Cthulhu's Library

Of Bounty Hunters, Knights, and Alpacas

2012-01-28T13:51:00.000-05:00

This morning my son and I were playing with one of my Star Wars figures--the bounty hunter Dengar--and some toy farm animals. At one point I put Dengar on the back of an alpaca, pretending that he was riding him.

A little while later my wife called me back into the living room, excited about what O had just done. He stopped playing, went into his room and found a library book, opened it to a specific page and pointed to the picture and then to Dengar. The book is from the "I Spy" series, the picture of a knight on horseback. Dengar, looking sort of knightly in his pointed head gear and grey/brown space armor, had been riding the alpaca, which looks a bit like a horse.

I love seeing old and familiar things through my sons 19 month old eyes. Stuff that I have known for most of my life--like Dengar, whom I first encountered in 1980 at 8 years old--can take on new roles when viewed out of context, with no preconceived notions of what is or isn't "correct".

Isn't that really what this gaming hobby I love is really about, anyway? Roleplaying games are just "let's pretend" with a set of guidelines to let multiple people partake of the same story without stepping all over each other. We take something familiar--like medieval knights, mythology, or outer space--and give them a spin with friends to see what falls out. Playing with my son is like gaming, where things old and familiar to me are new again and take on unexpected roles in his hands.

Long live Dengar, Knight of the Alpaca!

Obligatory D&D 5e Post

2012-01-09T20:30:00.000-05:00

A Dice Tower?

2011-07-07T17:54:00.000-04:00

Over on Grognardia, James has another "Ads of Dragon", this one for the Fair Shake dice tower. He ends the post wondering why someone would spend $ on something that they can do by hand. While I don't have an answer for him, I do own a dice tower. Mine is unique, though. I made it.

I've been taking pottery classes for about 2 1/2 years, and a little over a year ago, I was looking for something a little different, a little more complex than the boxes, bowls, mugs, flowerpots, and plates I had made so far. I wanted to make something big. Something that I could point to and say "Yeah, I made that". Something that was a conversation starter and related to my other interests. I decided to make a dice tower.

Why a dice tower? I don't really know. I never owned one, never really wanted one, and truthfully, thought they were a bit silly. I agree with James-why use something like that to roll dice when using my hands or a cup is easier, faster, and just as good? Still, I had the materials, the time, and the motivation, so I started working on it. My class only met once a week, so it was a slow process. For 6 weeks I rolled clay, cut slabs, fit pieces together, explained to the others in the class what it was and talked about gaming, getting the usual questions like "People still play D&D?" Finally it was ready to be fired. I was afraid it would fall apart in the kiln, or it would get broken at some point. But no, it made it through the firing. One more class spent glazing, wondering if I was using the right colors or what it would look like when completed. Another firing and it was done. It now sits on top of one of my bookshelves, waiting to be used in a game. I'm sure someday I will use it in a game, and I do occasionally take it down and drop a die or three down the chute to hear them bounce around and roll out the bottom.

Even if it doesn't get used, I can still point to it, smile, and say "Yeah, it's a stoneware dice tower. I made it."

What Kind of Box? Another Random Table

2011-03-11T17:31:00.000-05:00

To expand upon yesterdays Things In A Box post, below is another random table, this one to determine what kind of box has been found. This one probably should have come first, but the Things table was finished before I started on this one.

What Kind of Box?

A Random Table (3d12)

polished metal cube, no visible seams except for lid
shipping crate, rough wooden slats lined with canvas
woven wicker cube on wooden frame
oblong box, rough hewn boards with nails along edges
rectangular box, paperboard over wooden frame
tall & narrow storage box, doors on front, lacquered boards with decorative inlay
finished wood cube with brass hardware and feet
finished wood pentagon with flat top, lid pivots to the side on one corner
oblong box of rusted iron with bolts along edges
small, plain pine casket
woven wicker basket on wooden frame, decorative silk woven into sides and lid
glass display case on metal frame, inside lined with silk drapery to hide contents
wood and leather steamer trunk
wooden blanket chest with hinged lid
large round paperboard hatbox
intricately carved stone sarcophagus with slab lid
wooden frame covered with stiffened leather sides
oblong metal box with enameled overlay and decorative paint, hinged lid
finished wood box with sliding lid, inlaid checker pattern around edges
bone framed cube with stretched human skin sides, lashed together with leather cord
small steel safe, double padlocked door on front
oblong storage box on carved wooden feet
large round metal barrel with screw top lid
lacquered wood pyramid with removable metal cap
hastily constructed box of unfinished wood panel sides and rough timber frame
short, square box, lacquered boards with copper edging
storage crate of wooden panels held together with metal straps
woven reed basket on stick frame, tapered towards bottom, lift off top
small lacquered wooden casket, decorative inlay on top, brass hardware and handles
finished wood chest with single large pull out drawer
octagon shaped box of painted wood, top folds open on two sides
tall and narrow woven wicker basket
plaster covered wooden slat cube with painted pattern on sides
cube with frosted glass sides and metal frame

Images courtesy of http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/

Things In A Box: A Random Table

2011-03-10T21:14:00.000-05:00

Boxes. Adventurers frequently come across boxes while exploring, and think nothing of opening them to see what is inside. Frequently, the answer to “What’s in the box?” is “Treasure!” or "Trap!", although sometimes it’s just mundane stuff like supplies or trade goods, and yes, there is the occasional monster. Who leaves those boxes full of stuff lying around all the time for characters to rummage through? I don’t recall very many times in my life when I walked into a room, saw a box, dug through it until I found something I wanted, and took it (well, except for my toy box as a kid, but that was MY toy box). Even if it’s not a usual occurrence in the real world, there seem to be lots of boxes for characters to dig through as they tramp around the dungeon (or tower, castle, inn, cave, extra-dimensional lair, etc.) Below is my random “Things In A Box” table, inspired by the great random tables found at Beyond The Black Gate, Carjacked Seraphim, and The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope, among others.

Things In A Box

A Random Table (d100)

1d10 pp, 1d100 gp, 1d1000 sp, 1d20 ep, 1d12 cp
a very fine 6” glass sphere, cool to the touch, resting in a velvet “nest”. Any application of heat (including body heat) will cause it to explode in 1d4 minutes into thousands of tiny shards causing 1d6 damage, + 1 additional point due to shards buried in flesh every turn of movement until healed. If transported without damage, sphere is worth 600 gp.
an 18” lump of lodestone, adheres to nearest iron or steel object, can be removed with strength check. If stuck to armor, -2 to armor class until removed due to awkward size & weight.
1d6 random books, non-magical
a 12” wax figure of the person opening the box, perfect in all details
a monocle on a 24” silver chain
a severed medusa head, person opening box must make saving throw or be petrified
1d4 random potions in correctly labeled metal flasks
a slightly smaller box, same construction as the original box. Roll again for contents.
small leather bag filled with sand
a well used hand of glory (non-magical) and a braid of long blond hair
hornet’s nest, swarm of hornets immediately attack all within 30’ radius
10 iron spikes, a metal hammer, and 100’ of silk rope
14 copper discs, 6” across, with text written on one side in an undecipherable script
an imp dressed in motley, on opening box he jumps out, yells “BOO!”, then flies away. If caught, he answers to the name Jack.
a cloud of purple dust puffs out, causing all in 10’ radius to save vs breath attack or sneeze violently for 1d3 turns. make a random monster check due to noise
large leather-bound book in an unknown language
bones of a small human child
large bundle of dried leaves from a rare medicinal plant, heals 1d6 damage if burned and smoke is inhaled
small gold plated goblet studded with semi precious stones
silver hand mirror with monogram “L.C.“ on the back
burlap sack containing strips of salted meat (2d4 days rations)
a portal to elsewhere in the dungeon, appears as a miniature staircase inside the box leading down into darkness
a hand drawn treasure map on a 3’ square piece of sheepskin
small carved stone idol of a many armed, winged humanoid with a horse head
copper torc with a small ruby set on each end, resting on a stone slab. If worn around the neck it will immediately adhere to the wearer’s skin and the rubies begin to heat up, doing 1d2 damage the 1st round, 1d4 the 2nd, 1d6 the 3rd, 1d8 the 4th, 1d10 the 5th, 1d12 the 6th, and 1d20 the 7th. After 7 rounds it will immediately cool down and can be worn with no further damage to that person. If removed and worn again later or worn by a different person it will once again adhere and heat up.
a smooth egg shaped stone, with a blue 8 pointed star painted on it. If touched it will cause 1d10 points of electrical damage
a pair of silver dueling daggers wrapped in very soft leather and tied with a braided cord, worth 200 gp each or 500 gp as a matched pair
6 white candles, 6 brass candlesticks, and silver tinder box
a folded tapestry depicting the first meeting between the king of the lizard people and the queen of the troglodytes
pair of lightweight blue crystals, 6” long and radiating very slight magic. If placed in water and allowed to float, one crystal will always point towards the location of the other crystal, regardless of distance.
small, simple platinum hoop earring. If worn in right ear will allow the wearer to hear soft sounds as if they were at a normal volume. if worn in left ear it will amplify all sounds to a painful volume causing 1d3 damage per minute, if not removed it will cause permanent deafness in left ear in 4 minutes.
a pair of well made black leather boots with 3 shiny steel buttons on the back, 2 pair of bright purple socks
green woolen cloak with carved wooden clasp in shape of a star
sack of smooth, fist sized river stones
36 bloody teeth, freshly pulled
small red cloth-bound book, “Rites and Sacrifices of the Lost Children of the Crow”
4 random holy symbols, all crudely carved from wood
femur and tibia tied together in the shape of a cross, wrapped in red velvet
set of 96 wooden building blocks in a variety of shapes
8 plain but sturdy clay mugs, matching decanter with wax stopper (full of sweet wine)
a package wrapped in fancy paper, labeled “For Victoria”, containing a variety of ladies undergarments
ogre sized loincloth, heavily soiled. if handled save vs poison or become ill, lose 1d4 points of Con for 1d4 days
large sack of glass marbles. There is a weak seam on the sack, 15% chance per round of splitting open if roughly handled (ie. combat, running, strenuous movement)
15 scrolls, all containing the same random 1st level wizard spell
poorly made wand of healing. Recipient must be wacked hard on the forehead, causing 1 point of damage then healing 1d6 points, 2d10 charges remaining
a paralyzed goblin, regains movement 1d6 turns after opening box
a large metal bucket with a padlocked lid, contains an ochre jelly which bursts free if the lock is opened
14 twigs tied together in a bundle with rotted cord
a mummified hawk
a trapped wraith bursts forth and immediately attacks when the box is opened (automatic surprise). Inside the lid is a painted rune of undead entrapment.
4 random gems in a silk pouch
7 dwarven made hoods (2 yellow, 2 green, 1 purple, 1 tan, 1 brown) and 1 shiny red apple
3 small wooden boxes, identical except for a number branded into the top (1, 2, 3), and a scroll tied with blue string. Scroll reads “Will you fly, will you fall, will you go through the walls? Choose carefully, you cannot choose again”. When a box is opened the contents of the others immediately disappear forever. #1 contains a ring that immediately teleports wearer to random location in the dungeon before crumbling to dust, #2 contains three potions of flying, #3 contains a 6” steel orb, if touched a 10’x10’, 20’ deep extra-dimensional pit opens directly beneath it, containing 3 skeletons that immediately animate and attack any who fall in. Pit will close in 5 rounds.
A desiccated dwarven corpse, arms and legs have been cut from torso to fit in box
Box full of mirror shards, a mirror inside of the lid reflects a distorted image of the opener. Mirror shatters in 1d4 rounds (even if lid is closed) and a duplicate of the opening character, identical in all respects but of the opposite alignment, appears directly in front of the box and immediately attacks the opener, ignoring all others. If either the duplicate or the opening character is killed, the duplicate and all it’s possessions disintegrate into black dust. Closing the lid will reset the sequence, and it is possible to have multiple duplicates of the same (or different) characters at the same time if the box is opened again. Under the mirror shards in the box is a 3” high crystal pyramid pulsing with a faint white light. If removed from the box the pyramid will cease to light.
heavy leather sack with 12 caltrops
18” iron cauldron full of live frogs
Black metal, open faced helmet with a chrome spike on top
40’ of heavy iron chain
wooden bucket with cover, full of 3” iron nails, 2 wooden mallets
3 old wool blankets
6 vials of oil, bundle of rags, 2 torches
8 animal skulls-2 dog, 2 monkey, 1 bear, 1 snake, 1 cow, 1 tortoise
a finely woven black cape, wrapped around a pair of men’s black leather shoes
box is ½ full of dirt, 2 garden trowels and a small bag of pumpkin seeds are lying on top
12 arrows with dried black liquid on the tips (poison, save or vomit for 2d6 rounds) in a leather quiver
5 hand towels, a hair brush, 2 combs, and a bar of flowery smelling soap
2 magical cloaks of protection +1, infested with disease. save vs poison or suffer severe internal pain and bleeding beginning in 1d3 days, lasts 2d4 days, causes 2d6 damage per day, all damage heals at ¼ normal rate, contagious to any who come in contact with infected character(s)
14 decks of cheap playing cards and a pair of silver dice
3 shrunken heads (2 elf and 1 gnome)
rats nest made of clothing, 5 rats, hole chewed through rear of box
hand drum, 3 tambourines, and a pair of silver hand bells, all with symbols of chaos crudely painted on them in purple paint
3 dried gourds on a bed of straw
6 pots of paint, wooden pallet, 2 large paint brushes
black doctors bag containing 4 vials of holy water, 6 wooden stakes, a wooden mallet, 5 dried garlic bulbs, and a note-”I waited as long as I could but they were trying to break down the door. I’ll try to lead them away. Sorry. -J”
large glass jar full of iron shavings
padlock and 97 keys (none of which match the lock)
empty saddlebag, bit & bridle, and riding crop
carved wooden toys-2 boats, 1 horse & wagon, 4 soldiers, 1 dog
well used mandolin with broken neck
2 small oil lamps and a flask of highly explosive oil. if oil is used in any lamp it will explode for 2d6 damage to person lighting lamp
charred human skull with a large quartz crystal in it’s mouth
well used set of alchemical tools, 2 glass beakers, and 4 empty glass bottles with corks
sack of dried apples, in bottom of sack is a severed human fist
four 10” stone statues of minotaurs and a wooden model of a maze
2 red candles and a 2’ wooden wand topped with a halfling skull. If both candles are lit and the wand is held there is a 10% chance of Orcus taking notice
basket full of dried mushrooms
set of well made men’s clothing, folded and neatly stacked
helmet shaped like a fish, the inside is always cool and clammy to the touch
pair of 6’ white feathered wings on a shoulder harness, folded and wrapped in white silk
miniature pick and shovel, 30 rocks painted gold
opening box causes a vacuum, if room has doors they immediately slam shut and characters will suffocate in 2d6 rounds unless box is forced shut (strength check)
stuffed porcupine
bundle of sheet music composed by Vin of Telarine, tin flute, brass kazoo
severed human head, will open eyes and attempt to speak but makes no sounds
plague doctors mask, wide brimmed black felt hat
roll twice and combine results, ignoring rolls of 98-100
roll three times and combine results, ignoring rolls of 98-100
roll four times and combine results, ignoring rolls of 98-100

I want to thank Professor Pope and Roberius Rex for giving the table a read through and for providing me with feedback and a few corrections.

Images courtesy of http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/

Wraith Revisited

2011-02-22T22:17:00.002-05:00

In the comments to my post from last Thursday, I was asked by Kiltedyaksman (of Discourse & Dragons) to give some more detail on the method used to paint the Wraith miniature, particularly what paints and inks I used. I don't recall where I first saw a similar method of painting ghosts, and I played around with a couple different things that I wasn't happy with, until things all seemed to come together on this one. Unfortunately, I did not take any notes for this miniature. Fortunately, I do remember the technique I used and many of the paints are standard colors that I use all the time, so recreating the “recipe” isn’t very difficult. So while I can’t swear that this is EXACTLY what I used and how I painted the miniature, it’s a damn close approximation!

As a refresher, here is the miniature in question:

This is the Crypt Wraith from Reaper Miniatures, sculpted by Bob Ridolfi. Or as my wife calls it, the Statue of Liberty Ghost.

Paints used:
White spray primer (Krylon)
Neutral Gray (Model Master Acryl)
Flat White (Model Master Acryl)
Titanium White (Liquitex)
Green Ink (Games Workshop)-I don’t think this is available any longer from GW
Gloss coat spray lacquer (Testors)
Dull coat spray lacquer (Testors)
acrylic thinner
“Magic Wash” (Future acrylic floor polish & water)

After priming, I put on a base coat of Neutral Gray, then a dry brushing of Flat White, enough to hit all the raised surfaces while leaving gray showing through on the deep parts and the flat surfaces (shield, armor, helmet). Then a very light dry brushing with Titanium White (thinned quite a bit), just touching the highest points. For the inking, I used Green Ink mixed with “Magic Wash”. I believe I first used a mix of 50/50 ink/wash, then a second coat of 70/30 ink/wash to darken the deeper spots. I may have touched up a few spots with an even heavier mix of ink to wash, as it seems there are a few spots that are darker than the rest. 2 coats of gloss coat and 2 coats of dull coat finish the mini, aside from basing.

If you’ve not used or heard of “Magic Wash”, a quick search online will bring up many, many hits with different ratios of floor polish to water. From straight polish to mostly water, everyone has a mix that they like best. Truthfully, I don’t remember exactly the ratio I used last time I mixed a batch up, I think it was 1:4 but it may have been 2:3 (wax:water). I’ve got a good sized bottle of it mixed, so I won’t need to figure it out any time soon.

For the base, the mini was glued to a 1” washer, then coated the washer with crazy glue and dipped in Woodland Scenics Buff Fine Ballast. This was painted dark brown (not sure of the exact color) and dry brushed with 2-3 lighter shades of brown. The final details on the base are from Galeforce Nine. Basing Grit: Rocky (which I believe is actually crushed walnut shells) and Winter/Dead Static Grass (a mix of greys and browns).

I hope that is a satisfactory explanation! I've played around with this a bit on a few other minis, using different color inks and different paint colors, some worked well, some not so well. I hope to have some of those minis posted soon. Give it a try, it's really a simple technique, and I'd love to see what kind of results others have with it, or other similar methods for painting incorporeal undead.

A Few Miniatures (Fighters)

2011-02-18T08:00:00.010-05:00

As a follow up to my post yesterday, here are a couple of fighter miniatures that I painted about a year ago.

Elf Great Swordmaster (Target Games, Chronopia)

The Elf Great Swordmaster has wings that are supposed to go on the sides of his helmet, but I found them to be far too large. Otherwise, I really like the sculpt on this mini. Chronopia had some really interesting figures scattered among it's armies, especially the orcs. It also had some really bad ones as well. I have a few more that I picked up on clearance, but this is the only one I've painted.

Fighter (WotC, Chainmail)

When WotC was blowing out their stock of Chainmail miniatures after the game was canceled, I bought a lot of them for what seemed to be a great deal at the time. Looking back, based on the number I've actually painted, it wasn't quite the deal I thought it was. There were some great miniatures in the line, though, and I've got a number of them assembled and primed, waiting for their paint job. I'm not sure what I was thinking with some of the colors I used here. I like the yellow and green, but I don't know what possessed me to give him a blue helmet. I guess I thought he needed something to match his pants. His sword also took on a little bit of a rusty tint during the final shading wash that he received.

A Few Miniatures (Some Bad Guys)

2011-02-17T14:34:00.036-05:00

*Updated on 2/18/2011 with a bit of info for each miniature.

Since it's been a little while since my last post, here's a quick one with a few pictures of miniatures I've painted over the past year or so. These are all monsters of some sort, I'll get a post with some character miniatures up soon.

Wood Golem (Reaper)

While I've never used a wood golem in any of my D&D games, this miniature was just too neat to pass up when I spotted him among all the other Reaper minis at a game shop. Unlike most of the minis that I have purchased in the past, this guy immediately went to the top of the painting pile, and he came out pretty much as I wanted him too.

Mummy (Grenadier, Folklore Creatures of the Night box set)

This is actually the second time I have painted this miniature. I received the set he came with (Folklore Creatures of the Night) as a gift when I was in middle school, sometime in the early-mid 1980s. All the figures in the set were painted at the time with Testor's oil based model paints, which were the only paints that I had access to at the time. It was a pretty poor paint job, although the color scheme I used back then is basically the same as what I used this time, but he now has shading and highlights and the paint isn't slopped on nearly as heavily. Stripping 20+ year old oil paints off these old minis isn't nearly as difficult as it sounds, just a long soak in PineSol and a good scrub with a toothbrush.

Hellhound (WotC, Chainmail)

Not one of my favorite miniature sculpts, but I needed a hellhound and I had him in my unpainted miniatures among the WotC Chainmail minis I had purchased in an overstock blowout sale. He came out pretty well, although he was a lot simpler looking when I used him in the game. After using him I went back, touched up some paint, gave him a quick shading with Minwax polyurethane stain, and painted the base as "fire".

Crypt Wraith (Reaper)

I really like how this wraith came out, even though it's a very simple paint job. Gray base coat, white highlights, then finished with a couple washes of green ink. Glued to a washer for a base with some gravel and grey/brown static grass and he's done.

I enjoy painting miniatures, but it takes me a long time to finish one. After my son was born this past June, I only managed to pull the paints out once, back in December. I keep telling myself I'm going to pull them out again "this week", but it never seems to happen. Maybe by posting these pictures I'll have a bit more enthusiasm to do so one night after work.

Tome of Horrors Complete

2011-01-04T14:21:00.000-05:00

Over on the Frog God Games website, Bill Webb has announced that this year will see the release of Tome of Horrors Complete, a single hardcover volume containing all the monsters from Tome of Horrors v.1-3, originally released for d20 by Necromancer Games, and it will have editions for both Swords & Wizardry and Pathfinder. Here's the full announcement:

January 3, 2011
Frog God games is pleased to announce Tome of Horrors Complete

This book will be released in 2 formats; Swords and Wizardry and Pathfinder. It will consist of a huge volume encompassing all three Necromancer Games Tome of Horror volumes. Release date is Summer 2011, and retail price is TBD. This will be hardcover release. This massive Tome will contain almost 1000 monsters retstatted and reworked for both game systems, all in one place.

This is the largest, most comprehensive monster book ever released. Each monster is individually illustrated.

Let the discussion begin!
Happy New Year (almost) !

I'm a big fan of the 3 original volumes, and always found them to be the most useful of the many monster volumes that were released for d20. This looks like it'll be a great addition to any Pathfinder or Swords & Wizardry collection, but I'm curious what the cost will be. 1000 monsters with an illustration for each one is going to end up being a huge book. There is a bit of discussion going on at the Necromancer Games forums, with a little more information on the book.

Robin Hood: Books and Movies and Miniatures, Oh My!

2010-12-30T22:48:00.000-05:00

Illustration by Howard Pyle

Over the past few weeks I've been on a bit of a Robin Hood kick. I reread some of Howard Pyle's stories from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, checked a few history and folklore books on the legends of Robin Hood out from the library, read the graphic novel Outlaw: The Legend of Robin Hood, and saw The Adventures of Robin Hood, the 1938 film staring Errol Flynn, which (in a fantastic coincidence of timing) was screened at the Paramount Theater here in Charlottesville earlier this month. I highly recommend the film, it's a great swashbuckling adventure with one of the best sword fights in film, between Errol Flynn's Robin Hood and Basil Rathbone's Sir Guy of Gisbourne.

Along with all of these things, I managed to finally finish painting a miniature I started way back in the fall of 2009, but never got around to finishing. It's an old Games Workshop miniature I picked up in a clearance bin a few years ago. In the Warhammer world he's known as Bertrand the Brigand, but it doesn't matter what Games Workshop calls him, it's obvious that this is supposed to be Robin Hood.

The base was entirely made from scratch, the figure just didn't look right on a flat base. I found an appropriately sized stick of wood in the yard, cut and painted a small piece of it to look like a log, and added some other basing material. The lighting in the pictures is not very good, there are some bad shadows and the colors aren't showing up very well. The skin tone looks far more orange here than it is on the actual figure.

The post-Christmas post

2010-12-29T19:45:00.000-05:00

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, it was especially nice to have almost the whole family in one place. It was my son's first Christmas, and he definitely won the Most Loot prize. It'll be a while before he can take full advantage of most of what he got, though, as he's still in the "grab it and stick in mouth" stage. Not quite big enough to use the building blocks or toy truck just yet. It certainly was fun watching him tear paper, examine things, laugh, and occasionally try to eat the wrapping paper.

I made out pretty well myself: a new iPod Touch, a Le Creuset dutch oven (I've been wanting one for several years but never expected to actually get one), some socks, Epic Mickey, and a few books I was not expecting (but really wanted)-The Lego Book, The Secret History of Star Wars, The Making of Star Wars, and Prince Valiant, Volume 1: 1937-1938. I actually gave a copy of the Prince Valiant book to a friend this year, and was planning on getting it for myself at some point soon. What goes around, comes around!

Lord of the Rings? Not in this class!

2010-12-23T20:38:00.000-05:00

My well loved boxed set of The Lord of the Rings

Over at Professor Pope, the good Professor is facilitating a reading and discussion of The Hobbit, a few chapters at a time. Rereading the book and thinking about both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings has me thinking of my first encounters with J.R.R. Tolkien's world.

In 1978 I was 6 years old. The film version of The Lord of the Rings by director Ralph Bakshi was released. A few of my aunts and uncles were Tolkien fanatics, and they organized a big party to go see the film (on what I suspect was opening weekend). I found myself with several of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and their friends, in a packed movie theater, watching an animated film that didn't make much sense to me but I loved it anyway. There were cool monsters, elves, dwarves, some little people called hobbits, and lots of sword fighting. For a long time afterwords, my cousin and I spent many days playing in the woods behind our houses, pretending we were Strider and Legolas, out hunting orcs and Ringwraiths.

At some point in the next year or so, I came across a boxed set of the novels at the house of some of my parents friends. This was a revelation, as I didn't realize that there were books that the movie was based upon. Now I could find out what happened to Frodo and Sam! Somewhere in all of this, I saw the animated version of The Hobbit, which I seem to remember watching on TV every year around Thanksgiving, just before the Christmas cartoon specials began airing. For my 8th birthday I was given the very same set of books I had found (apparently, I talked about it quite a bit to the owners of the books, and read a few pages of them whenever I was at their house), a well read set that I still own, in a great gold foil covered box. I immediately read The Hobbit that summer, and to this day it remains my favorite of Tolkien's works. While I love the fantastic and complex story of The Lord of the Rings, the intimacy of The Hobbit has always appealed to me more.

But the rest of this post isn't about The Hobbit. It's about the next one in that set of 4 books, and a particular event that can recall with clarity 30 years later...

So here I was, an 8 year old kid who was reading anything and everything he could get his hands on. I had just been given the 4 books that were the source of the movie that had captivated me a few years earlier (the only other movie to captivate me to this degree was Star Wars). School started in the fall, 3rd grade. I used to get dropped off in the morning by my dad and I would sit outside the classroom and read until the teacher arrived. At some point I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring. Quite a massive book for a 3rd grader, right? It was slow going but I was making my way through it, trading it off with other, more typical, reading for a kid my age whenever I got bogged down with it and wanted to read something else.

One morning I was sitting in the hallway reading The Fellowship when the teacher arrived, about 30 minutes before the school day started. I recall this very clearly, as what happened next was at that point the biggest shock of my life. My teacher, Ms. Kohlman (a tall, wiry, gray hair in a bun lady who didn't seem to like kids very much), asked what I was reading. I proudly held the book up, smiling, expecting to be complemented for reading a book that was above my reading level. She looked at it, scowled, and took the book out of my hand, telling me "You aren't old enough to be reading that." She disappeared into the classroom with my book, leaving me standing in the hall, stunned with disbelief at what just happened. I went into the classroom, almost in tears, and asked when I could have my book back. Her response? "You won't. You aren't old enough." This was supposed to encourage me to read? A teacher punishing a kid for wanting to read something difficult, something that he obviously loved?

That night I told my parents, and I remember them being mad. Mad because she had taken it away and told me I wasn't getting it back, and even madder that she told me I couldn't read the book. My parents were always encouraging me to read, and the more challenging the book, the better. My mom, an elementary school teacher, was quite upset, as this was not just some random teacher telling a kid he couldn't read a book, but her kid's teacher telling him he couldn't read a book. I don't remember exactly what happened the next day, but I do know my mom went in and had a long talk with my teacher, and I got my book back that night. I was allowed to keep reading the book at school, and never heard another word from the teacher about what I was reading. Eventually, after quite a few weeks, I finished The Fellowship of the Ring. And even if I didn't understand some of it, or thought parts of it were boring, I loved it.

Over on this shelf of the library...

2010-11-24T12:01:00.003-05:00

Deep in the recesses of Cthulhu's library in R'lyeh, I'm sure these 4 books are sitting on the graphic novel shelf.

Take a look at artist Murray Groat's other work as well, he has some great stuff!

Thanks to Gamer-X over at Howling In The Dark for sending me an article from Comics Alliance with these images.

listening to: Bolt Thrower-...For Victory

Desert Island Fantasy Books

2010-11-18T14:30:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago, Risus Monkey posted the "10 Works of Fantasy Literature to have on a Deserted Island" meme. I thought it would be an easy post to knock out in an hour or so, but choosing only 10 books is quite difficult and I've spent more time than I should have swapping things in and out. Some were very easy to pick, but after the first few I had a very hard time deciding how to fill out the list.

So, in no particular order, here are the 10 books, limited to 1 volume per author (I did include a few omnibus volumes), that I would want to have with me if I was deserted on an island:

The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition-Louis Carroll

contains both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

H. P. Lovecraft: Tales (Library of America)-H.P. Lovecraft
Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales-Ray Bradbury

Very difficult to choose between this and Dandelion Wine

The Annotated Hobbit-J.R.R. Tolkien

Yes, The Hobbit, not LotR. A tough call, but I enjoy The Hobbit more.

The Anubis Gates-Tim Powers
The Phantom Tollbooth-Norton Juster
The Complete Chronicles of Conan-Robert E. Howard

All the Conan stories by REH, in order of publication

Bone: The One Volume Edition-Jeff Smith
Face In The Frost-John Bellairs
The Chronicles of Narnia (one volume omnibus)-C.S. Lewis

Listening to: Kreator-Enemy of God

Introducing a Kid to Role Playing Games (part 1)

2010-11-15T17:12:00.000-05:00

I've been a volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters for 3 years, all with the same boy (now 10 years old), whom I'm going to call E. In general, E and I have quite different interests. While at first this might seem to be a poor match, it has led to eye opening experiences for both of us. He's very different than I was at 10, but we stumble upon things that both of us really enjoy with increasing frequency.

I have been waiting for the right time to try introducing him to RPGs, and have tried to laying some groundwork over time, seeing what other activities he liked that I could use as an introduction. We have played out big battles on the floor with my gaming miniatures, making up rules as we went along, randomly using dice for movement and combat. E refers to this as "our game"; it's sort of a wargamer version of CalvinBall. Last year for Christmas I bought Nerf swords, and we and ran around in the woodsattacking trees, bushes, each other, basically anything that was slow enough not to get out of our way as we fought off hordes of goblins and dragons. He's has a passion for reading, and both of us love taking trips to the library where we go home with more than we can reasonably read in the 2 week loan period.

Other things have not gone quite so well-the copy of The Hobbit I bought for his 9th birthday is still unread, and various fantasy movies have been turned off in the middle in favor of Rock Band or other games on the Wii. A day trip to one of the caves in the area turned into a painful experience when he realized the tour group was, literally, a captive audience for his antics.

But back to the more recent past. We were in a used book shop on a rainy day a few weeks ago, I was looking at graphic novels and sf novels, he was looking at the young adult books. E says to me out of the blue "Hey, when can we go out in the park and fight monsters again? Like in the myths?" referring to a book of Greek mythology he was reading. I smiled inside, seeing my chance to introduce him to RPGs. "Well, I think I know what we can do... Let's go home and I'll show you." 30 minutes later (after lots of "What are we going to do? Huh? Tell me!"), we were at my dining room table, with pencils, graph paper, dice, a copy of Labyrinth Lord, Stonehell Dungeon, my old copy of the D&D Moldvey Basic set, and we were creating his first character.

To be continued...

Listening to: Candlemass

15 Games in 15 Minutes

2010-10-20T18:16:00.001-04:00

This is as good a post as any to restart the blog. Let's see how long it lasts this time. Ha. Ha. Ha. Sigh.

To follow on the meme that's going around on blogs like Risus Monkey, Grognardia, Huge Ruined Pile, etc., listed below are the first 15 games that come to mind in 15 minutes.

The rules: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen games you've played that will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

1. D&D (rpg, all editions)
2. Marvel Super Heroes (rpg)
3. Civilization/Advanced Civilization (board game)
4. Call of Cthulhu (rpg)
5. Gammarauders (board game)
6. Car Wars (board/miniatures game)
7. Savage Worlds (rpg/miniatures game)
8. Star Frontiers (rpg)
9. GURPS (rpg)
10. D&D: Pool of Radiance (computer rpg)
11. INFOCOM text computer games (Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Planetfall, etc)
12. Ticket to Ride (board game)
13. Fluxx (card game)
14. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (computer rpg)
15. Stop Thief (board game)

Yes, I'm cheating a little on #11, but I played a bunch of the INFOCOM games all at the same time, switching back and forth as I got stuck in different spots in each one. It's sort of my "text based computer game period", rather than a single one of them. As for the other games, wow, there are some pretty big games that I loved that are missing, and some odd ones that came to mind first-Gammarauders? Yeah, I liked Gammarauders, but didn't play it all that much, although the concept was pretty neat. Others, particularly computer games like Bard's Tale and Kings Quest, didn't come to mind until a while after I completed this list. and I'm sure a few others will come to mind later tonight and I'll wish I had them on the list.

50 books. Where do I stand?

2010-02-08T22:24:00.000-05:00

At the last check in for my 50 Books in 2010 goal, I was at 3. That was on January 16. Today, on February 8, I'm at 7. Not bad, I'm slightly ahead of the minimum average I want to keep (1 book each week) to meet the goal by the end of the year. This is good, as I know that my reading will drop once the baby arrives in June.

Since my last update, I've read the following: The Pine Barrens by John McPhee, a history and memoir of the New Jersey Pine Barrens; The 13 Clocks by James Thurber, a childrens book that is part fairy tale and part complex poetry for adults; The Curse of the Blue Figurine by John Bellairs, an author I read another book by recently (The Face in the Frost) but didn't realize he was the same person who wrote one of my favorite books from when I was a kid; and Dark Entries by Ian Rankin, a John Constantine (Hellblazer)graphic novel set in a haunted house that was somewhat curiously published in the Vertigo Crime series for no reason I can figure other than the author is primarily a mystery writer.

Next up: a new take on vampires in The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan (thanks to Tim for the recommendation!)

listening: nothing at the moment

Manhood for Amateurs

2010-02-08T21:01:00.001-05:00

I completed the first book of my "50 in 2010" on New Years Day-Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Fathr, Husband, and Son by Michael Chabon. I actually started it a while ago, getting about 1/3 of the way in, but it was a library book and was recalled before I had a chance to finish it. I checked it back out a couple weeks ago, and decided to kick off the new year by finishing it. I've read some of Chabon's work before-a few short stories, a couple essays, and his fantastic tribute to the pulp adventure stories of Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard, Gentlemen of the Road.

Manhood for Amateurs is a collection of essays about being male, and the roles in life that men play-son, husband, father, brother, son-in-law, and so on. Chabon is definitely a geek-comics, sword & sorcery, science fiction, to name a few typically geeky things that had (and continue to have) a major impact on his life. Between the writings about being male and those about interests that I share with him, I found myself relating to almost all the essays one way or another.

Reading these essays made me think a lot about who I was growing up, where I came from, who the male figures were that influenced my life, and where my life is now. As I read about his life as a father, especially the birth of his first child, I was thinking to the future. Who will my child be? What will they be like, and what will their influences be? I am looking forward to sharing the things I liked as a kid-Lego bricks, Star Wars, comics, playing in the woods, and so on. Will my son enjoy the same things I did? Or will we be strangers to each other, not able to comprehend what/why we are different?

So, as not to stray too far from the original point of this post, I highly recommend Manhood for Amateurs. Knowing a number of people who read my blog, I have a feeling they will relate to, and enjoy, Chabon's essays in many of the same ways I did.

3 Down, 47 to Go

2010-01-16T12:40:00.001-05:00

Just a quick update on my reading goal for the year. I've finished 3 books so far. Not a bad start. I'll be posting my thoughts some of the books I read, but not all.

I've got a post on the first, Manhood for Amateurs, coming up shortly. Second was The Eyes of the Dragon, and third Lyra's Oxford. Lyra's Oxford was really only a short story with a very nice woodcut map (and some other random items) that fleshes out the world of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, but I'm counting it anyway, as it's a stand alone book. I've also read a comic collection that I'm not counting towards the total, Invincible volume 11: Happy Days.

Up next? I'm not sure, but I think I'm going to go for some non-fiction.

Listening: Dark Ages by Soulfly

What To Read?

2010-01-07T16:51:00.001-05:00

In my previous post, I mentioned one of my goals for 2010 was to read 50 books. 50 doesn't really sound like all that many books, but I don't think I've read 50 books (not counting graphic novels) in a single year for quite a while. I got the idea for this goal over on LibraryThing, where there are a variety of book challenges going on: 50, 75, 10 books in each of 10 different subjects, books you already own but haven't read, and so on.

I've set a few limits and guidelines for myself, in order to help me focus and keep on target for making my goal this year.

Only 20 graphic novels count towards the 50 books: This is to keep me from choosing the easy way out, and finishing early. I tend to read at least 2-3 graphic novels or comic book collections a week, sometimes many more than that. Since I read them both for pleasure and for work (I'm the graphic novel subject librarian for the library where I work), I'll quickly hit 50 books without reading anything but graphic novels.
Graphic novels that do count must be complete, stand alone stories: A large percentage of the graphic novels I read are simply compilations of a run of comics. In order to count, the book must be a stand alone story. Titles like Batman: Year One or Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 would count, but Invincible Volume 11 would not.
Focus on books I own, have checked out from the library, or have wanted to read for a long time: I have a very long "To Be Read" list, and it grows longer each week. Instead of reading from this list, I just add to it, and never seem to read what I have already put on the list. Instead I read whatever I saw most recently that struck me as worth adding to the list, so the longer a book is on the list the less likely I'll read it. By trying to read mostly books that I already want to read or own instead of whatever I come across new, I hope to make a small dent in the pile. I'm sure I will not stick to this 100%, but that's fine.
Mix up genres a little: I tend to read the same genres over and over-fantasy, science fiction, horror, and similar. I'm going to make an effort to occasionally read something different, just to make my list a bit more rounded. I'm sure the bulk of titles will be in these areas, though.

With those ideas in mind, here is a quick starter list of potential books, taken from my book shelves at home and in my office at the library. A few of these I've owned since high school, yet have never read. Others I've picked up in the last year or so. Any could be next, so could something not on this short list. As of this writing, I've actually completed one (Manhood for Amateurs) and started another (Eyes of the Dragon) from my list.

See anything that I should read right away?

A Feast for Crows	George R.R. Martin
Abarat	Clive Barker
Anno Dracula	Kim Newman
Declare	Tim Powers
Everyday Life in Early America	David Freeman Hawke
Expiration Date	Tim Powers
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	J.K. Rowling
Into the Heart of Borneo	Redmond O'Hanlon
Magician: Apprentice	Raymond E. Feist
Manhood for Amateurs	Michael Chabon
Moving Pictures	Terry Pratchett
Neverwhere	Neil Gaiman
Orchid Fever	Eric Hansen
Return to Lankhmar	Fritz Leiber
The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier & Clay	Michael Chabon
The Blade Itself	Joe Abercrombie
The Bloody Chamber	Angela Carter
The Bridge of San Luis Rey	Thornton Wilder
The Children of Hurin	J.R.R. Tolkien
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian	Robert E. Howard
The Crystal World	J.G. Ballard
The Elric Saga: Part I	Michael Moorcock
The Eyes of the Dragon	Stephen King
The Good Life	Helen and Scott Nearing
The Jungle Books	Rudyard Kipling
The Land that Time Forgot	Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Pine Barrens	John McPhee
The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane	Robert E. Howard
The Scar	China Mieville
The Traveling Vampire Show	Richard Laymon
The Truth	Terry Pratchett
Voice of the Mountain	Manly Wade Wellman
Witches Abroad	Terry Pratchett
Wizard and Glass	Stephen King

Listening: Muse-Origin of Symmetry

Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010

2010-01-01T21:28:00.001-05:00

2010-Another year down, and the start of a new one

2009 was a pretty big year for me: 10 years living in Charlottesville, 5 years married to Laura, and the biggest event (for me, at least) that began in 2009 is still yet to come-we are starting a family! (If you haven't heard this news yet, it's because we only began telling people outside our immediate families over the past 2 weeks) This still several months down the road, in June, but it's a big event that is taking up a fair amount of my thoughts lately.

2009 also brought the first of what is hopefully the start of an annual event, a "guys only" trip with two of my closest friends, Nakia and Tim. This year we spent a long weekend camping.
I began taking pottery classes at the McGuffey Art Center, which I'm enjoying quite a bit and plan on continuing in the future.
An attempt at guitar lessons wasn't quite as successful-I enjoyed them but found that I don't have the determination to practice on a regular basis. When a gap of a few weeks between lessons hit, I stopped practicing and never started again. Maybe I'll find the drive in the coming year (I hope that I will).
I saw a number of concerts this past year-Metallica, U2, Municipal Waste, Bruce Springsteen, Phish, and several others, all of which brings my list of bands I can remember seeing to 233 (many of them multiple times).
I lost 25 pounds, then gained 10 back.
I didn't do all that much gaming this year-a fair amount of Rock Band/Guitar Hero, several board game nights with friends and coworkers, but only a few rpg sessions.
I started using Twitter, then stopped. I didn't post a single blog post. I spent a lot of time on Facebook in the first half of the year then trailed off over the summer, never really going back to it with the same determination to keep up. I lost track of some friends (online and IRL), hopefully we'll reconnect in the new year.
We went on a big vacation this year-a cruise to the Greek Islands, Croatia, and Venice, Italy. A trip I'll remember for a long time to come, as we saw some amazing things I never expected to see in person.
I cut my comic book pull list down quite a bit, but I still find that I'm not really enjoying reading comics as much as I used to. I still enjoy them, but I'm finding that I'd rather read them in big chunks, full stories instead of 32 pages at a time in the monthly format.

So, 2009. Lots of positive, some negative, and a little neutral. I call it a positive year overall.

What does 2010 bring? Change, for sure. I'll be a new father, which I am very excited about, and very scared as well. More live music, hopefully. Maybe some more gaming, at least in the first half of the year. Increased communication with people I lost touch with over the past year. Bigger projects at work. A new start at the gym, and hopefully lose some more weight. More pottery to bring home and find places for around the house. Maybe I'll stop buying monthly comics and go over to all trades and collected volumes? I hope to make blogging a more regular thing (if I can find a theme that keeps me coming back to it). I want to read more, especially books that have been in my "to be read" pile for a long time. I'd like to spend more time outside-hiking, gardening, whatever.

Here's a short list of goals for 2010, something I can refer back to in the coming year and measure myself against. Am I just optimistic right now, or can I actually meet most of these?

Read 50 Books: only 20 graphic novels count towards the 50, focus on my "to be read" pile, not on new books
Loose Weight: 15 pounds will put me at 185, my goal from last year
Prepare for fatherhood: Lots of things here-combining the office and guest room, taking stock of what we have vs. what we need, deciding what I can get rid of to make more room, etc.
Spend more time outside: hiking, walking, gardening, biking, whatever
Pottery classes: Make more useful things, and less random bowls, flowerpots, and boxes
Blog: find a theme? I need something that makes me want to come and write more-games, books, music, maybe reviews of the things I am reading/listening to/playing?
Game more: I love playing and running RPGs, why don't I play them more?
Paint 26 miniatures: finishing 1 miniature every 2 weeks should be doable
Movies with Laura: I enjoy movies, Laura loves movies, yet we seldom watch the same ones. I'd like to make more of an effort to watch them together

That's 9 goals (so far) for 2010. Let's see how I do.

Currently listening to: the dog snoring on the floor next to me

Lovecraft's Commonplace Book

2008-04-14T16:55:00.004-04:00

From La Petite Claudine by way of a post on Circvs Maximvs, below are 221 story ideas straight from H.P. Lovecraft's commonplace book, which he used as a plot diary.

Also, here are similar commonplace books by Clark Aston Smith: The Black Book of Clark Ashton Smith, The Black Book: Adenda, and Strange Shadows (Thanks to Allan Grohe for the C.A.S. links).

This book consists of ideas, images, & quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use in weird fiction. Very few are actually developed plots—for the most part they are merely suggestions or random impressions designed to set the memory or imagination working. Their sources are various—dreams, things read, casual incidents, idle conceptions, & so on.
—H. P. Lovecraft

Presented to R. H. Barlow, Esq., on May 7, 1934—in exchange for an admirably neat typed copy from his skilled hand.

1 Demophon shivered when the sun shone upon him. (Lover of darkness = ignorance.)

2 Inhabitants of Zinge, over whom the star Canopus rises every night, are always gay and without sorrow. [x]

3 The shores of Attica respond in song to the waves of the Aegean. [x]

4 Horror Story
Man dreams of falling—found on floor mangled as tho’ from falling from a vast height. [x]

5 Narrator walks along unfamiliar country road,—comes to strange region of the unreal.

6 In Ld Dunsany’s “Idle Days on the Yann”
The inhabitants of the antient Astahan, on the Yann, do all things according to antient ceremony. Nothing new is found.

“Here we have fetter’d and manacled Time, who wou’d otherwise slay the Gods.” [x]

7 Horror Story
The sculptured hand—or other artificial hand—which strangles its creator. [x]

8 Hor. Sto.
Man makes appt. with old enemy. Dies—body keeps appt.

9 Dr. Eben Spencer plot. [x]

10 Dream of flying over city. [Celephaïs]

11 Odd nocturnal ritual. Beasts dance and march to musick. [x]

12 Happenings in interval between preliminary sound and striking of clock—ending—

“it was the tones of the clock striking three”. [x]

13 House and garden—old—associations. Scene takes on strange aspect.

14 Hideous sound in the dark.

15 Bridge and slimy black waters. [Fungi—The Canal]

16 The walking dead—seemingly alive, but—. [x]

17 Doors found mysteriously open and shut etc.—excite terror.

18 Calamander-wood—a very valuable cabinet wood of Ceylon and S. India, resembling rosewood.

19 Revise 1907 tale—painting of ultimate horror.

20 Man journeys into the past—or imaginative realm—leaving bodily shell behind.

21 A very ancient colossus in a very ancient desert. Face gone—no man hath seen it.

22 Mermaid Legend—Encyc. Britt. XVI—40.

23 The man who would not sleep—dares not sleep—takes drugs to keep himself awake. Finally falls asleep—and something happens. Motto from Baudelaire p. 214. [Hypnos]

24 Dunsany—Go-By Street
Man stumbles on dream world—returns to earth—seeks to go back—succeeds, but finds dream world ancient and decayed as though by thousands of years.

1919

25 Man visits museum of antiquities—asks that it accept a bas-relief he has just made—old and learned curator laughs and says he cannot accept anything so modern. Man says that

‘dreams are older than brooding Egypt or the contemplative Sphinx or garden-girdled Babylonia’

and that he had fashioned the sculpture in his dreams. Curator bids him shew his product, and when he does so curator shews horror. Asks who the man may be. He tells modern name. “No—before that” says curator. Man does not remember except in dreams. Then curator offers high price, but man fears he means to destroy sculpture. Asks fabulous price—curator will consult directors.

Add good development and describe nature of bas-relief. [Cthulhu]

26 Dream of ancient castle stairs—sleeping guards—narrow window—battle on plain between men of England and men of yellow tabards with red dragons. Leader of English challenges leader of foe to single combat. They fight. Foe unhelmeted, but there is no head revealed. Whole army of foe fades into mist, and watcher finds himself to be the English knight on the plain, mounted. Looks at castle, and sees a peculiar concentration of fantastic clouds over the highest battlements.

27 Life and Death
Death—its desolation and horror—bleak spaces—sea-bottom—dead cities. But Life—the greater horror! Vast unheard-of reptiles and leviathans—hideous beasts of prehistoric jungle—rank slimy vegetation—evil instincts of primal man—Life is more horrible than death.

28 The Cats of Ulthar
The cat is the soul of antique Ægyptus and bearer of tales from forgotten cities of Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten.

29 Dream of Seekonk—ebbing tide—bolt from sky—exodus from Providence—fall of Congregational dome.

30 Strange visit to a place at night—moonlight—castle of great magnificence etc. Daylight shews either abandonment or unrecognisable ruins—perhaps of vast antiquity.

31 Prehistoric man preserved in Siberian ice. (See Winchell—Walks and Talks in the Geological field—p. 156 et seq.)

32 As dinosaurs were once surpassed by mammals, so will man-mammal be surpassed by insect or bird—fall of man before the new race. [x]

33 Determinism and prophecy. [x]

34 Moving away from earth more swiftly than light—past gradually unfolded—horrible revelation.

35 Special beings with special senses from remote universes. Advent of an external universe to view.

36 Disintegration of all matter to electrons and finally empty space assured, just as devolution of energy to radiant heat is known. Case of acceleration—man passes into space.

37 Peculiar odour of a book of childhood induces repetition of childhood fancy.

38 Drowning sensations—undersea—cities—ships—souls of the dead. Drowning is a horrible death.

39 Sounds—possibly musical—heard in the night from other worlds or realms of being.

40 Warning that certain ground is sacred or accursed; that a house or city must not be built upon it—or must be abandoned or destroyed if built, under penalty of catastrophe.

41 The Italians call Fear La figlia della Morte—the daughter of Death. [x]

42 Fear of mirrors—memory of dream in which scene is altered and climax is hideous surprise at seeing oneself in the water or a mirror. (Identity?) [Outsider?]

43 Monsters born living—burrow underground and multiply, forming race of unsuspected daemons.

44 Castle by pool or river—reflection fixed thro’ centuries—castle destroyed, reflection lives to avenge destroyers weirdly.

45 Race of immortal Pharaohs dwelling beneath pyramids in vast subterranean halls down black staircases.

46 Hawthorne—unwritten plot

Visitor from tomb—stranger at some publick concourse followed at midnight to graveyard where he descends into the earth.

47 From Arabia Encyc. Britan. II—255

Prehistoric fabulous tribes of Ad in the south, Thamood in the north, and Tasm and Jadis in the centre of the peninsula. “Very gorgeous are the descriptions given of Irem, the City of Pillars (as the Koran styles it) supposed to have been erected by Shedad, the latest despot of Ad, in the regions of Hadramaut, and which yet, after the annihilation of its tenants, remains entire, so Arabs say, invisible to ordinary eyes, but occasionally and at rare intervals, revealed to some heaven-favoured traveller.” // Rock excavations in N.W. Hejaz ascribed to Thamood tribe.

48 Cities wiped out by supernatural wrath.

49 AZATHOTH—hideous name. [x]

50 Phleg′-e-thon—

a river of liquid fire in Hades. [x]

51 Enchanted garden where moon casts shadow of object or ghost invisible to the human eye.

52 Calling on the dead—voice or familiar sound in adjacent room.

53 Hand of dead man writes.

54 Transposition of identity.

55 Man followed by invisible thing.

56 Book or MS. too horrible to read—warned against reading it—someone reads and is found dead. Haverhill incident.

57 Sailing or rowing on lake in moonlight—sailing into invisibility.

58 A queer village—in a valley, reached by a long road and visible from the crest of the hill from which that road descends—or close to a dense and antique forest.

59 Man in strange subterranean chamber—seeks to force door of bronze—overwhelmed by influx of waters.

60 Fisherman casts his net into the sea by moonlight—what he finds.

61 A terrible pilgrimage to seek the nighted throne of the far daemon-sultan Azathoth.

62 Live man buried in bridge masonry according to superstition—or black cat.

63 Sinister names—Nasht—Kaman-Thah. [x]

64 Identity—reconstruction of personality—man makes duplicate of himself. [x]

65 Riley’s fear of undertakers—door locked on inside after death.

66 Catacombs discovered beneath a city (in America?).

67 An impression—city in peril—dead city—equestrian statue—men in closed room—clattering of hooves heard from outside—marvel disclosed on looking out—doubtful ending.

68 Murder discovered—body located—by psychological detective who pretends he has made walls of room transparent. Works on fear of murderer.

69 Man with unnatural face—oddity of speaking—found to be a mask—Revelation.

70 Tone of extreme phantasy
Man transformed to island or mountain. [x]

71 Man has sold his soul to devil—returns to family from trip—life afterward—fear—culminating horror—novel length.

72 Hallowe’en incident—mirror in cellar—face seen therein—death (claw-mark?).

73 Rats multiply and exterminate first a single city and then all mankind. Increased size and intelligence.

74 Italian revenge—killing self in cell with enemy—under castle. [used by FBL, Jr.]

75 Black Mass under antique church.

76 Ancient cathedral—hideous gargoyle—man seeks to rob—found dead—gargoyle’s jaw bloody.

77 Unspeakable dance of the gargoyles—in morning several gargoyles on old cathedral found transposed.

78 Wandering thro’ labyrinth of narrow slum streets—come on distant light—unheard-of rites of swarming beggars—like Court of Miracles in Notre Dame de Paris.

79 Horrible secret in crypt of ancient castle—discovered by dweller.

80 Shapeless living thing forming nucleus of ancient building.

81 Marblehead—dream—burying hill—evening—unreality. [x] [Festival?]

82 Power of wizard to influence dreams of others.

1920

83 Quotation
“. . . a defunct nightmare, which had perished in the midst of its wickedness, and left its flabby corpse on the breast of the tormented one, to be gotten rid of as it might.”—Hawthorne

84 Hideous cracked discords of bass musick from (ruin’d) organ in (abandon’d) abbey or cathedral. [Red Hook]

85 “For has not Nature, too, her grotesques—the rent rock, the distorting lights of evening on lonely roads, the unveiled structure of man in the embryo, or the skeleton?”

Pater—Renaissance (da Vinci).

86 To find something horrible in a (perhaps familiar) book, and not to be able to find it again.

87 Borellus says, “that the Essential Salts of animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious man may have the whole ark of Noah in his own Study, and raise the fine shape of an animal out of its ashes at his pleasure; and that by the like method from the Essential Salts of humane dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal necromancy, call up the shape of any dead ancestor from the dust whereinto his body has been incinerated.” [Charles Dexter Ward]

88 Lonely philosopher fond of cat. Hypnotises it—as it were—by repeatedly talking to it and looking at it. After his death the cat evinces signs of possessing his personality. N.B. He has trained cat, and leaves it to a friend, with instructions as to fitting a pen to its right fore paw by means of a harness. Later writes with deceased’s own handwriting.

89 Lone lagoons and swamps of Louisiana—death daemon—ancient house and gardens—moss-grown trees—festoons of Spanish moss.

1922?

90 Anencephalous or brainless monster who survives and attains prodigious size.

91 Lost winter day—slept over—20 yrs. later. Sleep in chair on summer night—false dawn—old scenery and sensations—cold—old persons now dead—horror—frozen?

1922?

92 Man’s body dies—but corpse retains life. Stalks about—tries to conceal odour of decay—detained somewhere—hideous climax. [Cool Air]

93 A place one has been—a beautiful view of a village or farm-dotted valley in the sunset—which one cannot find again or locate in memory.

94 Change comes over the sun—shews objects in strange form, perhaps restoring landscape of the past.

95 Horrible Colonial farmhouse and overgrown garden on city hillside—overtaken by growth. Verse “The House” as basis of story. [Shunned House]

96 Unknown fires seen across the hills at night.

97 Blind fear of a certain woodland hollow where streams writhe among crooked roots, and where on a buried altar terrible sacrifices have occur’d—Phosphorescence of dead trees. Ground bubbles.

98 Hideous old house on steep city hillside—Bowen St.—beckons in the night—black windows—horror unnam’d—cold touch and voice—the welcome of the dead.

1923

99 Salem story—the cottage of an aged witch—wherein after her death are found sundry terrible things.

100 Subterranean region beneath placid New England village, inhabited by (living or extinct) creatures of prehistoric antiquity and strangeness.

101 Hideous secret society—widespread—horrible rites in caverns under familiar scenes—one’s own neighbour may belong. [x]

102 Corpse in room performs some act—prompted by discussion in its presence. Tears up or hides will, etc.

103 Sealed room—or at least no lamp allowed there. Shadow on wall. [x]

104 Old sea tavern now far inland from made land. Strange occurrences—sound of lapping of waves—

105 Vampire visits man in ancestral abode—is his own father.

106 A thing that sat on a sleeper’s chest. Gone in morning, but something left behind.

1923

107 Wall paper cracks off in sinister shape—man dies of fright. [x] [Rats in Walls]

108 Educated mulatto seeks to displace personality of white man and occupy his body.

109 Ancient negro voodoo wizard in cabin in swamp—possesses white man.

110 Antediluvian—Cyclopean ruins on lonely Pacific island. Centre of earthwide subterranean witch cult.

111 Ancient ruin in Alabama swamp—voodoo.

112 Man lives near graveyard—how does he live? Eats no food. [x]

113 Biological-hereditary memories of other worlds and universes. Butler—God Known and Unk. p. 59. [Belknap]

114 Death lights dancing over a salt marsh.

115 Ancient castle within sound of weird waterfall—sound ceases for a time under strange conditions.

116 Prowling at night around an unlighted castle amidst strange scenery.

117 A secret living thing kept and fed in an old house.

1924

118 Something seen at oriel window of forbidden room in ancient manor house.

119 Art note—fantastick daemons of Salvator Rosa or Fuseli (trunk-proboscis).

120 Talking bird of great longevity—tells secret long afterward.

121 Photius tells of a (lost) writer named Damascius, who wrote

“Incredible Fictions”
“Tales of Daemons”
“Marvellous Stories of Appearances from the Dead”.

122 Horrible things whispered in the lines of Gauthier de Metz (13th cen.) “Image du Monde”.

123 Dried-up man living for centuries in cataleptic state in ancient tomb.

124 Hideous secret assemblage at night in antique alley—disperse furtively one by one—one seen to drop something—a human hand—

125 Man abandon’d by ship—swimming in sea—pickt up hours later with strange story of undersea region he has visited—mad??

126 Castaways on island eat unknown vegetation and become strangely transformed.

127 Ancient and unknown ruins—strange and immortal bird who speaks in a language horrifying and revelatory to the explorers.

128 Individual, by some strange process, retraces the path of evolution and becomes amphibious.

 Dr. insists that the particular amphibian from which man descends is not like any known to palaeontology. To prove it, indulges in (or relates) strange experiment.

1925

129 Marble Faun p. 346—strange and prehistorick Italian city of stone.

130 N.E. region call’d “Witches’ Hollow”—along course of a river. Rumours of witches’ sabbaths and Indian powwows on a broad mound rising out of the level where some old hemlocks and beeches formed a dark grove or daemon-temple. Legends hard to account for. Holmes—Guardian Angel.

131 Phosphorescence of decaying wood—called in New England “fox-fire”.

132 Mad artist in ancient sinister house draws things. What were his models? Glimpse. [Pickman’s Model]

133 Man has miniature shapeless Siamese twin—exhib. in circus—twin surgically detached—disappears—does hideous things with malign life of his own. [HSW—Cassius]

134 Witches’ Hollow novel? Man hired as teacher in private school misses road on first trip—encounters dark hollow with unnaturally swollen trees and small cottage (light in window?). Reaches school and hears that boys are forbidden to visit hollow. One boy is strange—teacher sees him visit hollow—odd doings—mysterious disappearance or hideous fate.

135 Hideous world superimposed on visible world—gate through—power guides narrator to ancient and forbidden book with directions for access.

136 A secret language spoken by a very few old men in a wild country leads to hidden marvels and terrors still surviving.

137 Strange man seen in lonely mountain place talking with great winged thing which flies away as others approach.

138 Someone or something cries in fright at sight of the rising moon, as if it were something strange. [x]

139 DELRIO asks “An sint unquam daemones incubi et succubae, et an ex tali congressu proles nasci queat?” [Red Hook]

140 Explorer enters strange land where some atmospheric quality darkens the sky to virtual blackness—marvels therein.

1926

141 Footnote by Haggard or Lang in “The World’s Desire”

“Probably the mysterious and indecipherable ancient books, which were occasionally excavated in old Egypt, were written in this dead language of a more ancient and now forgotten people. Such was the book discovered at Coptos, in the ancient sanctuary there, by a priest of the Goddess. ‘The whole earth was dark, but the moon shone all about the Book.’ A scribe of the period of the Ramessids mentions another in indecipherable ancient writing. ‘Thou tellest me thou understandest no word of it, good or bad. There is, as it were, a wall about it that none may climb. Thou art instructed, yet thou knowest it not; this makes me afraid.’

“Birch Zeitschrift 1871 pp. 61–64 Papyrus Anastasi I pl. X, l.8, pl. X l.4. Maspero, Hist. Anc. pp. 66–67.”

142 Members of witch-cult were buried face downward. Man investigates ancestor in family tomb and finds disquieting condition.

143 Strange well in Arkham country—water gives out (or was never struck —hole kept tightly covered by a stone ever since dug)—no bottom—shunned and feared—what lay beneath (either unholy temple or other very ancient thing, or great cave-world). [Fungi—The Well]

144 Hideous book glimpsed in ancient shop—never seen again.

145 Horrible boarding house—closed door never opened.

146 Ancient lamp found in tomb—when filled and used, its light reveals strange world. [Fungi]

147 Any very ancient, unknown, or prehistoric object—its power of suggestion—forbidden memories.

148 Vampire dog.

149 Evil alley or enclosed court in ancient city—Union or Milligan St. [Fungi]

150 Visit to someone in wild and remote house—ride from station through the night—into the haunted hills—house by forest or water—terrible things live there.

151 Man forced to take shelter in strange house. Host has thick beard and dark glasses. Retires. In night guest rises and sees host’s clothes about—also mask which was the apparent face of whatever the host was. Flight.

152 Autonomic nervous system and subconscious mind do not reside in the head. Have mad physician decapitate a man but keep him alive and subconsciously controlled. Avoid copying tale by W. C. Morrow.

1928

153 Black cat on hill near dark gulf of ancient inn yard. Mew hoarsely—invites artist to nighted mysteries beyond. Finally dies at advanced age. Haunts dreams of artist—lures him to follow—strange outcome (never wakes up? or makes bizarre discovery of an elder world outside 3-dimensioned space?) [Used by Dwyer]

154 Trophonius—cave of. Vide Class. Dict. and Atlantic article.

155 Steepled town seen from afar at sunset—does not light up at night. Sail has been seen putting out to sea. [Fungi]

156 Adventures of a disembodied spirit—thro’ dim, half-familiar cities and over strange moors—thro’ space and time—other planets and universes in the end.

157 Vague lights, geometrical figures, etc., seen on retina when eyes are closed. Caus’d by rays from other dimensions acting on optick nerve? From other planets? Connected with a life or phase of being in which person could live if he only knew how to get there? Man afraid to shut eyes—he has been somewhere on a terrible pilgrimage and this fearsome seeing faculty remains.

158 Man has terrible wizard friend who gains influence over him. Kills him in defence of his soul—walls body up in ancient cellar—BUT—the dead wizard (who has said strange things about soul lingering in body) changes bodies with him . . . leaving him a conscious corpse in cellar. [Thing on Doorstep]

159 Certain kind of deep-toned stately music of the style of the 1870’s or 1880’s recalls certain visions of that period—gas-litten parlours of the dead, moonlight on old floors, decaying business streets with gas lamps, etc.—under terrible circumstances.

160 Book which induces sleep on reading—cannot be read—determined man reads it—goes mad—precautions taken by aged initiate who knows—protection (as of author and translator) by incantation.

161 Time and space—past event—150 yrs ago—unexplained. Modern period—person intensely homesick for past says or does something which is psychically transmitted back and actually causes the past event.

162 Ultimate horror—grandfather returns from strange trip—mystery in house—wind and darkness—grandf. and mother engulfed—questions forbidden—somnolence—investigation—cataclysm—screams overheard—

163 Man whose money was obscurely made loses it. Tells his family he must go again to THE PLACE (horrible and sinister and extra-dimensional) where he got his gold. Hints of possible pursuers—or of his possible non-return. He goes—record of what happens to him—or what happens at his home when he returns. Perhaps connect with preceding topic. Give fantastic, quasi-Dunsanian treatment.

164 Man observed in a publick place with features (or ring or jewel) identified with those of man long (perhaps generations) buried.

165 Terrible trip to an ancient and forgotten tomb.

166 Hideous family living in shadow in ancient castle by edge of wood near black cliffs and monstrous waterfall.

167 Boy rear’d in atmosphere of considerable mystery. Believes father dead. Suddenly is told that father is about to return. Strange preparations—consequences.

168 Lonely bleak islands off N.E. coast. Horrors they harbour—outpost of cosmic influences.

169 What hatches from primordial egg.

170 Strange man in shadowy quarter of ancient city possesses something of immemorial archaic horror.

171 Hideous old book discovered—directions for shocking evocation.

1930

172 Pre-human idol found in desert.

173 Idol in museum moves in a certain way.

174 Migration of Lemmings—Atlantis.

175 Little green Celtic figures dug up in an ancient Irish bog.

176 Man blindfolded and taken in closed cab or car to some very ancient and secret place.

177 The dreams of one man actually create a strange half-mad world of quasi-material substance in another dimension. Another man, also a dreamer, blunders into this world in a dream. What he finds. Intelligence of denizens. Their dependence on the first dreamer. What happens at his death.

178 A very ancient tomb in the deep woods near where a 17th century Virginia manor-house used to be. The undecayed, bloated thing found within.

179 Appearance of an ancient god in a lonely and archaic place—prob. temple ruin. Atmosphere of beauty rather than horror. Subtle handling—presence revealed by faint sound or shadow. Landscape changes? Seen by child? Impossible to reach or identify locale again?

180 A general house of horror—nameless crime—sounds—later tenants—(Flammarion) (novel length?).

181 Inhabitant of another world—face masked, perhaps with human skin or surgically alter’d human shape, but body alien beneath robes. Having reached earth, tries to mix with mankind. Hideous revelation. [Suggested by CAS.]

182 In ancient buried city a man finds a mouldering prehistoric document in English and in his own handwriting, telling an incredible tale. Voyage from present into past implied. Possible actualisation of this.

183 Reference in Egyptian papyrus to a secret of secrets under tomb of high-priest Ka-Nefer. Tomb finally found and identified—trap door in stone floor—staircase, and the illimitable black abyss. [x]

184 Expedition lost in Antarctic or other weird place. Skeletons and effects found years later. Camera films used but undeveloped. Finders develop—and find strange horror.

185 Scene of an urban horror—Sous le Cap or Champlain Sts.—Quebec—rugged cliff-face—moss, mildew, dampness—houses half-burrowing into cliff.

186 Thing from sea—in dark house, man finds doorknobs etc. wet as from touch of something. He has been a sea-captain, and once found a strange temple on a volcanically risen island.

1931

187 Dream of awaking in vast hall of strange architecture, with sheet-covered forms on slabs—in positions similar to one’s own. Suggestions of disturbingly non-human outlines under sheets. One of the objects moves and throws off sheet—non-terrestrial being revealed. Sugg. that oneself is also such a being—mind has become transferred to body on other planet.

188 Desert of rock—prehistoric door in cliff, in the valley around which lie the bones of uncounted billions of animals both modern and prehistoric—some of them puzzlingly gnawed.

189 Ancient necropolis—bronze door in hillside which opens as the moonlight strikes it—focussed by ancient lens in pylon opposite?

1932

190 Primal mummy in museum—awakes and changes place with visitor.

191 An odd wound appears on a man’s hand suddenly and without apparent cause. Spreads. Consequences.

1933

192 Thibetan ROLANG—Sorcerer (or NGAGSPA) reanimates a corpse by holding it in a dark room—lying on it mouth to mouth and repeating a magic formula with all else banished from his mind. Corpse slowly comes to life and stands up. Tries to escape—leaps, bounds, and struggles—but sorcerer holds it. Continues with magic formula. Corpse sticks out tongue and sorcerer bites it off. Corpse then collapses. Tongue become a valuable magic talisman. If corpse escapes—hideous results and death to sorcerer.

193 Strange book of horror discovered in ancient library. Paragraphs of terrible significance copies. Later unable to find and verify text. Perhaps discover body or image or charm under floor, in secret cupboard, or elsewhere. Idea that book was merely hypnotic delusion induced by dead brain or ancient magic.

194 Man enters (supposedly) own house in pitch dark. Feels way to room and shuts door behind him. Strange horrors—or turns on lights and finds alien place or presence. Or finds past restored or future indicated.

195 Pane of peculiar-looking glass from a ruined monastery reputed to have harboured devil-worship set up in modern house at edge of wild country. Landscape looks vaguely and unplaceably wrong through it. It has some unknown time-distorting quality, and comes from a primal, lost civilisation. Finally, hideous things in other world seen through it.

196 Daemons, when desiring an human form for evil purposes, take to themselves the bodies of hanged men.

197 Loss of memory and entry into a cloudy world of strange sights and experiences after shock, accident, reading of strange book, participation in strange rite, draught of strange brew, etc. Things seen have vague and disquieting familiarity. Emergence. Inability to retrace course.

1934

198 Distant tower visible from hillside window. Bats cluster thickly around it at night. Observer fascinated. One night wakes to find self on unknown black circular staircase. In tower? Hideous goal.

199 Black winged thing flies into one’s house at night. Cannot be found or identified—but subtle developments ensue.

200 Invisible Thing felt—or seen to make prints—on mountain top or other height, inaccessible place.

201 Planets form’d of invisible matter.

——————————

202 A monstrous derelict—found and boarded by a castaway or shipwreck survivor.

203 A return to a place under dreamlike, horrible, and only dimly comprehended circumstances. Death and decay reigning—town fails to light up at night—Revelation.

204 Disturbing conviction that all life is only a deceptive dream with some dismal or sinister horror lurking behind.

205 Person gazes out window and finds city and world dark and dead (or oddly changed) outside.

206 Trying to identify and visit the distant scenes dimly seen from one’s window—bizarre consequences.

207 Something snatched away from one in the dark—in a lonely, ancient, and generally shunned place.

208 (Dream of) some vehicle—railway train, coach, etc.—which is boarded in a stupor or fever, and which is a fragment of some past or ultra-dimensional world—taking the passenger out of reality—into vague, age-crumbled regions or unbelievable gulfs of marvel.

1935

209 Special Correspondence of NY Times—March 3, 1935

“Halifax, N.S.—Etched deeply into the face of an island which rises from the Atlantic surges off the S. coast of Nova Scotia 20 m. from Halifax is the strangest rock phenomenon which Canada boasts. Storm, sea, and frost have graven into the solid cliff of what has come to be known as Virgin’s Island an almost perfect outline of the Madonna with the Christ Child in her arms.

The island has sheer and wave-bound sides, is a danger to ships, and is absolutely uninhabited. So far as is known, no human being has ever set foot on its shores.”

210 An ancient house with blackened pictures on the walls—so obscured that their subjects cannot be deciphered. Cleaning—and revelation. Cf. Hawthorne—Edw. Rand. Port.

211 Begin story with presence of narrator—inexplicable to himself—in utterly alien and terrifying scenes (dream?).

212 Strange human being (or beings) living in some ancient house or ruins far from populous district (either old N.E. or far exotic land). Suspicion (based on shape and habits) that it is not all human.

213 Ancient winter woods—moss—great boles—twisted branches—dark—ribbed roots—always dripping. . . .

214 Talking rock of Africa—immemorially ancient oracle in desolate jungle ruins that speaks with a voice out of the aeons.

215 Man with lost memory in strange, imperfectly comprehended environment. Fears to regain memory—a glimpse. . . .

216 Man idly shapes a queer image—some power impels him to make it queerer than he understands. Throws it away in disgust—but something is abroad in the night.

217 Ancient (Roman? prehistoric?) stone bridge washed away by a (sudden and curious?) storm. Something liberated which had been sealed up in the masonry of years ago. Things happen.

218 Mirage in time—image of long-vanish’d pre-human city.

219 Fog or smoke—assumes shaped under incantations.

220 Bell of some ancient church or castle rung by some unknown hand—a thing . . . or an invisible Presence.

221 Insects or other entities from space attack and penetrate a man’s head and cause him to remember alien and exotic things—possible displacement of personality.

Gary Gygax (July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008)

2008-03-04T14:30:00.004-05:00

E. Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away today. It's somehow fitting that the original Dungeon Master passed away on what has become known over the past few years in the gaming industry as "GM's Day", a day to thank your DM/GM for the games they run. Without Gary, there would not be any of us who consider ourselves DMs. I'm glad I got to meet Gary last year at GenCon, shake his hand, and thank him for the fun times I've had over the years playing D&D.

Again, thanks for all the good times Gary.

Bands I've Seen

2008-02-19T13:15:00.008-05:00

This is sort of a work in progress, as I know I've seen other bands, and I've seen many of these multiple times. It's an interesting mix of genres-punk, metal, folk, rock, jazz, and more. I'm sure I'll come up with others I've seen, but for now, here are 194 bands I've seen live.

.38 Special
AC/DC
AC/DShe
Aerosmith
Agents of Good Roots
Aldo Nova
Alice In Chains
Allman Brothers Band
Alvin Youngblood Hart
Anderson Bruford Wakeman and Howe
Ani Defranco
Anthrax
Aquarium Rescue Unit
Arlo Guthrie
Armored Saint
Arrested Development
Babes in Toyland
Bad Brains
Bad Company
Badlands
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
Bent Sirkis
Big Head Todd & the Monsters
Biohazard
Black Crows
Black Label Society
Black Sheep
Blues Traveller
Bob Dylan
Bob Weir/Ratdog
Bon Jovi
Bonham
Britney Fox
Bruce Hornsby
Bryan Adams
Butthole Surfers
Cheap Trick
Corey Harris
Crash Test Dummies
Cry Cry Cry
Damn Yankees
Dangerous Toys
Dar Williams
Dave Matthews Band
David Crosby
David Wilcox
Day By The River
Deep Banana Blackout
Def Leppard
Del tha Funkee Homosapian
Dinosaur Jr.
Dio
Dr. John
Eddie From Ohio
Eric Clapton
Extreme
Faith No More
Fiction Plane
Fierce Nipples
Fishbone
Flogging Molly
From Good Homes
Front 242
Gene Clark
Govt Mule
Grateful Dead
Great White
Greg Brown
Guns N' Roses
GWAR
Hackensaw Boys
Henry Rollins
Hot Tuna
Ice Cube
Ice-T & Body Count
In Flames
In This Moment
Iron Maiden
James
James Taylor
Jane's Addiction
Jazz is Dead
Jesus and Mary Chain
Jewel
Jimmy Buffett
Joan Jett
Joe Jackson
John Cale
John McCutchen
John Wesley Harding
Keith Urban
Keller Williams
KISS
Kix
Kreator
L.A. Guns
Lab Report
Lenny Kravitz
Levon Helm
Little Big Town
Little Feat
Living Color
Los Lobos
Lucinda Williams
Lucy Kaplansky
Lush
Lyle Lovett
Merl Saunders
Meat Loaf
Megadeth
Metallica
Mickey Hart
Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Ministry
moe.
Moon Boot Lover
Mose Alison
Motley Crue
Moxy Fruvous
Mr. Big
Mucky Pup
Mudvayne
Murphy's Law
Naked Puritans Philharmonic
Neil Young
Nine Inch Nails
Nuclear Assault
Ozzy Osbourne
Pantera
Pearl Jam
Pennywise
Pernice Brothers
Pete Seeger
Phish
Pigface
Pink Floyd
Poison
Poor Excuse
Primus
Prong
Public Enemy
Rage Against the Machine
Ramones
Ratt
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Ricky Warwick
Rob Zombie
Robert Cray
Roger McGuinn
Rolling Stones
Rusted Root
Scorpions
Scotch Greens
Seven Nations
Shawn Mullins
Skid Row
Slaughter
Slayer
Son Volt
Soundgarden
Soulive
Soup Dragons
Souxsie & The Banshees
Spin Doctors
Spiritualized
Steve Kimock
Strangefolk
String Cheese Incident
Sweet Honey In the Rock
Tesla
Testament
Creatures
Cult
The Dead
Fiendz
Kinks
Long Winters
Nields
Other Ones
Police
Samples
Tossers
Undead
Wreckers
Tom Tom Club
Tool
Toshi Reagon
Traffic
Trey Anastasio
Ugly Kid Joe
Whitesnake
Widespread Panic
Yngwie Malmsteen
Young Black Teenagers
Ziggy Marley

The Geekiest Thing I Ever Did?

2008-02-03T09:48:00.001-05:00

A little over a year ago (November 13, 2006, to be exact), I did something pretty geeky. Yeah, I know-I do lots of geeky stuff, but this may be one of the geekiest fanboy moments I've ever had. We were in Rhode Island for my cousins wedding, and I decided that since we were near Providence (although, truthfully, ANYWHERE in Rhode Island is "near" Providence...) we were going to take a side trip and go visit a cemetery. Not just any cemetery, though. Swan Point Cemetery, resting place of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, author of The Call of Cthulhu (among many other stories).

It was a foggy, slightly rainy morning when we headed out on our trip to find my favorite authors grave site, and we spent a fair amount of time just finding the cemetery itself. Not that it was hard to find, we just weren't familiar with Providence, and made several wrong turns getting there. Once we were there, we went to the information center and printed out a map and directions to the grave. Ah, so it should be easy now, right? Not so fast. First we spent a good half hour driving through the cemetery, making wrong turns and seeing lots of ornate headstones and beautiful landscaping, but not quite finding the place we were looking for. Swan Point is a beautiful, very old, historic cemetery, and seems to be more like a park that happens to have thousands of people buried in it than a cemetery.

Eventually we found the spot we were looking for (we had actually driven right by it at least twice): Grave of H.P. Lovecraft, Lot 5, Group 281, Swan Point Cemetery, 585 Blackstone Boulevard, Providence. What next? Why, take a couple pictures, of course! A few of HPL's headstone (with it's famous inscription of "I Am Providence"), and then a couple shots of me and my wife next to the larger family monument. I'm glad Laura has a sense of humor for all my geek passions, as HPL wasn't even on her radar before she met me. Yet here she is, posing for a picture next to his grave. I'm a lucky guy. After spending a little time at the grave, we drove around the cemetery some more, looked at some of the other headstones (and there are some huge and magnificent ones there), enjoyed the scenery, and even took a little walk down to the edge of the Seekonk River.

Then it was time to get back on the road, and head into the East Side of Providence for a few hours walking around with my brother & sister on the grounds of Brown University on College Hill. Then once again we were headed back to Virginia after a nice long weekend.

That may be one of, if not the geekiest, fanboy things I've ever done. Have you ever visited the grave of your favorite author? What are you supposed to do at an authors grave-read from their books? Leave a memento for the next fan to find?

What are some of your geekiest moments?

I wish I could be in London next month...

2008-01-27T20:26:00.000-05:00

I'm not gay, but I am certainly gay friendly. If this gets pulled off, it'll be a sight to see. I wish them all the best, and hope they get a huge turnout.

Rubber Johnny

2008-01-19T19:49:00.000-05:00

I found this short film/music video this afternoon, courtesy of Grinding, which is a blog project started earlier this month by comic writer Warren Ellis, which he promptly turned over to others for the content. All I can say about this video is that is really freaky, and if you don't like watching uncomfortable images, you might not want to watch it. Nothing really bad, or nasty, just disturbing.

The music is by ambient composer and dj Apex Twin. Thats some bizarre stuff, eh?

The Savage Sword of Conan Returns!

2008-01-13T18:41:00.002-05:00

Dark Horse Comics has just put out the first volume of reprints of The Savage Sword of Conan. In the mid 1970s, Conan The Barbarian was one of Marvel Comics top selling comics, and they launched a second title, The Savage Sword of Conan, which was a magazine size comic in black and white, featuring artwork and stories from some of the top names in comics: Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema, Jim Starlin, Walter Simonson, and more. The stories tended to me more "adult" in that they were more violent and showed nudity, but at their core, they were just great sword & sorcery stories (frequently adapted from Robert E. Howard's original stories) in a graphic format.

When I was little, my older cousin had all the "adult" comics I was not supposed to read: Heavy Metal, Tales of the Zombie, Tomb of Dracula, Rampaging Hulk, Creepy, Eerie, and Savage Sword of Conan. I'd always sneak peaks at them when I could. Once I was old enough to buy them, the only ones that were still being published (or were sold where I could find them) were Heavy Metal and Savage Sword of Conan. I got hooked on Savage Sword somewhere in the mid 1980s, around issue 128 or so. While the magazine cost twice as much as a regular comic and was black & white (at the time I was reading the comics for fun, and color seemed "better"), it was one of my favorites. It was big (both page size and overall length) and always had several stories in each issue. The art was usually very well done, and a benefit of the b&w was that the pencils and inks were able to really show fine detail that color comics would lose in the coloring process. The covers were always great painted pieces featuring Conan doing what Conan did best-fighting monsters, jumping with his sword held high, saving the beautiful woman wearing little clothing from a giant ape, chopping off the head of a bandit, and so on. Big exciting action pieces were the norm, just like the stories.

Now that Dark Horse is reprinting The Savage Sword of Conan, I'll be able to read all the stories that came out before I bought the magazine, and once it catches up to where I started buying it, I can reread all the stories that I read and reread until the issues fell apart. I have the first volume sitting right next to me, and I can't wait!

What I've Been Listening To This Week

2008-01-09T21:47:00.000-05:00

Work has been quite overwhelming the past few days, and I've been putting in 10-11 hour days. It's easier for me to get some of the prep work that I need to do after the majority of the library staff go home at 5pm, so from 5-7pm I've been cranking up some music and opening computer boxes, configuring new computers, copying files, etc. without any phone calls or emails summoning me to various offices around the building to fix stuff.

So, what have I been cuing up in iTunes while I'm tearing apart boxes and generally making a mess of my office? This week, the album (am I old fashioned to still refer to them as albums?) that I've been playing up more often than not has been The Dresden Dolls self titled album from 2004.

I first heard of the Dresden Dolls from Ethernaut when he told me he had gone to see them a while ago. A few months later I spotted the CD in the library's new CD selections, and checked it out. I listened a couple times, but it didn't do a whole lot for me at first, probably because I was usually just playing background music while I worked on stuff at my desk, and not really paying attention to the music.

This week, for some reason, I decided to play the album again as I was unpacking laptops, a relatively mindless task which allowed me to really pay attention to the music. And I loved it. It's a unique mix of rock and cabaret music that is unlike anything else I've heard in a LONG time. The song "Coin Operated Boy" is one that struck me and I had to listen to it several times. I'm not sure what it is that I like-maybe it's the vaguely upbeat and carefree piano and drums mixed with lyrics that at first sound silly, but upon closer listening are rather dark and sexual.

I chose this live performance to show in place of the bands music video, it is quite close to the album performance with a few little lyric changes. I don't really like the "real" music video, it sort of takes the darkness and despair out of the song and reduces it to a silly little song with it's visuals. If you want to see the video, it's here.

That's what I'm listening to this week.

Darths & Droids

2008-01-08T20:13:00.000-05:00

What if Star Wars Episode 1 was an RPG campaign? This makes The Phantom Menace so much more enjoyable... :-)

And if you like that, check out The DM of the Rings, which was the inspiration for it.

Claudio Pozas Sketch

2006-08-14T12:09:00.000-04:00

The custom sketch that I had Claudio Pozas draw for me at Gen Con this year. It is, surprise surprise, Cthulhu as a Librarian.

Four Things

2006-02-09T21:30:00.000-05:00

I found this on another blog that I read occasionally, and thought it was a neat excercise. So here goes:

Four jobs I've had
1. Americorps Volunteer at a state park
2. Shoe repair
3. Assistant Editor at HarperCollins Science Fiction imprint, HarperPrism
4. Grape picker at a winery

Four movies I can watch over and over
1. Star Wars
2. Lord of the Rings (any of them)
3. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
4. Alice In Wonderland (Disney)

Four places I've lived
1. Pine Bush, NY
2. Chelsea, Manhattan, NY
3. Jackson Heights, Queens, NY
4. Charlottesville, VA

Four TV shows I love
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Firefly
3. Good Eats
4. Freaks and Geeks

Four places I've vacationed
1. Belize
2. Corsica
3. Hatteras Island, NC
4. Maine

Four of my favorite dishes (to cook)
1. Pasta
2. Rice & Black Beans
3. Chili
4. Burgers on the grill

Four sites I visit daily
1. www.enworld.org
2. www.quietcool.net
3. www.lib.virginia.edu
4. www.wikipedia.org

Four places I would rather be right now
1. Belize
2. DisneyWorld
3. GenCon
4. Hiking the AT

Four jobs I'd like to have
1. game designer
2. illustrator
3. cabinet maker
4. gardener

Four places I'd like to live
1. New Mexico
2. Ireland
3. Belize
4. In a house in the woods

Four books I love
1. Up in the Old Hotel
2. Alice In Wonderland
3. Lord of the Rings
4. Travels with Charlie

Four places I'd like to vacation
1. Australia
2. Galapagos Islands
3. Egypt
4. Ireland

Four of my favorite dishes (to eat)
1. spagetti with Nannie's sauce
2. pizza from John's of Bleeker Street
3. fresh berries (especially strawberries)
4. oranges and other citrus fruits

This Should Come As No Surprise To My Fellow Gamers

2006-01-31T22:40:00.000-05:00

You scored as Butt-Kicker. You like a straightforward
combat character. After a long day at the office, you want
to clobber foes and once more prove your superiority over
all who would challenge you.

Butt-Kicker

100%

Storyteller

83%

Specialist

58%

Method Actor

50%

Tactician

50%

Casual Gamer

42%

Power Gamer

33%

Law's Game Style
created with QuizFarm.com

On Being A Judge

2005-10-27T18:17:00.000-04:00

This year, and for the past two years, I have been an ENnie Award Judge. I know what you are thinking, what the hell is an ENnie Award? The ENnie Awards are an annual award given to the best roleplaying games and game related products, as decides by the fan community.

The ENnies were first presented in 2001 during an online chat presentation, and for the past 4 years have been hosted by GenCon. The name ENnie comes from EN World, which comes from Eric Noah, who started the D&D/d20 community website.

The way the awards work is the publishers submit their products to the 5 judges, who read everything, discuss among themselves the pros and cons of various products, and decide on a short list of 5 products and an honorable mention for each of the categories. The 5 shortlisted products then go out to a public vote, and the 1st & 2nd place winners are announced at GenCon during an awards ceremony.

So, what are the benefits and drawbacks of being a judge? Well, the first thing that many people think of is that a judge received hundreds of entries, totaling several thousand dollars worth of game books, accessories, and PDFs. Yes, we do receive that much in entered products, but there is a BIG drawback to getting all that stuff. It ALL needs to be read over the course of a few months. It's pretty much a part time job for a few months. Another benefit is getting a free pass to GenCon, having publishers recognize and know you by name, and getting to shop the dealers room early as an exhibitor. Most of the judges also get free lodging at the convention as well, but the past two years I have decided to stay in a room with my friends instead of the judges room. This year, however, I may take the free room if my travelling companions (Tim, Nakia, Scott, maybe others?) have enough people to split a room among themselves without me.

Once the awards are over, there is another logistical probelm to deal with. What to do with all the books. In my case, I keep about 1/2 of what I receive, and divide the other half among friends, ENnie staff, and as door prizes at the various ENWorld Game Days that I attend throughout the year. Giving books away is a great feeling, I know that people always appreciate them, and knowing that I've been able to give somehtiong back to the gaming community that I find enjoyment in makes me feel great!

So, now you are probably asking yourself, how does one go about becoming a judge? The judges are voted on by the ENWorld community every year. Each candidate puts forth a "campaign speech" and then all the candidates are voted on over the course of a week. This year several judges are returning judges (Teflon Billy, Crothian, Cthulhu's Librarian(me), JoeGKushner) and one is new (Diaglo). Having worked with 3 of the others before (TB & Crothian twice) and knowing Diaglo online, I think that we have a great panel of judges again this year. I'm looking forward to starting the process and reading the best of what the RPG field has published over the past year. As the process goes along, I'll try to post some thoughts on this blog.

It's Only Rock & Roll But I Like It

2005-10-07T20:03:00.000-04:00

Date: Oct 06, 2005
Location: Charlottesville, Virginia - Scott Stadium

Set List
Start Me Up
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
Shattered
Tumblin' Dice
Rough Justice
Ruby Tuesday
Sweet Virginia
All Down The Line
Night Time Is The Right Time
<set break due to bomb threat>
Miss You
Oh No Not You Again
Get Off My Cloud
Honky Tonk Woman
Sympathy For The Devil
Midnight Rambler
Paint It Black
Brown Sugar
Jumping Jack Flash
<Encore>
You Can't Always Get What You Want
Satisfaction

That's where I was last night. Watching the Rolling Stones, in seats that cost us $180+ each, in UVAs Scott Stadium. And let me say one thing. It was worth every penny we paid for those seats.

The show was easily the biggest stage I have ever seen, far bigger than the Dead's stage, bigger than Pink Floyd in 86, bigger than Guns & Roses/Metallica in 93. And it was an event. Not just a concert, but a huge production. I'd go see them again in a heartbeat. When we originally bought the tickets, Laura & I were both thinking "We really can't afford to spend that much on tickets." But when we looked at each other with huge grins on our faces multiple times during the show, we knew we made the right decision.

The night started off at 7pm with Trey Anastasio, formerly of Phish, with his band. One tight, well done 30 minute set which included:
* Air Said To Me
* 46 Days
* Tuesday
* Come As Melody
* I Am The Walrus (The Beatles)
* Night Speaks To A Woman
* Shine

Originally, I was bummed out that Trey was going to be opening the show. Not that I don't like him, as I really do, and would probably have gone to see him if he came to town on his own. I've just seen him with Phish 20+ times, and solo 2 times. I was really hoping we'd get to see Pearl Jam, John Mayer, or Maroon 5 open the show, but Trey was who we got. As showtime got closer, I was getting excited to see him again. His new band is good, tight, and quite un-Phish like. He still is one of the most talented guitar players out there, and his new band has a more accessable, almost pop/rock sound that could make a nice showing on college radio.

After Trey's band left the stage, we waited until 9pm, when the lights went out. The Stones stage set was HUGE, towering over the end of Scott Stadium. Once they were on the stage, Mick Jagger never stopped moving. It's amazing watching him, jumping and prancing around, more energy that people half his age. And Keith Richards is another wonder to watch. Easily the most charismatic guitar player I have ever seen. Others may play better and have more flash, but he wandered the stage pulling out some of the best riffs in rock history, and it was amazing. After seeing him, it's obvious where 75% of todays rock guitarists get their image and moves. One thing that struck me more than anything else was how much of Keith's stage presence Slash copied. The way his guitar is held, the way he walked around, the way he stood, the crouching, the cigarette dangling from the lip, everything is completely ripped from Keiths stage presence. The other thing I noticed was how he knows how to position himself perfectly in front of the fans that were lining the stage in order to get the air to blow his shirt and hair back while playing his solos. Perfect rock god image every time.

Some of the show highlights were:
Start Me Up, the perfect show opener (and one I thought would be too obvious for them to do)
Sweet Virginia, great slow song, pulled out from nowhere, and the crowd loved it. They were selling UVA colored Stones shirts at the merch. tables-Orange shirts, blue tongue, crossed UVA Sabers underneith, and the back said "Sweet Virginia is for Stones Lovers" with the place & date underneith.
The moving mini-stage that travelled to the other end of the stadium where they played 4 songs on a second stage out in the middle of the crowd.
Sympathy for the Devil-Mick in long black jacket and top hat, stage lit only in red lights, and flames shooting 30 feet in the air from the top of the set.
Paint It Black-One of my favorite songs, and one I didn't expect to see.

The low point of the show was the bomb threat that caused an hour intermission in the show. We were afraid that was going to be the end of the show, but the band came out and proceeded to turn everything up even more, pulling out almost nothing but the biggest hits after that.

The closing combo of Brown Sugar and Jumping Jack Flash was wonderful, and then the encore of Can't Always Get What You Want followed by Satisfaction was just icing on the cake. And then, after the show was over, we got a 5 minute fireworks display as we exited the stadium.

Easily one of my top 5 concerts ever.

They may not be the tightest band onstage, but they don't need to be. They are playing songs that are classics, they have energy that is unbeleivable, and they are top caliber showmen. Even the rest of the touring band was top notch. We walked out with smiles on our faces and would be happy to do so again.

Mick, Keith, Ron, and Charlie-Thanks for a great nights entertainment!

A few more news articles about the show:

Daily Progress 1

Daily Progress 2

Photos from the show (will pop up new window)

Hmmm. Could be a good movie.

2005-09-29T16:25:00.000-04:00

My brother sent me the link to this trailer, and it looks like it could be a good film. The cast is good, and it's got an interesting vibe to it. Sort of a feel good Sideways. Yes/no? What do you guys think?
(If you can't get it to play, try again in a few minutes. It took a few tries before it would download for me.)

10 CD's to get stuck in your cars CD changer

2005-09-26T21:02:00.000-04:00

Some people make "Top 10 Deserted Island CD's" lists, but I don't want to do that. If I'm stuck on a desert island, what good will 10 CD's do me? Sure, maybe I could use them as mirrors to signal to a passing boat or plane, but I sure as hell wouldn't have anything to play them on. And if, by some chance, that desert island had a CD player, electricity, and such, well, it would probably have more stuff I'd want, and then it wouldn't exactly be deserted, would it?

So, instead of a list of deserted island discs, I'm going to be more realistic (with just a bit of credibility stretching thrown in for good measure).

Imagine the scene-you have a nice CD changer in your car, and you are getting ready to change the discs in it. But to your dismay, you find that the changer is stuck, and won't let you change the CD's. You can't take any out, and you can't put any more in. You also have no way of getting the changer repaired, so the CD's that are in there are the CD's that you will listen to on every commute to work, drive to the store, and road trip until you sell the car (at which point, you can take a hammer to the changer and get your CD's out). What 10 albums do you want in the changer when it gets stuck? Here's my list, in no particular order:

1. Beastie Boys-Paul's Boutique
I can (and have) listen to this album for hours on end. No big hits, but the Beasties sophomore album has more excellent music packed onto it than any other album, period. Not only are the tracks great, but the whole album is like a big mixing bowl where the producers pulled thousands of samples from every genre of music out there, put them together, and came out with an unbelievable set of songs.

2. Neil Young & Crazy Horse-Ragged Glory
This is the album I was listening to when I "got" Neil Young. Not his best album, but close to it, this is one I can listen to and always enjoy. Some good, hard rocking Crazy Horse songs, a few ballads, and plenty of feedback. And, as usual, some interesting characters and stories floating through Neil's lyrics. This is what all those summer garage bands want to be.

3. Jane's Addiction-Nothing's Shocking
Some people like Ritual de lo Habitual better, but Summertime Rolls, Jane Says, and Mountain Song make this the best album in the Jane's Addiction catalog as far as I'm concerned. This is the album I played non-stop during my freshman & sophomore years of college, and it always brings me back to standing in the rain at the first Lollapalooza Festival at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, getting soaked to the skin, and not caring because the best band in the world was playing.

4. The Clash-London Calling
Much more than just a punk album, more than a rock & roll album, a bit of world music, and not a bad song in the bunch. I didn't get into London Calling until long after college, but once I heard it a few times, it blew me away. Every song is perfect, and the energy comes out of the speakers as if every note could be the bands last one. And to top it off, possibly the best album cover of all time.

5. Iron Maiden-Live After Death
A live album of classic Maiden, touring for what I consider to be their best album. Perfectly recorded and mixed, a great selection of songs, this is mid-80s heavy metal at it's finest. No hairspray here, this is pure fist-pumping head-banging metal, and there is melody in there too.

6. Paul Simon-Graceland
When you need to just relax, sit back,and drive, this is one of the best albums to have playing. I've listened to this through 3 or 4 times on long trips, and every song just flows, making time go by. I'll confess that I could probably only give titles to 2 or 3 songs if they were played outside the context of the album, but I could tell you they are from Graceland. This one always goes in the car with me on long trips, just in case I need to hear it.

7. Ramones-All the Stuff and More Vol.1
Maybe this is cheating, because this is a compilation of the first two Ramones albums, Ramones and Leave Home, on one CD. It's got a good handfull of the essential Ramones songs like Blitzkreig Bop, Beat on the Brat, Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment, and more. Hell, you could pick any one of the first 4 albums, and you'll have a few that are essential, and the rest are all good as well. The reasons for picking this set, though, is that it's got the first album on it. If your going to have only one CD of the Ramones, you might as well have the album that started punk rock.

8. Pearl Jam-Ten
Again, sophomore year of college. This is another one of those albums that brings me back. Although this time, it's Lollapalooza 2, but still at SPAC. And yes, it rained that year as well. I was out getting something to drink when the first notes of Even Flow came out from the amphitheater. We left the line, ran back to our seats as fast as we could, and got one of the best perfomances I've ever seen by a band, and they were only the second band on the bill.

9. Jimmy Buffett-Songs You Know By Heart/Greatest Hits

Yeah, Greatest Hits albums shouldn't be allowed, but you know what? I don't care. In 1996 I drove to Mammoth Cave, KY to work on an archaeological dig for a week, and this is the album I listened to over and over and over on the drive. It's also one of the CD's I listened to on my first trip to Charlottesville with Laura. All the songs are great, and I don't care what anyone says, Mr. Buffett is one of the best songwriters out there.

10. Grateful Dead-Without A Net
As the sticker on the case says, "The World's Grandest, Largest, Best Live Recording". It may not have all my favorite Dead songs on it, but this is by far my favorite of their live albums. The highlight of the album is Eyes of the World, featuring Branford Marsalis on Saxophones. Great songs, great band, and just an easy album to get carried away to. To paraphrase a common saying at the shows, they weren't the best at what they did, they were the only ones who did what they did. I'm glad I got to see them doing it several times.

That's my list of 10 CD's I'd want stuck in my CD player. Sure, I fudged a bit, as two of them are double albums (Live After Death and Without A Net) and one is two albums on one CD (All The Stuff And More Vol. 1), but I don't care. So, what would you want stuck in your CD player?

The Cat With Hands

2005-09-21T10:45:00.000-04:00

This is a really bizarre short film. Make sure you have the sound turned up so you can hear the story, it's really creepy.

It's a big ad

2005-09-17T20:28:00.000-04:00

Can't believe how big it is!
Go see for yourself

(Thanks to Steve Jackson Games for the link)

Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink

2005-09-17T15:02:00.000-04:00

Woke up this morning and Laura & I talked about going hiking, maybe getting up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and doing 4-5 hours outside since it looked to be a nice day. Nice until I went into the bathroom to get a drink, and there was no water coming out of the faucet. That's a bad sign first thing in the AM. I went downstairs, and the same thing down there, no water in any of the sinks, except for a little dribble in the kitchen. Hmm, this will put a damper on the days activities. Laura opened the water bill we got the other day to get the phone number for Albemarle Water and Sewer Authority, and noticed that last months water useage was more than double what any of the previous 12 months useage was. Starting to see a problem here?

While she called the water people to find out what was going on, I got the dog ready to go out for his morning walk. As I stepped outside, I noticed that we had a nice stream of water rolling down the driveway, out into the street, and into the drainage grate a few houses away. This is not good. We were pumping water (and $) down the drain, literally. I ran back inside to grab a pair of pliers, opened the water meter, and shut off the water to the house which caused the stream to eventually slow and stop. I called a plumber to come out and look at it, and an hour later I'm outside looking at the water with him. We turned the meter back on to find where the water was coming out of the ground and easily located the spot, as the water was pretty much pouring out of a small hole under a bush near the front step. So, assuming that the pipe is cracked right there and they don't need to tunnel under the slab foundation, it's going to cost us approx. $1600 to run 35 feet of new water line from the meter to the house. If they need to go under the house, who knows what it's going to cost.

I've called 3 other plumbers to try and get another estimate to replace the line, but so far only one has called me back and they can't even look at the problem until Tuesday morning. It's going to be a long weekend. The only positive thing I can say is it's a good thing that we were sent home from the beach, or we wouldn't have found the leak until this evening when we were originally scheduled to get home.

Civilization in less than 1 Day (but not by much)

2005-09-16T16:20:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday I played my first game of Advanced Civilization. It'll probably be the last one for a while, however. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the game, because I did. It just lasted for about 13 hours, and I haven't played a game for that length of time since college (last time I played anything for that long, it was Magic: The Gathering). We started the game at 10:30am, and didn't finish until just after midnight, taking an hour break for me to run home and jumpstart Laura's car and grab some lunch. Other than that, we played non-stop all day. 5 gamers, 3 of us Civilization virgins, sitting around trying to make it to the top of the Archaeological Succession Table and trading our goods and suffering from disasters. I played Africa, and by the time we were finished, I came in second place and had control of all of the Italian peninsula and a good bit of the Mediterranean. Not too bad for someone whose first taste of the game was a few introductory hours on Monday at the beach which were abruptly halted by the hurricane evacuation.

Music: Television-See No Evil

Like a Hurricane...

2005-09-15T18:39:00.000-04:00

Well, we were on vacation this week. 5 hours down to the Outer Banks on Saturday, nice day on Sunday, nice day on Monday, Tuesday looked to be a beautiful day... then we got the evacuation alert while watching The Weather Channel. Hurricane Ophelia, which had been sitting out in the ocean slowly spinning, spinning, spinning, had decided it was going to start heading inland and up the coast. Emergency Bulletin #6 will give all the details, if you really want to know. So we packed up all our stuff and by 11:30 am we were back on the road headed home, my vacation cut short by 1 day, Laura's cut short by 4 days.

But we did get to stop in Williamsburg, VA on the way home and have a decent lunch at the Mongolian grill/Chinese restaurant that we like there, and we were able to stop and see the newly renovated and expanded Swem Library at The College of William & Mary where Laura spent lots of time studying while in college, it's an impressive looking building. Not as grand as some of the UVA libraries on the outside, but inside it's very, very nice. All new study spaces, lots of computers, wide, open areas, condensed shelving to fit more volumes in smaller spaces, nice gallery spaces, and so on.

Then it was back to C'ville for more of the usual.

Music: Neil Young-Weld live album

GenCon leaving Indy in 2006?

2005-09-09T17:25:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post. Seems that there is some talk about GenCon leaving Indianapolis next year. There was talk about this at the con, but it seemed that the city and GenCon were finally getting down to final negotiations. Have to keep an eye on this as it develops.

Order of the Stick

2005-09-09T15:45:00.000-04:00

One of the funniest webcomics online is The Order of the Stick, written and drawn by Rich Burlew. It's also easily the funniest roleplaying game based comic, funnier than Knights of the Dinner Table and Nodwick, both of which I enjoy.

OOTS is funny on multiple levels. It's humerous both as a comicstrip, as well as with the many injokes that poke fun at the whole concept of rpgs and the people who play them. Things that gamers (particularly D&D players) say at the table are uttered by the characters in the comic-things like "I FAILED MY MOVE SILENTLY SKILL CHECK!" or "Hey! I just got 4 skill points!" which aren't funny in and of themselves, are quite silly when said by the characters. The blurring of the lines between players and characters is what makes the comic so great.

Don't believe me? Go read some of the strips for yourself. The first few strips aren't the best ones, as the comic was still finding it's feet, but trust me, once it gets going, it's one of the few places online that make me actually laugh out loud. If you aren't a gamer (or know one well enough to get some of the references), some of the jokes might go over your head, but there is still plenty there that's funny even without the rpg references.

For the month of September, Rich is also sending the OOTS wallpapers out to anyone who donates to the Red Cross to help out those in New Orleans. All you need to do is forward a copy of your email receipt to him, and he'll get the wallpapers out to you in a few days.