My friend and the editor of my Idiot’s Guide books, Kris Oprisko of IDW fame, just started a new audioblog: Gomek Soundbombing. Kris is a huge music fan and has spent the last couple years living in Spain with his wife and kids, broadening his horizons, along with his musical tastes. Check it out!
The Arizona Daily Star has an excellent article about how libraries are integrating video games. Better yet, it mentions how the ALA (with funding from the Verizon Foundation) has launched a $1 million research project about how playing video games affects players’ literacy.
One of the librarian members of the study’s national panel is my friend Liz Danforth. Besides being an active librarian, Liz is a fantastic illustrator. If you ever read any of the Middle-earth Roleplaying books from ICE back in the 1990s, you certainly saw her work.
The best quote in the article:
“Games are the medium of choice for the millennial generation, and for libraries to ignore that would be foolish,” Danforth said.
Ed Healy (who sometimes comments around here) just launched Atomic Array, a new podcast about tabletop games. First up, Ed and his partner-in-crime Rone Barton tackle Colonial Gothic, an alternate history RPG from Rogue Games. It’s worth checking out.
Games for Educators is a cool site to show teachers how to integrate tabletop games into the classroom. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the convergence of education and games lately. Dr. Jim Gee at the University of Wisconsin has a lot to say about how this works with video games, but it’s great to see some low-tech, lower-cost tools like this and GAMA’s Games in Education program too.
Tor has been making e-books versions of some of their novels free for a week at a time over the past few months. This week, they actually have a tie-in novel available for free: Battlestar Galactica by Jeffrey A. Carver. Just go to Tor.com to register and get your copy.
Each novel is only made available for a week at a time, but Tor posts a new one each week, with a couple of gorgeous desktop wallpapers to go along with it.
Although Tor’s been at this for a while, this week’s offering surprised me because it likely meant that the licensor had to sign off on the free release. It’s one thing to persuade a novelist that putting up a free copy of a book is a good idea. It’s another to convince a major licensor that it’s okay too.
My friend Wes Harris (from waaay back in the early White Wolf days) just showed me something cool. His company, EdgeDriven.com, has just launched a new political website: CauseIt.com. It’s a fun, easy tool that lets you create your own politically oriented video mix-clips in your favorite browser. I tossed one together in under five minutes, just for fun.
The keen thing about this, of course, is that you can upload any sort of music or video you like and use it with CauseIt.com. This opens up a world of possibilities for fun of all kinds. Someone with the skills, of course, would have far more control over the results in any desktop editing program, but CauseIt.com’s simple interface makes it so easy it’s hard to resist fiddling with it.
Jeremy Jones, who sometimes posts comments around these parts, recently had an article on Gary Gygax’s influence published in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. It’s a nice bit of writing, and it features quotes from several industry folks, including Lisa Smedman, Doug Niles, Jared Sorenson, Harley Stroh, and myself.
A group of locals here in Beloit got together and made a music video for the Barack Obama campaign called “It’s Our Time Now.” Rob Tomaro—music director of the Beloit-Janesville Symphony Orchestra—wrote the song, and Nicole Waters of the cover band the Orphans performs it.
The song was originally created for a documentary, but when Obama spoke here at Beloit College before the Wisconsin primary, the song was performed as part of his introduction. Tomaro called his friend Annie Potts to show it to her over his phone, and she encouraged him to make a video for the song. They wrangled her husband Jim Hayman into directing it.
They shot all the live scenes on location here in Beloit. If you’re a local, you might recognize some of the faces. If not, it’s still lots of fun—no matter your personal politics.
Last week, my pal Mike Stackpole revealed that he’s had an asteroid named after him. It’s known as 165612 Stackpole (2001 FP86).
How very cool is that? Here’s hoping it orbits forever.
Szymon Kudranski, the artist who created the interiors for my Dracula’s Revenge comics, has a new website filled with his ever-improving artwork. If you like unique, dramatic illustrations, it’s well worth checking out.
NPR has an excellent interview with my friend Stephen Chenault of Troll Lord Games about Gary Gygax.
My pal Rich Dansky ruined my morning by pointing me to the news that Brett Favre is retiring. As a lifelong Packer fan, I recognize this as the official end of the greatest era in the NFL since the Lombardi years.
As I told Rich, though, I think this is the right thing for Favre to do. He came back last year—after flirting with retirement for months—because he didn’t want to leave his beloved sport on a bad note. This year, he broke all sorts of records and brought the Packers back to the playoffs. He’s not likely to top that again, so now’s the time to go.
Favre might have been erratic at times, but when he was on his game he was truly great. The saying around here has long been, “As Favre goes, so go the Packers.” Here’s hoping they can find their way without him.
If you read my Blood Bowl books, you might recognize Rhett Cavre, star blitzer of the Bad Bay Hackers. He’ll still live on, I think, even after his inspiration retires. I’ll miss the original though, every damn game.
On Saturday, Marty and I caught The Spiderwick Chronicles film, based on the books by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. Tony and Holly are both tabletop gaming refugees, and I got to meet them and sit on a panel with them at the 2006 Comic-Con.
Marty and I both enjoyed the film. I haven’t read the books yet, but we have an autographed copy of Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide, complete with a sketch from Tony. The movie only whetted my appetite for the books, which I hope to pick up soon. It had fun characters, good action, and some excellent moments of suspense, plus a cool ending.
On Sunday, I moved out of my old office and brought everything into the house. Don Perrin and Dan Schooff showed up and gave me a hand. I couldn’t have managed it without their help.
Now, of course, I’m surrounded by boxes. Eyeing all of it, it’s clear most of it can’t stay. There may be a pallet headed for eBay or Hobby Hearse in the near future. I’ll let you know when.
The fine people at FlamesRising.com are running a contest about your favorite horror game. Just write it up in 250 words or less, send it in, and wait for a tentacle-faced Ed McMahon to show up at your door. There are only 16 entries as I write this, so your odds are much better than in the “Facing Down Cthulhu” Sweepstakes.
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