Six Feet Under, is he can be both a sympathetic and jerk character in the same scene. If he was a genuinely good guy, you'd be mad at him for putting up with the craziness. That's the other good part about the show, almost no one else is a moral, good person. It's a show of highly motivated, good looking Larry Davids without the apologies. Fortunately, one of the benefits of a highly capitalistic society is that seeing rich people suffer is almost a mechanism of the zeitgeist. In that way, Dirty Sexy Money almost fulfills a social mandate. Yeah, evil rich people is a cliche, but clever, spoiled, whiney, well-acted rich people transcends. The twist is that all these spoiled kids have their political, religious (a entitled New Yawk social climbing Minister) and talent-based jobs paid for by Daddy Evilbucks (Donald Sutherland in a great scene-chewing role). And it's by the people who brought us Arrested Development.
It's a good show. I put the show on my team. So, it'll probably get cancelled.
A quick mini-review: Pushing Daisies is a very pretty, cute show about a dark topic that could at any minute devolve into preciousness. Check it out, give it three episodes.
But, today's little Thing is a pointer to TV Big Shot---it's like Fantasy Football for TV Nerds. You buy shows, create a mini network and see how they do in the ratings. (BTW, I'm doing really well in the Fantasy Football league I was coerced into joining, who knew?) So, I bought some shows. I balanced cheap shows like Kitchen Confidential and Reaper which may pay off benefits in moderate ratings for a low price (Isn't that the modern TV programmers modis operandi? That explains the glut of reality shows.) with high profile shows like Private Practice and Ugly Betty. We'll see how it goes.
One show I picked is a drama I screened a few months ago, Dirty Sexy Money. I think this show might be big and have at least one big season. It's a big old-time soap with an okay mystery at the center, a great cast, fast pacing, clever writing and more edge-pushing than most soaps. There's really only one likable character, Peter Krause as the family lawyer, Nick George. As you've probably gathered from the promos, Krause is running around getting the evil, rich spoiled family out of trouble. The great thing about Krause, as he was on Six Feet Under, is he can be both a sympathetic and jerk character in the same scene. If he was a genuinely good guy, you'd be mad at him for putting up with the craziness. That's the other good part about the show, almost no one else is a moral, good person. It's a show of highly motivated, good looking Larry Davids without the apologies. Fortunately, one of the benefits of a highly capitalistic society is that seeing rich people suffer is almost a mechanism of the zeitgeist. In that way, Dirty Sexy Money almost fulfills a social mandate. Yeah, evil rich people is a cliche, but clever, spoiled, whiney, well-acted rich people transcends. The twist is that all these spoiled kids have their political, religious (a entitled New Yawk social climbing Minister) and talent-based jobs paid for by Daddy Evilbucks (Donald Sutherland in a great scene-chewing role). And it's by the people who brought us Arrested Development.
It's a good show. I put the show on my team. So, it'll probably get cancelled.
A quick mini-review: Pushing Daisies is a very pretty, cute show about a dark topic that could at any minute devolve into preciousness. Check it out, give it three episodes.
Bad Mod Art
Friday, September 21, 01:23 PM
Moral Orals
Thursday, September 20, 01:32 PM
Today's Thing is a set of morality tests. I took them all. It took about an hour and a half to take all of them, but you can take the main ones in a short period of time. The problem is squaring your self-image, either up or down, with your actions and practical thoughts. I have a hard time with absolutes as well.
Try it yourself.
Thingor
Tuesday, September 18, 01:23 PM
The Comic Strip For Babies
Monday, September 17, 11:19 PM
Another nonsensical comic strip can be found at The TTOTD Strip Generator Site. As always, apologies in advance for the blue material.
Dreams of Evil Clowns
Wednesday, September 12, 01:26
PM
I have a bad cold and when I close my eyes I see only evil clowns.
The slow Thing week continues with evil clowns, as if any other kind exists.
Readymech
Tuesday, September 11, 02:07 PM
There's plenty more cool paper creature designs at Readymech. And I'm sure you can put them together better than me.
TTOTD facebook
Monday, September 10, 11:23 PM
Kind of a slow week this week, Today's
Thing continues the endless stream of TOTTD hollow promotions, I
signed up for facebook. I created an entry for myself. Then created a group for this website and put it in the
sidebar.
I like facebook way better than myspace---better layout, easier to find people, impossible to remember the URL. However, there is a bit of a stalker-y vibe to the whole site. I know the just-outta-college girls and the creepier just-outta-college boys at work sit around eating up company time cross-referencing all their comments and semi-connections to each other and every other just-outta-college kid on the planet. It's a rabbit hole of endless, pointless info.
The amount of cross-referencing of groups, ID's, locations, work and everything else is tasty tempting catnip to even the laziest of looky-loos. It's almost im-pos-i-ble not to click down the chain.
Anyway, I still think cell phones can be blamed for all this self-absorbed constant blather. Not a new thought, but cell phones + Twitter will end civilization.
Anyway, enjoy the TTOTD facebook page.
I hope inspiration hits, so there's real content from me this week.
I like facebook way better than myspace---better layout, easier to find people, impossible to remember the URL. However, there is a bit of a stalker-y vibe to the whole site. I know the just-outta-college girls and the creepier just-outta-college boys at work sit around eating up company time cross-referencing all their comments and semi-connections to each other and every other just-outta-college kid on the planet. It's a rabbit hole of endless, pointless info.
The amount of cross-referencing of groups, ID's, locations, work and everything else is tasty tempting catnip to even the laziest of looky-loos. It's almost im-pos-i-ble not to click down the chain.
Anyway, I still think cell phones can be blamed for all this self-absorbed constant blather. Not a new thought, but cell phones + Twitter will end civilization.
Anyway, enjoy the TTOTD facebook page.
I hope inspiration hits, so there's real content from me this week.
The Thing Radio 7
Friday, September 07, 02:08 AM
This week's show is all new music except for Old 97's. That's All.
Get the CD Jewel Inset HERE.
Get the deluxe AAC version HERE.
Get the crappy MP3 version HERE.
Subscribe in itunes and visit the TTOTD Radio Page.
Long Week. Have a good weekend.
The Cashington Roach
Wednesday, September 05, 11:55
PM
In June, I contacted Bully Pulpit Games about posting an audio recording of the rules to The Shab-Al-Hiri Roach. They were very nice about it. At Gencon, Roach creator Jason Morningstar premiered an add-on to the Roach called The Roach Returns. The expansions details two new settings for Roach-y mayhem to take place.
I had an idea for a new setting and that's today's Thing. Today's Thing actually took a few days.
The Roach always struck me as an evil, evil soap, so why not expand on that idea. It's Dallas meets American Psycho. The Cashingtons are not just merely rich, but unholy rich. And like most large rich families, the siblings are at each other's throats. You play a spoiled sibling out to harm your other siblings. This is BEFORE The Roach arrives. Greed is great, but bedlam is better.
The four-page PDF features character sheets, events, business interests and obsessions, descriptions, dice charts and play rules, plus a new rules page add-on to encourage deep, dark secrets to come to the surface. Most of the changes in setting can be inferred from the PDF and your imagination can fill in the gaps. I hope it's playable. I haven't play-tested it just yet. I just finished the new setting today. If you want to know more about this weird game, The Shab-Al-Hiri Roach follow the links below down the rabbit hole. The Roach, um, commands you.
Also, if you have any suggestions for improvement, leave a comment or email me.
Grab the Rules in handy audio form MP3 version HERE or AAC version HERE. The rules are slightly abridged and poorly read by me. Also, the card text was left out, so buy the game. Or come over to my house and play. This is a taste.
Download the new setting, The Cashington Roach HERE.
It's a small four-page PDF, handy for printing and usable with existing Roach rules.
Enjoy.
Games Not Gaming
Tuesday, September 04, 12:52 PM
After spending a weekend figuring out Fantasy Football, I've decided to start a faux advocacy group, Games Not Gaming. GNG is founded on the idea that if you have to bet on a game to play it, the game itself is boring. It's not an anti-gambling group, it's an anti-lame game group. There's no real game in Fantasy Football. It's just gambling dressed up and nerdified. Ever play Blackjack NOT for money. Bo-Ring. However, people play Monopoly, a game about getting money for free, with no bets everyday. The only betting game I can think of that's interesting is poker. And really, it's just mildly interesting. Playing for no money renders poker pointless. Slots ISN'T a game. Real games of skill and strategy are only played for money by hustlers and fools. Case in point, pool. And you can enjoy pool without money changing hands.
So remember, if you have to pay to play, the play is lame. Word.
Creative Commons
Monday, September 03, 03:52 AM
Today's thing is a creative Commons License for the web site.
This is for the original work on the site. If you must steal, please attribute.
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Random Acts of Randomness 3
Friday, August 31, 01:27 PM
UNZIP.
PRINT.
POST IN PUBLIC PLACES.
TEAR DOWN.
NO REVOLUTION.
THE 'MY IMAGINARY FRIEND' EDITION
HERE
PRINT.
POST IN PUBLIC PLACES.
TEAR DOWN.
NO REVOLUTION.
THE 'MY IMAGINARY FRIEND' EDITION
HERE
Happy Birthday To Me
Thursday, August 30, 11:23 PM
Fantasy Football
Wednesday, August 29, 03:30 AM
Today's Thing was supposed to be a Alberto Gonzales cartoon. I had the master panel and titles done, but didn't like the jokes. Although, did you know that Gee-Dub's nickname for Gonzales was "Fredo?" So, that means either a.) Bush thinks Alberto is the weak son link in his mafia (uh, so, yea, he must also see himself as operating the gub-ment as a mafia business. Yep. Uh-huh.) or b.) he really likes spaghetti sauce.
So, I had to come up with something else. The guys at work have been bugging me to join their fantasy football league. Bugging me like carnival barkers, bugging me like jackals. They know a mark when they see one. But, hey, it is a new Thing. I can learn about it, see what the buzz is (That buzz is about what 10 years old?). I'm not a sports guy, I'd rather watch a movie. I'd rather play a board game than watch a game.
But Jiminy Christmas, fantasy football is the nerdiest circle jerk I've ever run across. On the nerd scale, fantasy football guys make the Star Wars dorks at Comicon look like Hugh freekin' Hefner. Obsessed with minutia to an OCD extent, the blowing up of ghost legends and lore to sycophantic heights, the pointless debates, the tiny-dicked bragging, the twitch twitch twitch at the websites worse than a porn-obssessed meth addict, all that sound and fury signifying nada.
Sports nerds are the nerdiest nerds in nerdville. Most other kinds of nerds I've met have some humorous detachment from their obsessions, but not hardcore fantasy football nerds. Fantasy football nerds are like the mainstream religion of nerdom. Enough people do it, so no one can question it's wackiness. It's serious 'effin business.
So, anyway, I decided to embrace the nerd half of FANTASY football. It's all abstract BS numbers and luck anyway. A weird stat-based game minus the cool, nifty bits. So, I whipped the graphics in this post because every team needs a logo and signed up. Hey, new weird software. I can't think of a better name for my team than The Turf Nerds, but I do like the first fantasy football pic.
Looks like I'll be losing 20 bucks on a stupid game. It's happened before.
More Bad Conceptual Art
Tuesday, August 28, 01:06 PM
More bad conceptual art. For some reason, you get a lot of toliets. It's avant garde art circa 1926. Try it HERE.
TV Roundup
Monday, August 27, 11:55 PM
Awhile ago, Shelly and I did a
TV Blog. It was mostly a bust. Sure, I'll take the
fall. Anyway, I work for a giant media conglomerate in the way a
worker drone serves their queen and I've seen the pilot episodes
for some new fall shows on a network that rhymes with
'Shmay-She-See.' I thought today's Thing would be a short review on
these new shows. To make it hard, I saw the pilots, like, two
months ago and the reviews are hazy. TV is best remembered half-way
anyway. I usually see the Shmay-She-See pilots early. I have a
track record of liking shows that die a quick death. So, the shows
I don't like should be your cue to grab that TIVO pass. Also,
bosses, please look kindly, I consider myself part of that New Geek
Consumer that determines national tastes and is mentioned in every
article about Comicon. In college, they just called us music nazis
and Point dexter.
Comedies today, dramas later. So in no particular order.
Miss/Guided
A mid-season replacement. I'm a fan of Judy Greer and I've liked her in almost everything I've seen her in, even crap. And she's the lynchpin of this show. Like David Duchovny and Californication, this show wouldn't work without her or with another actress. My network has caught onto geekmania but is contractually obligated to skew female, so this is the result. The premise is a female Welcome Back Kotter where Kotter was the unpopular nerd kid. Unstated theme, you can always re-invent yourself, Ugly Betty without the camp and gay. Judy's a guidance counselor who, get this, could use social counseling herself. Wack-ee. She has an unrequited crush, a popular girl arch-enemy and (the new stereotype for the new century, IE 1970's) an exasperated, overworked black principle. Actually, I liked the show. The pacing was Earl-esque, Judy's great, most of the adults are okay, they could use less kids, but, hey, it's a high school. Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas has already been on the show and left, so that's not good news. I keep hearing 'retooling' when people talk about the show. I have a feeling the pilot I saw will not look like the show they'll air three times before canceling it. Yea, I liked it. It's canceled. And it's a mid-season show, so look for According to Jim to eventually replace Miss/Guided which will replace...
Carpoolers
Quick, name a four person all male buddy sitcom that was a success. Y'know, the one that is inevitably called "The male Sex In The City." Can't do it. Hasn't been one. Seinfeld had Elaine, she doesn't count. And the gawd-awful Wild Hogs is a movie. But hey, all the cliches are here--- the newly married naive guy, the lothario with no furnishings in his bachelor pad save his plasma TV and exercise chair/barcalounger, the hen-pecked weak husband who uses the carpool as his escape, and the normal guy who feels emasculated. And the hook, they share a car pool. Yep, that's the whole flimsy premise. Male bounding through sitting in traffic. There's lame 'a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do' speeches, the weirdo grown-up son, ironic jobs, and other sitcom-land conventions. At least it's not all done on a sound studio. It's really generic on all fronts. I understand Jerry O' Connell and Faith Ford will work cheap and the rest of the cast just needs a job, but c'mon, step up people. It's hacky on almost all fronts. It's isn't According to Jim eye-searingly bad, but Jim will be doing double-duty soon. There's another show with incredibly lame premise, you've heard of it, hell, you may even have their insurance. But at least...
Cavemen
doesn't suck. Yea, I know, I'm surprised too. Mind you, it isn't a great show. But, Cavemen benefits from living up to low expectations. I'm not TIVO'ing it, but I'll ditch working to watch it. The premise, Cavemen are the new black people. They don't come out and say it and they even conspicuously have one black bit part in the pilot to drive that point away, but who's kidding who? Cavemen living in modern times are subject to all kinds of racists (specieists?) stereotypes. They're the dumb weather guys on TV, their athletic, and so on and so on. And this notion is what makes a dumb premise watch-able, there's some satire in the show. It isn't razor-sharp, but there's room for improvement and growth as the subculture and regular folks reactions are explored. Although, the show could get dumb fast if they stick to the three main characters personalities instead of widening out. There's the dumb one, the sarcastic one and the one who wants to fit in. (See a pattern here with sitcoms?) A few nifty visual gags, clever sarcastic remarks and a drunk Julie White (Work that cliche, baby!) made the tired set-up of rednecks at the country club trying to woo daddy (John Heard, slummin' away) to get the way-too-hot girl actually not seem painful. Caveman will probably only last a season just by name-recogition alone. Could go longer if the right tone is set. Speaking of toney, or Shmay-She-See's attempts at it...
Samantha Who
falls a little short of that new brand comedy that's funny and failing over there at NBC. Okay, it's a female My Name is Earl, no getting around it. There's no list or wacky meth addicts, but the redemption template is pretty well set in stone. Bad girl Christina Applegate gets amnesia (hi-larious!) and uses her forgetfulness to atone for her bad past. What bad thing did she do in the past, I bet a funny flashback will let us know. It's a high-brow show 'cause, c'mon she was a bad girl and she's our hero. But now she wants to be good. Having cake and eating it, mmmmm, mmmm. It's also high-brow 'cause it's set in the big city, people wear fashion and between scenes are handwritten title cards. Frasier what have you done? Now that I think about it, that's one of the things that bugs me about Flight of the Concords. That conceit hasn't really worked since Rushmore. And indie movies probably have more cliches than sitcoms. Anyway, don't remember much about the show (hee!), nor do I remember either liking or hating it. I think the show may be the highest rated of the new sitcoms because it's glossy, men and women like Christina Applegate (and she's fine in the role), there's the appearance of outrageousness without any pesky bite and a large female segment needs more than the Sex and the City reruns on TBS. Two seasons.
I can't think of any more half-hour comedy pilots I saw a few months ago, but I do have a few recommends of the current half-hour comedies I'm watching.
The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman on IFC. I've always said women will never be equal in comedy until they can be the total assholes men have no problem being. (Wow, I think that makes me an asshole for saying it.) This show gives me hope. (Plus any show that has a Merril Markoe cameo is ok by me)
Weeds. Catching up. Love Mary Louise Parker's loopy determination. A weird mix of Xanax and white wine. Thought I was going to say something else, eh?
Californication. Man crush on DD, but not there yet.
Flight of the Concords. My son said it best, just Youtube the songs. Shelly uses it as her night-night show.
The It Crowd. The British version. Watch it on Youtube now. And complain about how the American remake sucks. The second season just started.
Dramas later.
Comedies today, dramas later. So in no particular order.
Miss/Guided
A mid-season replacement. I'm a fan of Judy Greer and I've liked her in almost everything I've seen her in, even crap. And she's the lynchpin of this show. Like David Duchovny and Californication, this show wouldn't work without her or with another actress. My network has caught onto geekmania but is contractually obligated to skew female, so this is the result. The premise is a female Welcome Back Kotter where Kotter was the unpopular nerd kid. Unstated theme, you can always re-invent yourself, Ugly Betty without the camp and gay. Judy's a guidance counselor who, get this, could use social counseling herself. Wack-ee. She has an unrequited crush, a popular girl arch-enemy and (the new stereotype for the new century, IE 1970's) an exasperated, overworked black principle. Actually, I liked the show. The pacing was Earl-esque, Judy's great, most of the adults are okay, they could use less kids, but, hey, it's a high school. Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas has already been on the show and left, so that's not good news. I keep hearing 'retooling' when people talk about the show. I have a feeling the pilot I saw will not look like the show they'll air three times before canceling it. Yea, I liked it. It's canceled. And it's a mid-season show, so look for According to Jim to eventually replace Miss/Guided which will replace...
Carpoolers
Quick, name a four person all male buddy sitcom that was a success. Y'know, the one that is inevitably called "The male Sex In The City." Can't do it. Hasn't been one. Seinfeld had Elaine, she doesn't count. And the gawd-awful Wild Hogs is a movie. But hey, all the cliches are here--- the newly married naive guy, the lothario with no furnishings in his bachelor pad save his plasma TV and exercise chair/barcalounger, the hen-pecked weak husband who uses the carpool as his escape, and the normal guy who feels emasculated. And the hook, they share a car pool. Yep, that's the whole flimsy premise. Male bounding through sitting in traffic. There's lame 'a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do' speeches, the weirdo grown-up son, ironic jobs, and other sitcom-land conventions. At least it's not all done on a sound studio. It's really generic on all fronts. I understand Jerry O' Connell and Faith Ford will work cheap and the rest of the cast just needs a job, but c'mon, step up people. It's hacky on almost all fronts. It's isn't According to Jim eye-searingly bad, but Jim will be doing double-duty soon. There's another show with incredibly lame premise, you've heard of it, hell, you may even have their insurance. But at least...
Cavemen
doesn't suck. Yea, I know, I'm surprised too. Mind you, it isn't a great show. But, Cavemen benefits from living up to low expectations. I'm not TIVO'ing it, but I'll ditch working to watch it. The premise, Cavemen are the new black people. They don't come out and say it and they even conspicuously have one black bit part in the pilot to drive that point away, but who's kidding who? Cavemen living in modern times are subject to all kinds of racists (specieists?) stereotypes. They're the dumb weather guys on TV, their athletic, and so on and so on. And this notion is what makes a dumb premise watch-able, there's some satire in the show. It isn't razor-sharp, but there's room for improvement and growth as the subculture and regular folks reactions are explored. Although, the show could get dumb fast if they stick to the three main characters personalities instead of widening out. There's the dumb one, the sarcastic one and the one who wants to fit in. (See a pattern here with sitcoms?) A few nifty visual gags, clever sarcastic remarks and a drunk Julie White (Work that cliche, baby!) made the tired set-up of rednecks at the country club trying to woo daddy (John Heard, slummin' away) to get the way-too-hot girl actually not seem painful. Caveman will probably only last a season just by name-recogition alone. Could go longer if the right tone is set. Speaking of toney, or Shmay-She-See's attempts at it...
Samantha Who
falls a little short of that new brand comedy that's funny and failing over there at NBC. Okay, it's a female My Name is Earl, no getting around it. There's no list or wacky meth addicts, but the redemption template is pretty well set in stone. Bad girl Christina Applegate gets amnesia (hi-larious!) and uses her forgetfulness to atone for her bad past. What bad thing did she do in the past, I bet a funny flashback will let us know. It's a high-brow show 'cause, c'mon she was a bad girl and she's our hero. But now she wants to be good. Having cake and eating it, mmmmm, mmmm. It's also high-brow 'cause it's set in the big city, people wear fashion and between scenes are handwritten title cards. Frasier what have you done? Now that I think about it, that's one of the things that bugs me about Flight of the Concords. That conceit hasn't really worked since Rushmore. And indie movies probably have more cliches than sitcoms. Anyway, don't remember much about the show (hee!), nor do I remember either liking or hating it. I think the show may be the highest rated of the new sitcoms because it's glossy, men and women like Christina Applegate (and she's fine in the role), there's the appearance of outrageousness without any pesky bite and a large female segment needs more than the Sex and the City reruns on TBS. Two seasons.
I can't think of any more half-hour comedy pilots I saw a few months ago, but I do have a few recommends of the current half-hour comedies I'm watching.
The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman on IFC. I've always said women will never be equal in comedy until they can be the total assholes men have no problem being. (Wow, I think that makes me an asshole for saying it.) This show gives me hope. (Plus any show that has a Merril Markoe cameo is ok by me)
Weeds. Catching up. Love Mary Louise Parker's loopy determination. A weird mix of Xanax and white wine. Thought I was going to say something else, eh?
Californication. Man crush on DD, but not there yet.
Flight of the Concords. My son said it best, just Youtube the songs. Shelly uses it as her night-night show.
The It Crowd. The British version. Watch it on Youtube now. And complain about how the American remake sucks. The second season just started.
Dramas later.
Older Brother's Records -- Alt.Country
Friday, August 24, 02:16 PM
Here's another archive show, probably the most requested show I have.
It's been requested 3 times. It's a mixtape radio show of No Depression-type alternative country. You know, Wilco 'n stuff.
Get the show HERE.
Garbage Pail Kid
Wednesday, August 22, 12:22 PM
Part of a low output week, there's more animation at the Garbage Pail Kid Site. Build your own gross kid. Here's mine animated.
Furniture
Tuesday, August 21, 12:24 PM
Pass
Monday, August 20, 11:22 PM
Random Acts of Randomness 2
Friday, August 17, 01:04 PM
The Cover Show - The Clash
Thursday, August 16, 03:28 AM
Due to space limitations this week on my podcast server, this week's show is an archive MP3 show. Hey, it's probably new to you. Back when I was teaching, circa 2002, one of the shows I produced a cover show tackling a different band or genre each week.
This is an all Clash cover show. It originally aired on KWSC-FM and all of the songs are mentioned in the show. Wow, looking at K-92 website, I see some stuff I wrote so long ago.
This cover show was before Coverville. But check out that site.
I did make the picture especially for this post. So, That's today's original Thing.
Pirate Clash Radio on a Podcast Web Site.
Get the MP3 Show HERE.
Assimilation
Wednesday, August 15, 04:02 AM
Today's Thing is a game I wrote using those micromagnet sticks I played with on Monday. It's a build and fight combat game with a few simple variables. I'm sure the different values in the game will have to be changed to make it more exciting, but overall, I like the game mechanics. You assimilate various battling ships. Each ship has can have different strengths. Check it out and drop me a line or leave a comment. You need many magnet sticks of at least four colors and balls, a pair of dice and pen and paper.
You could probably play with Legos with some slight retooling. The PDF is three pages and the game is in Beta. This idea could certainly be made in the marketplace into a nifty bits full-sized game.
Grab the PDF HERE.
Awesome fun!
The Rove Report
Tuesday, August 14, 04:07 AM
As you may know Bush's Brain Karl Rove has quit. No perp walk. No frog march. He wants to spend time with his family. Both his parents are dead and his only son goes to college an a few weeks. Uh-huh, family. Surfing the secret FBI websites, I ran across the Rove Family newsletter. It's only a few pages of a 50 page PDF document written by Darby--- Rove's wife. Today's newsletter is pretty interesting and gives us a glimpse into Bush's Brain's Better Half.
Read the PDF HERE.
Micromagnets
Monday, August 13, 11:57 PM
One of the first gifts Shelly ever bought me were some magnets. They were for stress relief. I ran across a set today at Toys 'R' Us at 80 percent off. So I tried to build a multi-level Thing, but didn't do so well. The slightest movement and it all comes crumbing together. I am, however, bouncing around some ideas to use these bits as the basis of a game. I'll let you know on Wednesday.
Random Acts of Randomness
Friday, August 10, 01:42 PM
The first PDF in a new campaign.
Print out PDF.
Post each of the two pages in public places.
Together, but more preferably, not together.
New PDF's later.
This is not destiny.
HERE.
TTOTD Radio - The Thing 6
Thursday, August 09, 03:21 AM
This
week's podcast was once again hastily assembled, but the mix is
okey-dokey by me. There's a variety of songs. Guess I should narrow
my tastes more so those subscribing (all 3 of ya--ya b*stards!!)
would know what they're getting. Well, no. Discover different
stuff, ragamuffins. Here's an idea how the flow goes--power pop,
pavement guy, funny, electro-funny, pop, country pop, R & B,
blues, yo la sounding, weird country, fuzzy freakout, hip hop
weird, soft weird.Works for me.
Don't forget to visit the podcast page or subscribe in itunes.
Get the Enhanced AAC Podcast HERE.
Get the crappy MP3 HERE.
Get the CD Jewel Case PDF HERE.
Until next time...
Stupid Dancing
Wednesday, August 08, 12:29 PM
Maus: The Later Years
Tuesday, August 07, 01:06 PM
Call For Play Testers
Monday, August 06, 02:17 PM
This week is a bit odd. I'm not sure
how much I can share with TTOTD'ers. Last week, I wrote a game,
Alphadice. After thinking about
that game, I've developed a new game of which I don't have a title
yet. I believe this game to have marketability. It's a simple to
learn word game with almost limitless variations and with many
different, scalable ways to play. I've already thought of an
expansion. The website for the game could host an electronic
version as well as home brew play variations. I would like to
market this game and TTOTD will mark the progress. I don't want to
share the full game, as I have not written it yet or developed the
cards, until I get a copyright. I'm also looking around to see if a
similar game/game mechanic is already on the market place. I've
never obtained a copyright or contacted game publishers. I hope to
have a polished playable version by Nukecon at the end of
September.
Right now, I'm looking for play testers. When I have a completed PDF, I'll e-mail you the PDF file. You'll have to cut out the cards and supply your own pennies for tokens and a pair of dice. You'll also sign a non-disclosure agreement. If the game gets published, you'll get, hopefully, a credit in the rule book and website as well as some other goodies. Right now, the game is planned to include 144 unique cards, either 200 or 400 small tokens of four colors and a pair of dice, possibly eight pair of dice of four different colors. I'd imagine the game would sell in the 15-20 dollar range.
I'f you'd like to be a play tester, e-mail me and let me know.
Shelly's been helping bounce ideas around and can vouch that I am fulfilling my TTOTD responsibilities, although the posts might be light, the work behind them isn't. The first hurdle is to work out all the math. Yep, math lies behind everything. Then to the graphics work. Then the rules writing. I hope to have a PDF to play testers within two weeks.
Right now, I'm looking for play testers. When I have a completed PDF, I'll e-mail you the PDF file. You'll have to cut out the cards and supply your own pennies for tokens and a pair of dice. You'll also sign a non-disclosure agreement. If the game gets published, you'll get, hopefully, a credit in the rule book and website as well as some other goodies. Right now, the game is planned to include 144 unique cards, either 200 or 400 small tokens of four colors and a pair of dice, possibly eight pair of dice of four different colors. I'd imagine the game would sell in the 15-20 dollar range.
I'f you'd like to be a play tester, e-mail me and let me know.
Shelly's been helping bounce ideas around and can vouch that I am fulfilling my TTOTD responsibilities, although the posts might be light, the work behind them isn't. The first hurdle is to work out all the math. Yep, math lies behind everything. Then to the graphics work. Then the rules writing. I hope to have a PDF to play testers within two weeks.
Simpsonize Me
Friday, August 03, 01:22 PM
Finally got Simpsonize Me to work. I look much younger and with blackish hair. More tweeking is needed. The above photo photo was simpsonized from this photo.
TTOTD Radio - The Thing 5
Thursday, August 02, 03:07 AM
Today's
Thing Radio was put together rather quickly, so I'm not a hundred
percent how it all will turn out on reflection. But what I lack in
quality, I make up for in quantity. All the music is relatively new
music---the oldest track being from February of this year. There's
even a few preview tracks in there. Visit the website links and
check out the bands while you listen. I'm in a bit of a hurry
today, so no comments on the tracks, but all the regular bells and
whistles are there. Don't forget to visit the podcast page or subscribe in itunes.Get the enhanced AAC podcast HERE.
Get the crappy MP3 podcast HERE.
Get the CD Jewel Case PDF HERE.
Back with another show next week.
Alphadice
Wednesday, August 01, 12:48 PM
Today's Thing is a simple word game I'm surprised no one has written yet. Alphadice is a word game using dice and the cards I made in the PDF. It's simple, adaptable and easy to travel, like Boggle or Scrabble without all the fuss. All you need is two six-sided die, a watch, and some pencil and paper plus the PDF. The game can be played in fifteen minutes and is for 2 to 6 players. You'll also need to print out the last two pages of the PDF and cut out the cards. The PDF is small.
Hey, I wrote a game today!
Feedback is appreciated.
Download the PDF HERE.
Not Enough Coffee Man
Tuesday, July 31, 03:26 AM
Continuing with more bad art, it's a lame parody of this comic. Basically, I just wanted to practice more with layers and crude drawing with Art Rage.
Coffee Painting
Monday, July 30, 11:53 PM
Today's Thing is from one of Shelly's craft project kits. I deviated heavily from the instructions and eventually quit when my efforts to correct mistakes created too many uncorrectable mistakes. Isn't that what art is all about, living with mistakes.
Maybe one of Shelly's Things could be to correct this painting. I'm not much of an artist, although I did enjoy this project and learned how to mix paints a bit.
See shell's two cents
Fish
Friday, July 27, 01:07 PM
After trying unsuccessfully for about an hour and a half to get Simpsonize Me to work, I had to give up and whip up some modern art in about 10 minutes with viscosity. I blame the stupid Burger King and his overall creepiness.
The Generic Beat Show 1
Thursday, July 26, 04:16 AM
From the archives, here's an old electronica show I made for radio circa 2003. No song titles, it's all there along with plenty of extra added funky stuff. About once a month, I'll release an old show you can listen to in the player. I'll make a new picture, so at least one Thing is new in the post.
Get show HERE.
Hi Fructose Random Links
Wednesday, July 25, 11:53 AM
Hifructose is an art magazine I've been wanting to read for a while after I saw it previewed in Boing Boing. I finally picked up issue five. I like it --- the art exists somewhere between ART and toy. It's trying to figure out the world using day-glo martians, saucer-eyed girls and morning-time dreams. That's my lax impression. In a magazine like this, I want to explore more art. So today's Thing is every URL in the magazine randomized. All the ads-which are mostly for galleries and toys-plus I went back and found the home page for each artist or work shown that was available. There are 80 links. Click on the button for a new, random link and get exploring. Sorry the button itself is so lame, it's a generic script. Hifructose does have a link page here, but this randomizer has links their page doesn't.
Click Away.
Radio Banner
Monday, July 23, 11:56 AM
Today's Monday update Thing is a banner image for the podcast page. I had to stretch it out on the web page. Learning, learning...
TTOTD Radio -- The Thing 4
Friday, July 20, 03:17 AM
Some
TV-related songs in today's The Thing Radio plus a hidden comedy
routine from a cartoon rat and another bonus hidden track. The
podcast is now in AAC--the preferred format because you get
chapters, song titles and artwork--and in crappy MP3 so you can
listen in the players here on the page. Visit the podcast page or subscribe in itunes.Grab the AAC Version HERE.
Grab the MP3 Version HERE.
Grab the CD Jewel Insert HERE.
Off to find more free, legal internet music...
CD Covers Collage
Wednesday, July 18, 11:38 AM
Podcast Page Update
Monday, July 16, 11:26 PM
Today's update day. It's all about
the podcast
page today. I updated the look of the page a little bit. I
embedded a new MP3 player on both sites. Right now, there's no way
to show AAC or embedded files in a flash viewer, so starting
NOW, the podcasts also have a crappy MP3 version, so those
unfortunate few who can't play AAC files can listen on the web page
or download to their Zune.
Like anyone has a Zune.
There are now two versions of each show, AAC and MP3. You can listen to the MP3 shows in the players in the sidebar. Thanks libsyn! Also, today I updated and got the podcast listed in itunes, so you can easily subscribe there as well. I also added the podcast page to Feedburner.
Here's an array of icons:
(Feedburner)
Like anyone has a Zune.
There are now two versions of each show, AAC and MP3. You can listen to the MP3 shows in the players in the sidebar. Thanks libsyn! Also, today I updated and got the podcast listed in itunes, so you can easily subscribe there as well. I also added the podcast page to Feedburner.
Here's an array of icons:
(Feedburner)It's Hard Out Here For A Podcast Pimp
Friday, July 13, 12:37 PM
Today's Thing is another Friday promotion. There's a bunch of podcast related sites. Have you picked up a podcast lately? It's not hard to find, subscribe and listen to a wide variety of podcasts. Howver, I do wonder how much effect subscribing to a podcast listing site helps people who would like The Thing Radio find the show. I also added the blog to a few more blog warehouse sites. Are these large referenced sites with no readers. It's hard to tell. I did find another giant list of ways to promote your site. Here's some of the places I went to promote. You could check them out to find new sites.
itunes -- Yeah, everyone knows itunes, but it's still the big dog in podcast promotion. Too much commercial stuff being promoted. I'm still waitng to hear back from them. My last podcast just cheap dirt did make it on itunes and was probably the reason I had over 80 subscribers. I'll put a link up t the new show when it comes out.
Podcast Alley -- Still waiting to hear back from them. One of the oldest sites for podcasts out there.
Podcast Pickle -- Second oldest.
PopCurrent.com -- Newish single episode directory. Signed up but haven't submitted a single show.
Odeo -- This guy went on to create the much more popular Twitter.
Blog Top List -- Vote for me and so on and so on.
There's more but I gotta go.
TTOTD Radio--The Thing 3
Thursday, July 12, 03:23 AM
Not Matt Groening
Wednesday, July 11, 12:04 PM
Stick Men--More Than Meets The Eye
Tuesday, July 10, 03:41 AM
Here's the first page of Today's Thing. Tuesday is comic day. You can see the other two pages starting tomorrow on my flickr page or at TTOTD Comix Page.
Waiting is the hardest part.
Mac Update
Monday, July 09, 11:59 PM
You can't really see today's Thing.
I've been learning some mac-related stuff and doing some repair.
Besides getting 9 gigs off my hard drive, I used the new icreate
magazine tips to speed up the old G4 and do some spring cleaning. I
also am learning some new programs courtsey of the new Mac Heist promotion along
with Mac
Update. Today was a learny day. To test out my new audio
program, Amadeus, I made a TTOTD Radio spacer then posted it
with my new FTP program Fetch.
TTOTD Radio--The Thing 2
Thursday, July 05, 03:33 AM
It's Thursday, so it's the Thing Radio. Number 2. Click on the podcast icon to listen in your browser. You can get the RSS Feed Here. You can download the PDF here. I added direct download links for each individual songs, plus some of the song track look weird, it's part of the bargain with IODA Promonet which gives me free music. Lots of links to explore. To the songs:
The Songs
1. Pavement--Spit on a Stranger from Twilight
Terror. One of my favorite old Pavement songs. Direct download.
2. Simple
Kid--Lil' King Kong from 2. New music from
English dude that has some Beck qualities. The whole EP can be
gotten on the Direct Download.
3. Mike Doughty--Looking
at the World from the Bottom of a Well from
Haughty Melodic.
An album from last year, but I like the song. Direct Download.
4. Los Campesinos!--Please
Don't Tell Me To Do The Math from
We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives.
The first, new EP from this Welsh band. It just became available
on emusic.
Ho-ray. Direct Download.
5. Shout Out Louds--Tonight
I Have to Leave It from
Tonight I Have to Leave It.
Swedish band. Direct Download.
6. 
Download "Robert Onion"
(mp3)
from "93-03"
by Frank Black
Cooking Vinyl
More On This AlbumI have most of the songs on this new Frank Black retrospective.
7.
Download "Elizabeth
Sways" (mp3)
from "Flowering Spade"
by Sean Hayes
Sean Hayes
More On This Album8. Rickie Lee Jones--Elvis Cadillac from The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard. Her newest, vaguely religious album and her best in years, striking toward Lucinda Williams territory. Direct Download.
9. Bright Eyes--Four Winds from Four Winds EP. Their first EP from Cassedega. Real country. Direct Download.
10. Cornelius--Gum from Sensuous. I like their previous albums; this one is from late last year. Direct Download.
Hey Baby, it's the Fourth of July
Wednesday, July 04, 01:39 PM
Hey Baby, it's the Fourth of July.
Everyone knows I'm a cheapskate. I don't like giving to charities. I'm poor. I'm cheap. Who knows where the money goes or how it will be spent. (Here's the part where I sound like an infomercial) However, a few months ago, I heard about microcredit in Reason magazine. Then the guy who won the Nobel Prize in economics for developing the idea was on The Daily Show. This seems a way out for a lot of very poor people if the money can indeed get to them. It's like peer-to-peer loaning. Lots of people pool small amounts to loan to the very poor to develop their neighborhoods. There was a story on this trend on ABC news about how even Americans can give to ordinary Iraqis to help rebuild. Man, is there a debt we need to repay. Because it's Iraq, the loans are anonymous, so they can't be tied to Americans and the lendee could face reprisals. Yea, that's our world.
Anyway, for today's Thing, I loaned 25 bucks to a Nigerian woman to help rebuild her market. She looks crabby. With the internet, there's no overhead in paperwork and donating to the lending organization is a charity, while the loan itself isn't. The organization I went through is called Kiva, although many are springing up to help a variety of people. Most of the loans are to women, as they are in the most need, have the least access to loans and are more likely to pay the loan back. Yea, something like 95 percent of the loans are paid back. There is no interest. So, I should get my money back eventually. Hey it's not a lot. If I get it back, I add in another 25 and loan it out again. I remember when I went out to get a car loan after going through consumer credit. No bank would give me a loan. The credit union that did is still my bank today, even though I live 200 miles away from it.
Read more about Microcredit here. There's many more organizations to look at and people to help, even here in the US.
Scooter: The Real Reasons
Tuesday, July 03, 04:13 AM
TTOTD Radio--The Thing
Monday, July 02, 01:20 AM
I've
been thinking about doing regular weekly items to make thinking up
new Things but easier and more consistent for everyone else. Two
Things I like doing are comics and podcasts. So every Tuesday will
be comic day and every Thursday will be music podcasts or some kind
of podcast. Monday is update day. Wednesday is free day and Friday
is promotion/free day. However, better ideas take precedent.
So, today is update day. Over a year and a half ago, I had a podcast hosted on Libsyn called Just Cheap Dirt. It's no longer around; I burned myself out, but I like the Libsyn service for hosting podcasts. They've updated their features in the last year and I can put video up there as well.
So Today's Thing is a TTOTD podcast page. You can grab all the new shows there; I will also post them here as well. Look to the sidebar, there's a player there and a few new links. The show I did last Thursday is there as well as in the player. However, it's a long download. The best way to get new shows would be to subscribe to the RSS feed and stick it in itunes or your RSS reader. If you click on the direct download on the TTOTD Radio Page and open up the AAC file in a new browser window.
In other words, there's a bunch of new ways to easily get new shows.
Also, look for the podcast icon on
new posts here and click on them for the show.
I've spent all weekend promoting the new pages to a bunch of sites and searching for legal music to share. The music shows take the longest to make of than most of the Things here, but generally have the longest value for me. And I hope they have provide the most enjoyment for you as well. I should have a way to subscribe in itunes by the end of the week, waiting for Apple to get back to me.
The Links:
TTOTD Podcast Page
TTOTD Podcast Page RSS Feed
So, today is update day. Over a year and a half ago, I had a podcast hosted on Libsyn called Just Cheap Dirt. It's no longer around; I burned myself out, but I like the Libsyn service for hosting podcasts. They've updated their features in the last year and I can put video up there as well.
So Today's Thing is a TTOTD podcast page. You can grab all the new shows there; I will also post them here as well. Look to the sidebar, there's a player there and a few new links. The show I did last Thursday is there as well as in the player. However, it's a long download. The best way to get new shows would be to subscribe to the RSS feed and stick it in itunes or your RSS reader. If you click on the direct download on the TTOTD Radio Page and open up the AAC file in a new browser window.
In other words, there's a bunch of new ways to easily get new shows.
Also, look for the podcast icon on
new posts here and click on them for the show.I've spent all weekend promoting the new pages to a bunch of sites and searching for legal music to share. The music shows take the longest to make of than most of the Things here, but generally have the longest value for me. And I hope they have provide the most enjoyment for you as well. I should have a way to subscribe in itunes by the end of the week, waiting for Apple to get back to me.
The Links:
TTOTD Podcast Page
TTOTD Podcast Page RSS Feed
Secrets of the New iphone
Friday, June 29, 04:45 AM
Comic Genesis Update
Thursday, June 28, 12:58 PM
Boring today. (Hey, go download
yesterday's music!)
I'm just going through all the old comics and updating them for the
Comic Genesis site. You can only post them one a
day, so for the next two weeks, there'll be a new comic a day
there. It's a boring site, but the comics are full sized. I went
and added copyrights and date to many of them. The site's been
acting wanky in uploading, but is also a bit slow.
I also organized and bagged all of mine and Shelly's meatspace comics. Almost 80 comics already, mostly old and free comics.
My plan is to post a new comic every week on Tuesdays.
I also organized and bagged all of mine and Shelly's meatspace comics. Almost 80 comics already, mostly old and free comics.
My plan is to post a new comic every week on Tuesdays.
TTOTD Radio The Thing- Summermix 1
Wednesday, June 27, 05:29 AM
There's a whole hour-plus mixtape
radio show today. It's mostly new music for the summer. The 90 meg
zipped M4a file can easily be burned off to a CD for driving
around. Also, if you listen on your ipod, the show has different
album art for each of the 18 songs. I whipped up some pretty simple
stingers and bumps for in between the songs as well. If I make more
shows, I'll do some more mixing and make some more complex sound
interludes.You can grab the CD Jewel Case HERE. The PDF file has artwork and track listings. Print it out.
Don't worry about the show pirating music, each of the songs in the show were a free download on the internet from Salon and Discollective. If you like the songs, go out and support the artists. There's a ton of free music out there!
You can download the file HERE or click on the picture.
Web Snippets
Monday, June 25, 04:16 AM
Video Killed the Blog Star
Friday, June 22, 12:57 PM
Today, nothing fancy. I created some
accounts at Youtube, MySpace and Veoh for The Thing
Of The Day. I'll fill in more details on the sites later and add to
the sidebar.
I've also uploaded the classic Ninja Kel video as well as yesterday's video to all the sites.
I like Veoh the best because they have a video uploader and don't put any limits on video quality or size. How do they have all the space? I noticed a bunch of free movies on the site, can't be legal.
I've also uploaded the classic Ninja Kel video as well as yesterday's video to all the sites.
I like Veoh the best because they have a video uploader and don't put any limits on video quality or size. How do they have all the space? I noticed a bunch of free movies on the site, can't be legal.
Did ya know?! A re-butt-le
Thursday, June 21, 05:53 AM
Recently
my dad sent me this link:
I was watching the video on my fictional macbook while eating at the Taco Loco, home of the honey fish taco. Some hairy bus boy with a nose piercing and an eight-inch goatee out of the blue grabbed my fictional macbook and demanded to make a reply to the quote, "Totally BS blah, blah, blah video I was watching," unquote.
I didn't want spit in my Grande Taco Salad, so I let him borrow my fictional mac while I watched 'Bill E' pound away at the keys and grunt.
Here's bus boy 'Bill E Goat's' video:
Enjoy.
I was watching the video on my fictional macbook while eating at the Taco Loco, home of the honey fish taco. Some hairy bus boy with a nose piercing and an eight-inch goatee out of the blue grabbed my fictional macbook and demanded to make a reply to the quote, "Totally BS blah, blah, blah video I was watching," unquote.
I didn't want spit in my Grande Taco Salad, so I let him borrow my fictional mac while I watched 'Bill E' pound away at the keys and grunt.
Here's bus boy 'Bill E Goat's' video:
Enjoy.
Bryan Passes
Tuesday, June 19, 01:19 PM
Space Whistle
Monday, June 18, 03:02 PM
A week ago or so, Shelly bought a Tin
Whistle and made a short song.
I couldn't leave well enough alone.
Here's my remix called Space Whistle. Yea, I luvs me the Sci-fi sounds.
I couldn't leave well enough alone.
Here's my remix called Space Whistle. Yea, I luvs me the Sci-fi sounds.
Pass Scoreboard
Friday, June 15, 12:29 PM
TTOTD Media
Thursday, June 14, 01:53 PM
Wanna know what movies are in the TTOTD household? Well, today, I've created a website with most of our movies on it. You can browse, request to borrow and see details on over 40 movies in our permanent library. It's part of Delicious Library and a web program called deliweb. There will be a link called TTOTD Media in the sidebar. Later we'll add games, CD's and books as web space opens up. Check it out.
The Goon Soprano Premium Edition
Wednesday, June 13, 04:32 AM
I've created a director's cut of yesterday's entry. There's three new pages, a slightly different cover, a different ending, more Goony-ness, some necessary copy editing and a much improved higher quality presentation. I wanted to see if I could put together a full comic in the comic book format used in digital comics. The format is CBZ. It's basically a zipped file.
You can use a comic book reader like the free Simple Comic or Comic Book Lover for mac or CDdisplayEx or Gonvisor among many for Windows. Since it's just a zipped file with images, you could unzip it and look at each JPEG page individually as well.
The zipped comic is 13 pages long and 13.5 megs. Don't unzip if you use a reader. Click on the picture to download it.
Also, please check out and buy Eric Powell's The Goon as I've stolen his artwork and changed the words. The comic's great. Buy it or it's a fish hook in the eye for ya!
Oh, I tried to get Janice in as the Zombie Master, but it just wasn't working.
The Goon Soprano
Tuesday, June 12, 05:22 AM
Missed the series finale of The Sopranos? Click on the picture. The Goon can help. Lots of copyright bein' broken here---so go out and buy a copy of The Goon comic to attone or ya'll sleep wit da fishes!
I'll upload better, higher quality pics to flickr later.
One Continous Line
Friday, June 08, 01:04 PM
Dead of Night
Thursday, June 07, 12:40 PM
This free game cost me thirty bucks! A few weeks ago, I wrote about a free zombie game I ran across called Dead of Night. Today's Thing was to put the game together. At the time I downloaded it, Dead of Night was a free PDF with all the maps, cards, tokens, graphics in the PDF. I've found out theat the game is to come out commercially in a few months. So, I decided to print out the 40-plus pages and cut out all the bits.
In just ink alone, I must have spent 30 bucks. The cards are double-sided. There are over 30 rooms, 80 cards, 50 items, 100 zombies as well as other pieces and a 28 page rule book. The whole project took over three hours. I haven't played the game yet, but it looks like there's a lot of customization and turns in the game like a Zombie movie.
Looking at the commercial version online, if the game's any good, this free game may cost me another thirty bucks. The commercial version looks nice, if not exactly the same as the PDF version graphics-wise.
Attack of the Zombie Dogs
Wednesday, June 06, 03:11 AM
Okay, it's a
stupid title for a game. That's one of the zillion points that'll
change as this game develops. These are the beta rules, beyond
pre-alpha. This is version.002 of the rules, basically just a few
ideas strung together under a generic theme.
The basic idea is to combine a tile laying strategy game with a miniatures game. Do well in the first phase, you'll do well in the second, but a good war gamer could still prevail after a lousy set-up.
Much work will have to done during play testing, probably whole sections will be revamped and overhauled. This version also uses another game's tiles and pieces to play. Hopefully, I'll develop the playing pieces as I work on the game. For now, you'll need a copy of Zombies: The End, some other zombie figurines from other Zombie games (really any consistent token could work) and two decks of cards.
The rough rules after the jump.
Read More...
The basic idea is to combine a tile laying strategy game with a miniatures game. Do well in the first phase, you'll do well in the second, but a good war gamer could still prevail after a lousy set-up.
Much work will have to done during play testing, probably whole sections will be revamped and overhauled. This version also uses another game's tiles and pieces to play. Hopefully, I'll develop the playing pieces as I work on the game. For now, you'll need a copy of Zombies: The End, some other zombie figurines from other Zombie games (really any consistent token could work) and two decks of cards.
The rough rules after the jump.
Read More...
Drakon Review
Tuesday, June 05, 01:34 PM
Two weeks ago, Shelly and I joined a
gaming league. The league hasn't started yet---this weekend--- but
soon. The idea is you play a different game each week throughout
the summer and earn points for how well you do against other
players. I look over at our wall of games and see about 20-25 games
we've never even played. I've read the rules to all of them and
oogled over the crunchy bit goodness, but time is a monster. This
gaming league, hopefully, will spurn some more game playing. It's
also a chance to meet some new people---people nerdier than
myself.
To celebrate joining the league, we, of course, bought a game. Recently at a game con, we played Tom Jolly's Cave Troll. It was a fun, relatively easy to learn game that mixed luck, strategy, player interaction and game engagement. Lots of fun and although I lost the one game I played, I wanted to play again and the game felt close, even against a much more experienced player.
So, we bought Tom Jolly's other game, Drakon. Cave Troll was sold out. While I like Drakon okay, Cave Troll was the better way to spend 25 bucks for a game that plays in about a half hour. I'm doing a Drakon review because I've only played Cave Troll once. We've played Drakon three times, two two-player games and on four-player game. The two-player games were more satisfying because you could develop some small plans and see them through. In Drakon, players lay dungeon tiles and move around the newly created board gathering gold. The first player to 10 gold wins. As you enter each new tile or room, different room abilities are activated. These abilities are the heart of the game. Each room has different arrows out of the 2.5 square inch tiles, so tile place really determines where players can go. A giant dragon can be released and crush you, but in all three games, the dragon wasn't a threat because the rooms that activate him are too few. I'd like more dragon action. Early on, each player figured out a gold loop, a set of tiles to maximize gold collection. By the third game, stopping these loops became a focus. The best way was to limit the amount of choices the others have in tile laying. Because of the new strategy, the last game was much longer than the other two. Plus, having an out tile to win greatly increased the enjoyability. Drakon's a decent game if you like to play to screw over other players instead of just focusing on winning yourself. It's not a Munchkin level screw-job, but this element seems to be prevalent in most modern games.
This bits and piece are nice and worth the 25 bucks. It'd be nice to have painted figures---no game does, except Marvel Heros. Also, the large tiles are a pain to shuffle and manage, but that's mostly unavoidable. There's no dice-rolling and all the luck comes from the draw of the tiles.
Overall, Drakon is a six out of ten. It's a decent game to play in a half hour, not too much of a brain drain, but a bit easy to fall into predictable patterns of play. 'kay?
To celebrate joining the league, we, of course, bought a game. Recently at a game con, we played Tom Jolly's Cave Troll. It was a fun, relatively easy to learn game that mixed luck, strategy, player interaction and game engagement. Lots of fun and although I lost the one game I played, I wanted to play again and the game felt close, even against a much more experienced player.
So, we bought Tom Jolly's other game, Drakon. Cave Troll was sold out. While I like Drakon okay, Cave Troll was the better way to spend 25 bucks for a game that plays in about a half hour. I'm doing a Drakon review because I've only played Cave Troll once. We've played Drakon three times, two two-player games and on four-player game. The two-player games were more satisfying because you could develop some small plans and see them through. In Drakon, players lay dungeon tiles and move around the newly created board gathering gold. The first player to 10 gold wins. As you enter each new tile or room, different room abilities are activated. These abilities are the heart of the game. Each room has different arrows out of the 2.5 square inch tiles, so tile place really determines where players can go. A giant dragon can be released and crush you, but in all three games, the dragon wasn't a threat because the rooms that activate him are too few. I'd like more dragon action. Early on, each player figured out a gold loop, a set of tiles to maximize gold collection. By the third game, stopping these loops became a focus. The best way was to limit the amount of choices the others have in tile laying. Because of the new strategy, the last game was much longer than the other two. Plus, having an out tile to win greatly increased the enjoyability. Drakon's a decent game if you like to play to screw over other players instead of just focusing on winning yourself. It's not a Munchkin level screw-job, but this element seems to be prevalent in most modern games.
This bits and piece are nice and worth the 25 bucks. It'd be nice to have painted figures---no game does, except Marvel Heros. Also, the large tiles are a pain to shuffle and manage, but that's mostly unavoidable. There's no dice-rolling and all the luck comes from the draw of the tiles.
Overall, Drakon is a six out of ten. It's a decent game to play in a half hour, not too much of a brain drain, but a bit easy to fall into predictable patterns of play. 'kay?
The Roach Commands You!
Monday, June 04, 11:28 PM
It's a week of game-related Things. Monday kicks off with a whole damn professional game for you to enjoy, minus the cards. About a year ago, I recorded the rules to The Shab-Al-Hiri Roach for Shelly to listen to on her ipod at work. Last week, I contacted the nice folks at Bully Pulpit Games and they said I could share the recording on this website. Hooray!
The Roach is a rules lite, GM-less tabletop role playing game. It's not the nerdy elf 'n swords RPG new players think of when they think of RPG's, but a weird Lovecraftian mix of pompous, back-stabbing, dark humored, egotistical college professors and the hotbed of turn of the century small-town college politics. Oh, and alien roaches that infect you and guide your actions. It's eeevvviiiiiilll, I tells ya!
From the website:
So, you get the idea. The game's got a mean funny bone. The setting is Pemberton college, a small northeast college in 1919. Each player in the game plays a full or associate professor just trying to get ahead. You have your enemies, other players, and your friends, also other players. You create the ever-increasing crazy plot lines around six events of a school year with the help of other players, other characters you create, and cards you draw. The cards are the genius of the game and I think open the game up to people who aren't fully comfortable playing a full-on stats-heavy RPG. The cards tell you if your infected and give you a general guide what to do each setting. And you can learn Sumarian. Think of the game as improv with dice. Act-ING! The game can be played in an evening and actually has an end and a winner. Although winning really isn't the point, it's the journey. The emphasis is on characters, black humor and just plain strangeness.The Shab-al-Hiri Roach is a dark comedy of manners, lampooning academia and asking players to answer a difficult question - are you willing to swallow a soul-eating telepathic insect bent on destroying human civilization?
No?
Even if it will get you tenure?
You'll need a variety of multi-sided die, from 4-sided to 12-sided and that's about it. Visit the Bully Pulpit Games download page and pick up a character sheet, a 1919 events cheat sheet, a comic, a short movie and some extra rules errata. You can check out a 14-page preview before you download the audio file as well. The game does need the cards to play which come with the game, but you could make up your own cards or better yet, go out and buy the game!. You can buy it here. The Roach is twenty bucks and if you buy the game, you also get a rubber roach. Cool. I think as a future Thing, I may try to make some more Roach cards to add to the game. Also, roam around Indie Press Revolution, there's a bunch of imaginative low-cost games both in soft back and the much cheaper PDF's.
About the audio file, it's an AAC file best played in itunes. The file is about 30 megs, contains chapter breaks, royalty-free sound effects and music and a picture you can see in itunes. The rules run a little over an hour. I admit since I didn't expect to be sharing this sound file with the world, I used my crappy microphone, didn't use my super professional broadcasting voice and have a few vocal flubs. Also, I didn't add in the rules errata. I enjoyed reading the rules and, as a future Thing, may rerecord them with some more professionalism and better equipment. Hey Bully Pulpit people, do you need an audio version of your other game Drowning and Falling? Let me know. Love your games, love to help. They've got a free version of Drowning and Falling up.
You can download the rules HERE or click on the third roach.
The Roach commands you!
Read More...
Venus Envy
Friday, June 01, 03:14 AM
Random Comic 2
Thursday, May 31, 12:59 PM
On days when I have little time, it's
random comic time. The panels are picked at random.
I supply the words.
Charles Nelson Reilly Nailed to a Cross
Wednesday, May 30, 04:12 AM
Hmmm.
This Thing is based on an old Dead Milkman song and the passing of Charles Nelson Reilly.
Mature comic ahead.
Read More...
Thing Comic Genesis
Tuesday, May 29, 02:04 AM
Well, today, I've finally figured it out. So, today's the debut of the extremely generic The Thing Of The Day Comic Site. It's a kick in the butt to make more comics. I plan to make at least one a week and post it here and there. Also, serendipitously, the site requires lots of HTML work, so future Things will be the various Dreamweaver tinkering with the site to add that much needed 'Zazz.'
Mmmmmm, Zazz.
New Rapidweaver- Now With Tags
Friday, May 25, 12:34 PM
This website is mostly created with
the mac program Rapidweaver. A new version came out today. While,
I'm not crazy about paying an upgrade price, I do like the new tags
feature. Today's Thing is a web-related project putting tags on all
of the previous posts. Check below the post to see the tags. In the
sidebar, you can separate all the comics posts or all the
photography posts. It's a boring Thing, but a nice addition to the
site.
Lost Fourth Season Mysteries
Thursday, May 24, 04:46 AM
Now that the big "Snake in the Mailbox" season finale has shocked America, it's time to look ahead to the fourth season, it's time to look ahead eight months.There's still so many more questions and today's comic Thing prepares to ask those obvious Lost questions.
Please do not read on if you're not completely caught up on the TV show Lost. If you've never seen the show, then, man, this comic won't make a lick of sense. To see the big size of the comic, click on the comic or visit the flickr page or read more.
Read More...
Random Comic
Wednesday, May 23, 12:46 PM
Due to an unexpected 13-hour work day
yesterday, today's Thing plans fell through. So, like Shelly's
migraine Thing, I whipped up today's Thing using the creative toys page at work. It's from comic strip
creator. To make the comic interesting, I picked a completely
random set-up and wrote around whatever the random comic Gods gave
me.
Keep On Trackin'
Tuesday, May 22, 01:57 AM
So, I just got back from my first 30
minute walk and it's Tuesday Thing time. The early part of this
week is about doing ongoing Things to keep me healthy. Yesterday, I
made a pledge to take a 30 minute walk five times a week. This
exercise may change as months go on and I thought I'd track both my
blood sugars and exercise online daily. That's my Thing, it's
ongoing. I currently use a free program Diabetes Logbook to track and graph my stats, but
there isn't any way to post it online. I'm more complete in that
program adding carbs and medicine into the mix. I thought I'd share
some simple daily stats to keep me motivated. I searched around for
a simple online (and free) solution to show everyone my blood
sugars. None. So, I retrofitted an ical calendar
page to post up some simple stats for everyone to see. I plan
on taking my blood sugars twice a day.
Since I'm limited by space on the calendar program, here's the abreviations I use in the single line entry:
MW=Minute Walk,
BB=Before Breakfast,
AB=After Breakfest,
BL=Before Lunch,
AL=After Lunch,
BD=Before Dinner,
AD=After Dinner.
Before means directly before eating. After means 2 hours after the meal. The number before MW is how many minutes I walked that day. The number before the meal abreviations is my blood sugar number. If the number is over 150, that's a high number. Between 80 and 110 is optimal. Below 80 is too low. The numbers after a meal should be higher. For example today's reading says, "30MW, 120BD."
Once again, here's the page. Keep me honest, hassel me if I haven't posted or my readings are too high. That's the point.
Since I'm limited by space on the calendar program, here's the abreviations I use in the single line entry:
MW=Minute Walk,
BB=Before Breakfast,
AB=After Breakfest,
BL=Before Lunch,
AL=After Lunch,
BD=Before Dinner,
AD=After Dinner.
Before means directly before eating. After means 2 hours after the meal. The number before MW is how many minutes I walked that day. The number before the meal abreviations is my blood sugar number. If the number is over 150, that's a high number. Between 80 and 110 is optimal. Below 80 is too low. The numbers after a meal should be higher. For example today's reading says, "30MW, 120BD."
Once again, here's the page. Keep me honest, hassel me if I haven't posted or my readings are too high. That's the point.
Keep on Walking'
Monday, May 21, 11:10 PM
Today's Thing is more of a 'Do.' As in
Make. Learn. Do. It's also ongoing.
I went to the doctor today for a check-up. I have diabetes and have had diabetes for a long time. I haven't always been the best at managing the disease, but have recently overhauled a lot of the way I eat. My sugars are still a bit high, even though I've been regularly taking my medication for the last six months. I have dropped my sugar count from about 300 to 160 or so, so I've done a lot. The new medication gives me headaches and because of slight--I found out today--irreversible nerve damage in my feet due to my slack treatment, my feet always feel cold. I have to get better at managing the disease. I'm doing better, but...
The missing component is exercise. I'm extremely sedentary. So, my Thing today is just plain exercising. I plan on walking a half an hour a day, five days a week. It's about 45 minutes to work, so I may skip using the car one day a week while the weather is nicer.
The only fly in the ointment, besides time is my ipod has been acting wacky, so I'll work on that this week as well. Must have music while I walk.
Tomorrow's Thing is designed to help keep me honest and you can see my progress.
I went to the doctor today for a check-up. I have diabetes and have had diabetes for a long time. I haven't always been the best at managing the disease, but have recently overhauled a lot of the way I eat. My sugars are still a bit high, even though I've been regularly taking my medication for the last six months. I have dropped my sugar count from about 300 to 160 or so, so I've done a lot. The new medication gives me headaches and because of slight--I found out today--irreversible nerve damage in my feet due to my slack treatment, my feet always feel cold. I have to get better at managing the disease. I'm doing better, but...
The missing component is exercise. I'm extremely sedentary. So, my Thing today is just plain exercising. I plan on walking a half an hour a day, five days a week. It's about 45 minutes to work, so I may skip using the car one day a week while the weather is nicer.
The only fly in the ointment, besides time is my ipod has been acting wacky, so I'll work on that this week as well. Must have music while I walk.
Tomorrow's Thing is designed to help keep me honest and you can see my progress.
The Serpent
Friday, May 18, 07:15 PM
Blame the Name, A Game
Thursday, May 17, 03:49 AM
In my never ending quest to goof off
at work, I've been trying to develop 'work games,' that is, games
you can play with little or no set-up at work, maybe during a break
or while doing other mundane activities.
At work, we were having a discussion about names and their meanings, so I thought up this social game for three or more players in three short phases. This game works best with people you have a casual relationship with, such as coworkers or people at a party.
Blame the Name
Sometimes, names can feel like destiny. For example, as a kid, every Kevin I knew was a bully. So, I have a slight suspicion of all Kevins. It's irrational, of course, but the basis of this game. The basis lies around the simple fill-in phrase, "All (name)s are (adjective)."
To play the game you'll need a few scraps of paper, pens or pencils and a list of baby names. You can find a list here, but there are lots of lists online. It's a good idea of sticking to a list of 100 as the names will be chosen at random. Also, pick how many rounds you plan to play. Each round consists of the three phases.
Phase One-Picking a Name
Choose a new name. If you have a two lists---one for girls, one for boys---flip a coin, heads for boys and tails for girls. Then have a player pick a number. Match the number to the list and there's your name. In the rest of the rules, I'll refer to this name as the 'named person.' After the name is announced, each player writes down an adjective to describe the main quality of every person with this name. It's intuition-based, so your first reaction is usually the best. This descriptive word will be the basis of Phase Two, the storytelling phase. Some descriptive word examples include any adjective you can name---sexy, model, prissy, butch, brainy, weakling, etc. Stereotypes work well. All the players then reveal their descriptive word. Each word that matches with another player receives one point. Multiple matches count for multiple points. For example, if three people all have the same word, each of those people would receive two points, one for each other matching word. Keep a running score of points on a separate piece of paper.
A variant---Instead of one descriptive word, each player writes down three descriptive words, but this means three different stories, one for each word, in the storytelling phase.
Phase Two-Storytelling Phase
Each player will take turns telling a story about the Named Person and how they are like your descriptive word. When deciding a story to tell, remember your story must fall into one of three categories:
A. Real----This story happened to you with the named person and all the details being true, as you remember them.
B. Bluff----You made this story up. It's a fabrication. A bluff may also be a real story, just one that did not happen to you and the Named Person. For example, if the name was 'Babe' you could say 'All Babes are gluttons' and tell a story about how this 'Babe' you knew used to eat 20 hot dogs before every baseball game. The real Babe Ruth used to very often pig out on hot dogs before games, so this is a bluff. If the story is about you, but your saying it's about the named person, it's also a bluff.
C. Fictional---This is a story involving you and a fictional character. For example, using 'Babe' again, you could say 'All Babes are filthy' and tell a story about this 'Babe' you knew who used to literally roll around in the mud. Of course, I'm referring to the fictional 'Babe the pig' from those kids movies. You wouldn't mention the pig part in the story, but could place him on a farm and match up other details from the movies. Don't mix up fictional names with other named persons. Use the same fictional name always.
Each story only needs to be a few minutes or so. This is also a great way to work in that great story about so-and-so, you know, that great story you're always trying to shoehorn into normal conversations.
Start each story with, "All (Named Person) are (descriptive word), I knew a (Named Person) and they....."
Phase Three-Voting
After all the stories, each player is up for voting. The first storyteller is first. All of the other players chose whether they think the storyteller's tale is Real, Bluff or Fictional. Each story, if multiple adjectives are played, is voted on separately. After all the player have written down their guesses, the storyteller reveals the nature of the story. If the story is Real, tell the other players the full name of the object of the stories and any other details. If the story is a bluff, reveal if it's a total fabrication, happened to a real person and name them or if it happened to you. If the story is fictional, name the fictional character and source.
Each player who guessed correctly receives one point. If the player is incorrect, the storyteller receives a point. Repeat voting process for each storyteller.
Optional rule---After the main voting is finished, each player votes for the best story. They can not vote for themselves. Each vote delivers one point to it's storyteller.
Tally up the points and declare a winner. In case of a tie, the player with the most Real stories and highest score wins. If no Real stories, have another round of best story votes for the tied players. If still a tie, the game ends in a tie or play another round.
At work, we were having a discussion about names and their meanings, so I thought up this social game for three or more players in three short phases. This game works best with people you have a casual relationship with, such as coworkers or people at a party.
Blame the Name
Sometimes, names can feel like destiny. For example, as a kid, every Kevin I knew was a bully. So, I have a slight suspicion of all Kevins. It's irrational, of course, but the basis of this game. The basis lies around the simple fill-in phrase, "All (name)s are (adjective)."
To play the game you'll need a few scraps of paper, pens or pencils and a list of baby names. You can find a list here, but there are lots of lists online. It's a good idea of sticking to a list of 100 as the names will be chosen at random. Also, pick how many rounds you plan to play. Each round consists of the three phases.
Phase One-Picking a Name
Choose a new name. If you have a two lists---one for girls, one for boys---flip a coin, heads for boys and tails for girls. Then have a player pick a number. Match the number to the list and there's your name. In the rest of the rules, I'll refer to this name as the 'named person.' After the name is announced, each player writes down an adjective to describe the main quality of every person with this name. It's intuition-based, so your first reaction is usually the best. This descriptive word will be the basis of Phase Two, the storytelling phase. Some descriptive word examples include any adjective you can name---sexy, model, prissy, butch, brainy, weakling, etc. Stereotypes work well. All the players then reveal their descriptive word. Each word that matches with another player receives one point. Multiple matches count for multiple points. For example, if three people all have the same word, each of those people would receive two points, one for each other matching word. Keep a running score of points on a separate piece of paper.
A variant---Instead of one descriptive word, each player writes down three descriptive words, but this means three different stories, one for each word, in the storytelling phase.
Phase Two-Storytelling Phase
Each player will take turns telling a story about the Named Person and how they are like your descriptive word. When deciding a story to tell, remember your story must fall into one of three categories:
A. Real----This story happened to you with the named person and all the details being true, as you remember them.
B. Bluff----You made this story up. It's a fabrication. A bluff may also be a real story, just one that did not happen to you and the Named Person. For example, if the name was 'Babe' you could say 'All Babes are gluttons' and tell a story about how this 'Babe' you knew used to eat 20 hot dogs before every baseball game. The real Babe Ruth used to very often pig out on hot dogs before games, so this is a bluff. If the story is about you, but your saying it's about the named person, it's also a bluff.
C. Fictional---This is a story involving you and a fictional character. For example, using 'Babe' again, you could say 'All Babes are filthy' and tell a story about this 'Babe' you knew who used to literally roll around in the mud. Of course, I'm referring to the fictional 'Babe the pig' from those kids movies. You wouldn't mention the pig part in the story, but could place him on a farm and match up other details from the movies. Don't mix up fictional names with other named persons. Use the same fictional name always.
Each story only needs to be a few minutes or so. This is also a great way to work in that great story about so-and-so, you know, that great story you're always trying to shoehorn into normal conversations.
Start each story with, "All (Named Person) are (descriptive word), I knew a (Named Person) and they....."
Phase Three-Voting
After all the stories, each player is up for voting. The first storyteller is first. All of the other players chose whether they think the storyteller's tale is Real, Bluff or Fictional. Each story, if multiple adjectives are played, is voted on separately. After all the player have written down their guesses, the storyteller reveals the nature of the story. If the story is Real, tell the other players the full name of the object of the stories and any other details. If the story is a bluff, reveal if it's a total fabrication, happened to a real person and name them or if it happened to you. If the story is fictional, name the fictional character and source.
Each player who guessed correctly receives one point. If the player is incorrect, the storyteller receives a point. Repeat voting process for each storyteller.
Optional rule---After the main voting is finished, each player votes for the best story. They can not vote for themselves. Each vote delivers one point to it's storyteller.
Tally up the points and declare a winner. In case of a tie, the player with the most Real stories and highest score wins. If no Real stories, have another round of best story votes for the tied players. If still a tie, the game ends in a tie or play another round.
The Experts Vote: WDJFSG?
Wednesday, May 16, 04:36 AM
Kel's Graduation
Tuesday, May 15, 03:31 AM
Last Saturday, my son graduated from
high school. Today's Thing is a photoset of his graduation. Thanks to Shelly for
taking all the pictures!
And congrats to Kel!
And congrats to Kel!
Guest Book
Monday, May 14, 03:48 PM
Another simple site addition. If
you're new to TTOTD, please sign our guest book. You can also view our guest book.
Free Brains
Thursday, May 10, 01:22 PM
Today's small Thing is just links to
some complete zombie-themed products. Yea, Free! Most items you
once had to pay for, but are now free.
The first is Monster Island by David Wellington. It's the first novel of a three-part zombie series. All three books are there, complete. You can order them from Amazon or read them free. The stuff I've read is pretty good and it's not just internet wankery like most free writing. He's also posted some other books there as well.
And now, a bunch of free zombie games. Follow the links on the Game Board Geek site pages to download maps, rules, etc.
Zombie Plague---haven't read the rules to this one, but it looks like an expandable miniatures game.
Dawn of the Dead---Based on the 1978 movie. I actually owned this game back in the early eighties and played the heck out of it. The free version will require a lot of cutting and set-up, but it's all there.
Dead of Night---I downloaded this game a few months ago. The rules sound fun, it's like a more expansive version of Zombies where the tension is ratcheted up as the game goes on. However, just visiting the site, I notice it's no longer free because the game has been picked up by a publisher. That's good news 'cause now I can buy it at the game store eventually with cool bits.
Check out the many Zombie lists on Board Game Geek for head munching fun.
The first is Monster Island by David Wellington. It's the first novel of a three-part zombie series. All three books are there, complete. You can order them from Amazon or read them free. The stuff I've read is pretty good and it's not just internet wankery like most free writing. He's also posted some other books there as well.
And now, a bunch of free zombie games. Follow the links on the Game Board Geek site pages to download maps, rules, etc.
Zombie Plague---haven't read the rules to this one, but it looks like an expandable miniatures game.
Dawn of the Dead---Based on the 1978 movie. I actually owned this game back in the early eighties and played the heck out of it. The free version will require a lot of cutting and set-up, but it's all there.
Dead of Night---I downloaded this game a few months ago. The rules sound fun, it's like a more expansive version of Zombies where the tension is ratcheted up as the game goes on. However, just visiting the site, I notice it's no longer free because the game has been picked up by a publisher. That's good news 'cause now I can buy it at the game store eventually with cool bits.
Check out the many Zombie lists on Board Game Geek for head munching fun.
Minus One-A Zombie Week Story, Part One
Wednesday, May 09, 04:16 AM
Sitting at work trying to think of a
Thing for today, I had the thought, "How come Holy Water works on
vampires, but not zombies." It's kind of a dumb thought.
So, I decided to take that sentence and make it the first sentence of a horror story. That's how today's Thing started out, I wouldn't expand on the thought until I sat down to write. It's sort of a creative writing exercise. After about two hours of writing, I realized I have a two-parter. So part-two will be tomorrow.
The micro story is called Minus One.
Read More...
So, I decided to take that sentence and make it the first sentence of a horror story. That's how today's Thing started out, I wouldn't expand on the thought until I sat down to write. It's sort of a creative writing exercise. After about two hours of writing, I realized I have a two-parter. So part-two will be tomorrow.
The micro story is called Minus One.
Read More...
The Walking Dead Vol. 1 & 2---A Review
Tuesday, May 08, 02:21 AM
As Zombie Week continues, Here's a review of Robert Kirkman's graphic novel The Walking Dead, Vol. 1 & 2 with obligatory commentary about zombie stories. You can read the first issue here for free. Vol. 1 & 2 covers the first twelve issues. There are currently over forty issues.
Zombie Week
Monday, May 07, 11:06 PM
Free Comic Book Day
Friday, May 04, 03:17 AM
Image Comics---The Walking Dead and others.
Marvel Comics---You need to register, but they have a ton of comics!
Vertigo---All of the imprints first issues including Sandman, Preacher and others.
Top Cow Comics---Tomb Raider, Witchblade and other cheese.
A Directory of Online Comics---Lots of obscure, web-only stuff.
Dark Horse---Hellboy, Buffy, The Goon
Antarctic press
Oni Press---Indy style comics.
Wasteland
Comic Book Archive---Over 4,400 classic comics from the 1920's-1980's.
Golden Age Comics---Thousands of more pulpy golden age comics.
That's just a taste. I've downloaded over 80 or so comics as well as read a bunch online. A great comic book site is CBR---tons of info and links.
The Spoils Screensaver
Thursday, May 03, 02:47 AM
Download the zip file here. It's 58 megs. Can you spot the MST3K joke in the card?
Macosaix
Wednesday, May 02, 12:05 PM
Today's Thing is Macosaix. This mac program allows you to make a mosaic out of photos in your iphoto or from any source. There were over 10,000 pictures scanned and 2,500 pictures used from our iphoto collection to make the image on the right. The quality is only about 75 percent of the original. I've done other photos that have approached 85 percent which looks pretty close. Check it out.
Rock Me, Dr. Zaius, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo
Tuesday, May 01, 01:22 PM
Here's the second part of my modeling Thing. I spent about an hour and a half painting Dr. Z---Get painted, You Damn Dirty Ape! I am not a great painter, in fact my artwork has been described by imaginary critics as "sucky" and "thumb-fingered." I think I used the wrong kind of paint and spaced painting one part.
Plus, Dr. Z is now the one armed chimp looking for Charlton Heston and worshiping his precious bomb. I lost an arm.
Oh, well, it was very relaxing painting. Next up, basket weaving in the "What Things do the Severely Mentally Challenged make in workshop" portion of TTOTD.
Cheap Promotion
Monday, April 30, 11:00 PM
Today ain't no big Thang. In trying to
promote this blog, I went to this list of social networking sites. I signed up for over 30
of the 55 services, so lots more spam. I haven't seen much traffic
from the sign up...I did this a week ago and was squirreling away
this for a later Thing. Why are all of these sites almost identical
and very sparsely populated? Testimonials lie. Does anyone know of
a good blog promotion site to target readers who may be interested
in Things?
The Stick Men-Spam
Thursday, April 26, 03:57 AM
Here's another
one pager from America's wordiest comic right behind
Cathy.
Sheesh. She sure is chatty. AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!
I'm thinking of renaming The Stick Men to "Two Pieces of Modeling Clay Who Talk A Lot and Absolutely Don't Listen to Each Other," but that seems a bit wordy.
Check it out on the flickr page, on PDF or just Read More.
Read More...
Sheesh. She sure is chatty. AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!
I'm thinking of renaming The Stick Men to "Two Pieces of Modeling Clay Who Talk A Lot and Absolutely Don't Listen to Each Other," but that seems a bit wordy.
Check it out on the flickr page, on PDF or just Read More.
Read More...
Postcards from The Edge
Wednesday, April 25, 03:15 AM
No Stick Men
today, I'm tired.
However, I was rummaging through some old boxes in the attic and found some old galley proofs.
These postcard mark-ups cost me my one-day imaginary job working for the Arizona Tourism Board. I misguidedly thought I could drive up female visitors to Arizona.
Warning, crude juvenile humor ahoy!
The Galley Proofs. (Small 1 Page PDF Only)
However, I was rummaging through some old boxes in the attic and found some old galley proofs.
These postcard mark-ups cost me my one-day imaginary job working for the Arizona Tourism Board. I misguidedly thought I could drive up female visitors to Arizona.
Warning, crude juvenile humor ahoy!
The Galley Proofs. (Small 1 Page PDF Only)
The Stick Men-Too Soon
Tuesday, April 24, 03:59 AM
Here's another Stick Men Comic called
"Too Soon."
It's wrong, wrong, wrong. It's what happens when I give myself one day to turn around a comic.
You have the option of downloading the PDF or clicking through on my flickr page or click on read more. It's a two pager, although for some unfixable reason, the big-sized PDF is 4 pages--- two comic, two blank.
Another comic tomorrow.
The Stick Men---having cake, eating it too.
Read More...
It's wrong, wrong, wrong. It's what happens when I give myself one day to turn around a comic.
You have the option of downloading the PDF or clicking through on my flickr page or click on read more. It's a two pager, although for some unfixable reason, the big-sized PDF is 4 pages--- two comic, two blank.
Another comic tomorrow.
The Stick Men---having cake, eating it too.
Read More...
The Stick Men-The Secret
Monday, April 23, 04:49 AM
Today begins, hopefully, a week of new
comics. It's a new strip called The Stick Men.
Each comic, initially will be published as PDF's to insure high
quality. Later I'll go back and upload the files to flickr or
somewhere else. I also hope to make a special slide show of this
week's comics sometime early next week. All the pictures used in
the comic are royalty-free and I did all of the clay work, writing,
photography, manipulation and, as the nerds say, inking.
However, as of publishing, I've only thought of this Stick Men comic called The Secret. I'd better get busy.
Enjoy today's PDF.
Update: you can also see this 4 page comic on my flickr page if you do not want to download the PDF. Or go to the Read More page. Read More...
However, as of publishing, I've only thought of this Stick Men comic called The Secret. I'd better get busy.
Enjoy today's PDF.
Update: you can also see this 4 page comic on my flickr page if you do not want to download the PDF. Or go to the Read More page. Read More...
More flickr Fun
Friday, April 20, 03:26 AM
After Shelly's excellent flickr
review, I'm coasting by this Friday and starting my own flickr page.
Next week is humor week.
Next week is humor week.
Contacts and Calendars
Thursday, April 19, 03:34 AM
Today on site improvement week, I've
added a simple contact page which could be easily modified for polls,
buying stuff or all kinds of form-filling-out-fun. Look to the
sidebar.
Also, here's a test calendar page. It'll be up for a while, but until we find a good use for it won't appear in the sidebar.
Plus, playing with transparencies in the logo area of the blog. Thingy takes a walk.
Also, here's a test calendar page. It'll be up for a while, but until we find a good use for it won't appear in the sidebar.
Plus, playing with transparencies in the logo area of the blog. Thingy takes a walk.
Flava Favicon
Wednesday, April 18, 03:40 AM
He/She's the first incarnation of the TTOTD Mascot. Seeshells drew him/her. I'm sure as Things change on TTOTD, Thingy will change as well.
To welcome the amorphous corporate-friendly and easily branded Thingy to the site, I've made a favicon out of him/her. So look to your address bar for your tiny, Thingy buddy.
I thought this project would be super easy, but actually ended up sucking up quite a bit of time. I've never made a favicon before and a 16x16 pixel picture is awful tricky to clean up.
Files Page
Tuesday, April 17, 03:01 AM
Sooner or later, after soooo many
Things, finding your favorite Thing may become difficult. For a
remedy, Today's Thing is a Files Page.
You can get to the page from the sidebar anytime. It's called "TTOTD Files."
On the page, I'll update any and all new Thing media weekly. This way you'll always be able to find a file or download a JPEG.
You can get to the page from the sidebar anytime. It's called "TTOTD Files."
On the page, I'll update any and all new Thing media weekly. This way you'll always be able to find a file or download a JPEG.
New Forum
Monday, April 16, 01:43 AM
Today kicks off a week of improving
the site. I'll be adding some new basic Things for the site.
Today, I've created a forum. It's pretty basic. If you have ideas for categories and boards, let me know. We'll spiffy the forum up at a later time.
Today, I've created a forum. It's pretty basic. If you have ideas for categories and boards, let me know. We'll spiffy the forum up at a later time.
Mana Free Magic
Friday, April 13, 03:50 AM
Here's a broken Magic variation for lazy and cheap gamers. This variation can work for most card games. Read More...
Good Night, Kilgore Trout
Thursday, April 12, 02:06 AM
I imagine one
the author's protagonists might write his obituary like this:
"Upper New York state native Kurt Vonnegut Jr. lived a very long time. And then, as expected, he died. So it goes."
Kurt Vonnegut died.
I haven't read the details just yet, but I'm guessing he went out quietly, not with a wimper, but with a slight wisp. Hopefully, after a nice day, a nice meal, a contented smile. This would seem apt. No he-man heroics for Vonnegut. No shotgun in the mouth like Hemmingway or Hunter S.
Drama may be for other people. Life is funny that way. Just the act of living, then dying, was enough for Mr. Vonnegut. I hope his family was there and there was resolution. Resolution is important. Resolution is for the old and infirm. Distraction has always been a goal of the young. Static and distraction.
There's so much mystery and wonder and hope and glory just in the act of living, then dying. That's something I've learned from Vonnegut's books. Maybe he never even said those exact words or even intended that sentiment, but that's what I've learned. Go figure. The concept of God just fucks up the mystery and the wonder and the hope and the glory. Static and distraction for the brain. But more about that in a minute.
Back up, do the straight obituary. Vonnegut was an ironist, satirist, humorist, humanist, and all the other 'ists that get people so angry at words. That's how life is. Like all good American writers, he started out as a journalist. He taught me the most important lesson about writing---Get to the point, stupid. Also, every word must advance the story. He taught me these lessons. I don't think I learned those lessons, though.
Vonnegut also epitomized a certian breed of post-war writer, the observer. America's such a big pot trying to figure itself out, all one can do is watch, be an observer, and avoid judgement because freedom has so many hooks, even in the righteous and cock-sure. Not a lot of melting. Every man's life is absurd and small and epic and misguided and just is.
Mark Twain watched. And then made funny comments. Vonnegut did so too. Unlike some other important American authors, from what I could tell, Vonnegut didn't speak directly to race and class and justice. This is because, you see, everyone lives and everyone dies. All races and all classes. There's your justice. Thanks for nuthin'.
Morality is like trying to tell a one-eyed man what binocluars are about. And everyone has only one eye. And never even seen a pair of binoculars. So it goes.
Easily, I could be wrong. With so many connections and lessons, my mind is the pot I'm observing. My melting pot. With binoculars. And one eye.
Like that commencement speech everyone thought Vonnegut wrote a few years ago. Just because it's funny and seems to have and an ironic, practical, and at first glance, trite tone does not make it Vonnegut. Don't forget your sunscreen. Bring a towel. Still Life with Woodpecker. I am Jack's liver. I am the all-singing crap....
And on and on.
I've read most of Vonnegut's books, like everyone, a long time ago. In college. This was when The Satire and what seemed like The Detachment in his books were cool. I read a later novel just two years ago and realized the satire was serious and the detachment attached. What struck me were the criss-cross of connections that create the haze of our life. There is so much of our lives that has been determined by mysterious history, unexpected relations, world events, handleless motivations, the unintended left turn. Ayn Rand be damned. But in the end, this is okay, because it is what it is. No Zen poem, but simple fact. This may sound Rumsfeldian, but the unknown is our mysteries and wonders hopes and glories. We just are too dumb to know it.
I don't need to name a book that most influenced me because, it's all in there amongst the all the stories.
History is mystery to the individual, so life must press on. The good and the bad have practical reasons, but like a single ant in a massive ant farm, we can't see the whole magilla. Am I repeating myself or are these slight variations? Hard to say.
But, Mystery is good. Love starts with the mystery. To make sense, to comprehend, life is a constant act of reduction. My favorite phrase from a Vonnegut book about love, paraphrased, as always, is---"This bed is all there is. This bed is our country and we are a nation of two." A nation of two seems like a nice country to be a citizen in.
And even within the reductionist confines of a nation of two, mystery abounds. Wonder and hope and glory abounds. That's why God is uneccessary. God just provides answers tries to give context. God is reductionist on mystery and wonder and blah, blah, blah. God mysticisizes the mundane and crushes the truly wonderous. Static and distraction. Distraction and static. Plus, where's he been lately, anyway?
American novels often concern themselves with static and distraction as the constant and always current American state. Run, Rabbit, Run...Run, Forrest, Run. The intellectuals find solutions in meaning and understanding. The spiritualist finds meaning in meaning and God. Meaning reduces. Meaning shrinks. Meaning often offers scarce comfort, but great absurdity.
Even with meaning, tragedies sill happen and life still goes on, that's what Vonnegut seems to say to me. Life doesn't go on couragiously or with profound insight. Life just goes on, but that is just how life is. That's how life rolls. There's still mystery and hope and wonder and glory. And, hopefully, there's also some comfort and absurdity.
People are as they are. Abusrdity is as it is. Vonnegut certianly pointed out absurdity; getting out of bed is an absurd act. Killing milions of children is an absurd act, too.
I don't believe Vonnegut ever would have been on Oprah's book club---wouldn't that be absurd---as hope and spirits sailing and that inner meaning that makes you the Goddess of your own Universe isn't really the point. It's the static and the distraction.
And tragedies still happen. They happen to the hopeful, the spiritual, those with solutions and understanding in ways they can't understand. And the hopeful, the spiritual, those with spirit and understanding also cause tragedy, often in ways they can't understand.
Nobody gets out alive, I'd imagine a Vonnegut protagonist would say.
And as I'm sure most obituaries about disgraced, failed hack Sci-fi writer Kilgore Trout will end...So it goes.
And so it goes.
Read More...
"Upper New York state native Kurt Vonnegut Jr. lived a very long time. And then, as expected, he died. So it goes."
Kurt Vonnegut died.
I haven't read the details just yet, but I'm guessing he went out quietly, not with a wimper, but with a slight wisp. Hopefully, after a nice day, a nice meal, a contented smile. This would seem apt. No he-man heroics for Vonnegut. No shotgun in the mouth like Hemmingway or Hunter S.
Drama may be for other people. Life is funny that way. Just the act of living, then dying, was enough for Mr. Vonnegut. I hope his family was there and there was resolution. Resolution is important. Resolution is for the old and infirm. Distraction has always been a goal of the young. Static and distraction.
There's so much mystery and wonder and hope and glory just in the act of living, then dying. That's something I've learned from Vonnegut's books. Maybe he never even said those exact words or even intended that sentiment, but that's what I've learned. Go figure. The concept of God just fucks up the mystery and the wonder and the hope and the glory. Static and distraction for the brain. But more about that in a minute.
Back up, do the straight obituary. Vonnegut was an ironist, satirist, humorist, humanist, and all the other 'ists that get people so angry at words. That's how life is. Like all good American writers, he started out as a journalist. He taught me the most important lesson about writing---Get to the point, stupid. Also, every word must advance the story. He taught me these lessons. I don't think I learned those lessons, though.
Vonnegut also epitomized a certian breed of post-war writer, the observer. America's such a big pot trying to figure itself out, all one can do is watch, be an observer, and avoid judgement because freedom has so many hooks, even in the righteous and cock-sure. Not a lot of melting. Every man's life is absurd and small and epic and misguided and just is.
Mark Twain watched. And then made funny comments. Vonnegut did so too. Unlike some other important American authors, from what I could tell, Vonnegut didn't speak directly to race and class and justice. This is because, you see, everyone lives and everyone dies. All races and all classes. There's your justice. Thanks for nuthin'.
Morality is like trying to tell a one-eyed man what binocluars are about. And everyone has only one eye. And never even seen a pair of binoculars. So it goes.
Easily, I could be wrong. With so many connections and lessons, my mind is the pot I'm observing. My melting pot. With binoculars. And one eye.
Like that commencement speech everyone thought Vonnegut wrote a few years ago. Just because it's funny and seems to have and an ironic, practical, and at first glance, trite tone does not make it Vonnegut. Don't forget your sunscreen. Bring a towel. Still Life with Woodpecker. I am Jack's liver. I am the all-singing crap....
And on and on.
I've read most of Vonnegut's books, like everyone, a long time ago. In college. This was when The Satire and what seemed like The Detachment in his books were cool. I read a later novel just two years ago and realized the satire was serious and the detachment attached. What struck me were the criss-cross of connections that create the haze of our life. There is so much of our lives that has been determined by mysterious history, unexpected relations, world events, handleless motivations, the unintended left turn. Ayn Rand be damned. But in the end, this is okay, because it is what it is. No Zen poem, but simple fact. This may sound Rumsfeldian, but the unknown is our mysteries and wonders hopes and glories. We just are too dumb to know it.
I don't need to name a book that most influenced me because, it's all in there amongst the all the stories.
History is mystery to the individual, so life must press on. The good and the bad have practical reasons, but like a single ant in a massive ant farm, we can't see the whole magilla. Am I repeating myself or are these slight variations? Hard to say.
But, Mystery is good. Love starts with the mystery. To make sense, to comprehend, life is a constant act of reduction. My favorite phrase from a Vonnegut book about love, paraphrased, as always, is---"This bed is all there is. This bed is our country and we are a nation of two." A nation of two seems like a nice country to be a citizen in.
And even within the reductionist confines of a nation of two, mystery abounds. Wonder and hope and glory abounds. That's why God is uneccessary. God just provides answers tries to give context. God is reductionist on mystery and wonder and blah, blah, blah. God mysticisizes the mundane and crushes the truly wonderous. Static and distraction. Distraction and static. Plus, where's he been lately, anyway?
American novels often concern themselves with static and distraction as the constant and always current American state. Run, Rabbit, Run...Run, Forrest, Run. The intellectuals find solutions in meaning and understanding. The spiritualist finds meaning in meaning and God. Meaning reduces. Meaning shrinks. Meaning often offers scarce comfort, but great absurdity.
Even with meaning, tragedies sill happen and life still goes on, that's what Vonnegut seems to say to me. Life doesn't go on couragiously or with profound insight. Life just goes on, but that is just how life is. That's how life rolls. There's still mystery and hope and wonder and glory. And, hopefully, there's also some comfort and absurdity.
People are as they are. Abusrdity is as it is. Vonnegut certianly pointed out absurdity; getting out of bed is an absurd act. Killing milions of children is an absurd act, too.
I don't believe Vonnegut ever would have been on Oprah's book club---wouldn't that be absurd---as hope and spirits sailing and that inner meaning that makes you the Goddess of your own Universe isn't really the point. It's the static and the distraction.
And tragedies still happen. They happen to the hopeful, the spiritual, those with solutions and understanding in ways they can't understand. And the hopeful, the spiritual, those with spirit and understanding also cause tragedy, often in ways they can't understand.
Nobody gets out alive, I'd imagine a Vonnegut protagonist would say.
And as I'm sure most obituaries about disgraced, failed hack Sci-fi writer Kilgore Trout will end...So it goes.
And so it goes.
Read More...
AAAAAYYYYYY!, Hip Check, Cha-chi.
Wednesday, April 11, 02:44 AM
Today starts a few days of game
related posts. I've been thinking about non-traditional games and
trying to create games you could do anytime, anywhere-often without
the other players even being around. Workplace shenanigans, pranks,
dares and just plain ways to keep your mind entertained. Yea, some
of it is a tadmean, but slight displaced hostility at the workplace
is how our economy runs.
I've got a CCG-game variation for lazy nerds tomorrow and a more ambitious idea for Thursday or Friday. I think games should generate talk between players.
In some ways, this website is so Shelly and I have more ideas to explore and talk about before all the necessary 'maintenance' talk that seems to suck up so much time.
The two shortish, gamish games today can easily be adapted to your own taste.
Created out of boredom, underwritten in haste...
Read More...
I've got a CCG-game variation for lazy nerds tomorrow and a more ambitious idea for Thursday or Friday. I think games should generate talk between players.
In some ways, this website is so Shelly and I have more ideas to explore and talk about before all the necessary 'maintenance' talk that seems to suck up so much time.
The two shortish, gamish games today can easily be adapted to your own taste.
Created out of boredom, underwritten in haste...
Read More...
Blue Moon Art Rage
Tuesday, April 10, 12:49 AM
Five Random Seconds of 24
Monday, April 09, 04:17 AM
A quick preview of what's bound to
happen on tonight's or, well, any night of 24 with a tiny print
disclaimer on the read more page.
Read More...
Read More...
Battle Chess
Friday, April 06, 03:56 AM
Here's a Chess variant I wrote that
incorporates some modern gaming ideas into Chess. I think it adds a
few more levels of strategy to the game. I haven't play tested the
game yet, so let me know if any of the rules are unworkable or
confusing. I think they're pretty straightforward.
I'm pretty proud of the rules and I hope Chess Heads have fun with it. Feel free to download the PDF and pass it around.
Here's the PDF.
(Update: After talking with Jed at work, I've slightly changed the game and PDF to match the point system used in traditional Chess. Thanks for the feedback. I always got my butt kicked in Chess, so I know little about strategies or the finer points of competition rules. Hey, I still call the Knight piece, "the horsey piece." Oh, if you don't like the point system, change it to match your taste, no big deal. Open Source Gaming is all about customization.)
I'm pretty proud of the rules and I hope Chess Heads have fun with it. Feel free to download the PDF and pass it around.
Here's the PDF.
(Update: After talking with Jed at work, I've slightly changed the game and PDF to match the point system used in traditional Chess. Thanks for the feedback. I always got my butt kicked in Chess, so I know little about strategies or the finer points of competition rules. Hey, I still call the Knight piece, "the horsey piece." Oh, if you don't like the point system, change it to match your taste, no big deal. Open Source Gaming is all about customization.)
Rock Me Dr. Zaius
Thursday, April 05, 03:37 AM
Since I can remember, I've had trouble
doing the simplest snap-together models. I have awful mechanical
and fine motor skills: I can't paint and didn't have a ton of
patience as a child. So, last weekend, I bought the Planet
of the Apes snap-together model for my Thing today. It's
Dr. Zaius.
I thought the box said there was no painting, so I didn't get paints.
Ooops. That'll be another Thing. Here's some more pictures of the model from my new Flickr account. They're artistic.
That's just another way of saying they're crappy pictures.
I thought the box said there was no painting, so I didn't get paints.
Ooops. That'll be another Thing. Here's some more pictures of the model from my new Flickr account. They're artistic.
That's just another way of saying they're crappy pictures.
This Week on Daddy Issue Island
Wednesday, April 04, 03:57 AM
Old TOTD and Old Comics
Tuesday, April 03, 02:12 AM
Today's Thing archives some old
comics, plus tracks the long history of Thing-related websites.
Read More...
Thing! Vol1
Sunday, April 01, 08:20 AM
