A few days ago, I received another box from Awaken Realms: Of course, the important question is: How did the cats react? Awaken Realms' Vault Story Dice are fancy optional dice for use in various games. You can easily make out the boxes that contain the Tainted Grail and Etherfields dice. What's in the other three? Actually,…
I recently received Kings of Ruin, the latest game in the Tainted Grail saga. Awaken Realms specializes in these large-scale narrative games that come with elaborate miniatures, and Kings of Ruin is no exception. Let's see what the cats think of it. Let's look at the game from the less-relevant human perspective. Narratively, Kings of Ruin is…
qaStaHvIS wa'SaD cha'vatlh jaj tlhIngan Hol vIHaDtaH = I have studied the Klingon language for 1200 days. In my post 1111 Days of Klingon, I said it might be my last post on Klingon. Obviously, it wasn't. In a "what the heck" mood, I decided to try the first lesson of "Section 4" in the Duolingo course.…
As I'm finishing my lunch, I hear a sequence of beeps that sound like a fire alarm go off somewhere in my apartment complex. This is not unusual, so I wait a minute or two for someone to take care of it. (Technically, Wrong Thing #1.) I stick my head out of my apartment. Amongst the beeps…
Look at what I got! This is a follow-up photo to the original: What's going on? Is the The Elements of Ritual, Revised Edition that good? While I won't say it isn't, that's not why I have two copies. It boils down to over-enthusiasm. When Deborah announced her book last year, it appears that I placed an…
We all know what it means to receive a new game: Cat pictures!
It's been a while since my last tech post. Time for another one. The games Portal and Portal 2 are two of the best video games ever made. They're both basically puzzle games. What makes them different from other games? The clever use of space. The key tool of Portal is the "portal gun". It instantly connects…
It's probably too late for word of this to spread, but: As I type this, tomorrow will be 12/31/23, in the American date notation. The pattern is 1-2-3-1-2-3. That means it's Waltz Day. This should not be confused with National Dance the Waltz Day, which is on March 4.
... was to go home. Some of this was posted on Facebook. As I type this, yesterday was Dec 25, 2023. I got home from work (if you're a sysadmin, you do serious stuff on holidays to minimize the impact) at about 5PM. I parked as usual in my apartment complex's parking lot. I heard meowing from…
No. Some of you may recall an earlier blog post I wrote entitled Am I overreacting? I ask the question in the context of my continuing isolation in the face of COVID. In that article, I pointed to the condition of Dianna Cowern (PhysicsGirl on YouTube) who was suffering from long COVID. Today, a friend of hers…