April Fool

Posted on April 1, 2008 by tehdiplomat

Now… I also kinda enjoyed April Fool’s Day. I’ve done a handful of pranks in my time, only a few of them coming on 4/1. And every year while I’m in the height of my website maintenance I tell myself I’m going to come up with something hilarious for April 1st. Well, as you can see, nothing happened. Maybe one year when I’m more adamant about posting towards the end of March.

But the real point of this post isn’t to woe on about my lack of posting (all of my previous posts have some of that). Really it’s to complain that the internet is completely unreadable today. My RSS is filled with junk. Most of it is funny the first time, but some sites are taken over by a running gag that floods my RSS with cakes or other nonsense. Also, nothing you read can be trusted, which basically means reading the internet is useless. I feel like I’m trapped in ytmnd-land. Oh well, it appears my complaints will do no good. Next year I’ll just avoid reading the internet on this date, and on the 2nd find out what all the fools day jokes were through wikipedia or some other means. Everyone go back to their site transmogrifying and your fake game update news.

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Gary Gygax

Posted on March 5, 2008 by tehdiplomat

Well, as an avid gamer as myself, I’ve been playing all sorts of games since the tender age of whenever I first started games. If we aren’t going to count things like Hi Ho Cheerio and Hungry Hungry Hippos. I’d say I started gaming at 4, when my father taught me how to play chess. It’s definitely the game I’ve been playing the longest, even having gone to chess school for a handful of years during that time. Games unlocked a lot of things for me. I’d probably consider the big three game influences to be Chess, Magic (yes that Magic), and D&D. And got me to explore my creativity on “okay” grounds, start reaing heavily, and solve puzzles.

While I don’t pen and paper roleplay as much as I used to, I started probably about the same time I started burning my life savings into collecting Magic cards. Ahhh the addiction levels. Anyways, I’ve been roleplaying since about 7th grade (about 12 or 13) which would be considered half my lifetime. So Gary Gygax’s death got an “oh shit” out of me when I read it at work yesterday, and I wanted to post yesterday but wasn’t sure what exactly to say. Gary and Dave got the whole ball rolling some 10 years before I was even born, and still managed to have a major influence on me. I still play in an online 1st edition campaign that I’ve been playing for what feels like forever. Even people who don’t roleplay they’ve seemed to have a major influence in.  How many hours does the average person play WoW? It looks like just a fancy UI and a larger world than a single DM could handle. Even back in the day of dial-up modems, and  America Online I was mudding.

So yesterday was a said day. I know Gary was semi-retired and did manage to do a lot. I just hope he didn’t have something up his sleeve that never got to see the light of day.

Oh and you can enter the obligatory failed his saving throw joke here.

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St Paddy’s Day

Posted on February 24, 2008 by tehdiplomat

So I haven’t been up to too much on the creating games front, but I have been doing a few things on my other lists of stuff that I try to get done. I’ve got a few books off my “reading” list, which is nice because most of them are 800 page fantasy novels. Yes yesI know it isn’t even March yet, but Hoboken always has it’s St Patrick’s Day parade in Hoboken two weeks before NYC has its, so that’s this coming Saturday. I’m not expecting too much besides Corn Beef, Cabbage and Car Bombs. (Oh and potatoes but that would have ruined the alliteration)

St Patrick’s Day always has a special place in my heart, not only from my Irish heritage but because of everything occurring around it.  This year I’ll be a turning ripe old 25 just before Saint Patrick will be reminisced for slaying all the snakes. Turning a quarter century is kinda weird, considering 5 years ago I wouldn’t have expected myself to be doing the things I am, but I was figuring on being somewhere close.  Well… I dont know what else I was planning for this post, and i figured I hadn’t posted in a while so you deserved something. ::shrugs:: Back to watch the end of the Oscar’s

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