My pal Peter Adkison appears in the business section of today’s New York Times. The article covers Peter’s new company, Hidden City Games, and its hit CCG, Bella Sara (which my daughter Helen adores). Peter and his crew recently raised $15 million in venture capital to push Bella Sara.
The article ends unsure about the chances of Bella Sara‘s success. All I know is I’d put every penny on Peter and the rest of his team.
My sister Jody pointed out to me a new site called FreeRice.com. It’s a neverending vocabulary quiz, with sponsors that put up money to buy rice for the United Nations World Food Program. As a professional writer, I’m always happy to expand my vocabulary, especially for a good cause. Plus, it helps hone my Scrabulous skills, so it’s research time well spent, right?
Given what I do for a living, it’s probably no surprise that I fully support the writers’ strike the WGA called for last week. John Rogers gives a good round-up of the reasons behind it, linking to other excellent analysis, and Christian Johnson provides quality commentary over at Cinerati. Be sure to check out UnitedHollywood.com if you’re interested in a steady stream of updates.
I’m not a member of the WGA, as I don’t work in fields they cover. They’ve made a few tentative steps toward bringing computer game writers into the fold, but none of that’s come to fruition yet. (I’m not sure it’s possible to unionize computer game writers, mind you, given the lack of any solid union in the rest of the industry, but that’s another long conversation.) Still, I count many WGA members as friends, and we’re all writers at the core, siblings in spirit if not union membership or blood. Best of luck to them, no matter how long it takes.
My pal John Nephew of Atlas Games fame won his race for one of the two open seats on the city council of Maplewood, Minnesota, last night. Congratulations, John! It’s always great to see someone step up and try to make a difference.
Those fortunate enough to live closer to the Black Library in the UK than I do can now officially get their hands on Blood Bowl: The Omnibus. This no-neck, gold-tusked linebacker of a book smashes all of the first three Blood Bowl novels (Blood Bowl, Dead Ball, and Death Match) together under one cover, plus a short foreword I wrote just for this tome. That’s 768 pages of hilarious, spike-balled mayhem for the low price of only £9.99.
The rest of the world has to wait until November 27. Oh, the humanity.
Yesterday, we moved into our new home here in Beloit. It’s much bigger and has a fantastic office for me. I’ve been working in an office downtown since the quads were born, and now I’ll be able to cut my commute down from 2 minutes to 20 yards.
Many new neighbors came by to welcome us to the neighborhood already, including Pam and Sam Lathrop, who live right next door. Sam’s the chief of police in town, and Pam is the administrative assistant to the city manager. She’s also the kind-hearted soul who brought us Sunday dinner every week for the first year we had the quads home. As part of their welcome gift, Sam mowed our lawn for us as we moved in.
Ginormous thanks go out to the strong-backed men who helped us move in: Andy Friedl, Mark Nosek, Lester Smith, Rob and Eli King, Don Perrin, and Dan Schooff. Also to Lori Gordon and Ellen Plunkett for watching the quads for the afternoon. As always, big thanks to my mom for pitching in at every chance.
More regular posts to resume shortly.
RSS
Newsletter
Twitter
Google Plus
Facebook
LinkedIn
