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November 27th, 2009
04:04 am - Cutest "Gas Leak" Evar
So, I suffer from insomnia. You can tell, because it's 3:56 AM now.
And when I have insomnia, I surf the web, or work on games or something.
So I was sitting in my office when I smell something funny. I walk to the foyer and think to myself, "that smells like a gas leak."
I wake up Laura and she comes into the foyer and smells it too. We go downstairs and observe that the heater is on. It obviously isn't a gas leak or the heater would have blown up the house by now.
We hear a sort of chirping noise from outside and look out front and Laura is the first one to see the skunk. It is on our front lawn and wanders up to the porch, and then to the driveway. Great.
The skunk makes another circle of the front yard and gets very close to the porch. They're kinda cute really when you see them up close. It wanders away and we don't see it again.
The smell is faint in the house so I open the front door to see how bad the front yard is. The worst possible news greats my nose. I beckon Laura to the door and she sniffs the clean, fresh air outside.
Yes, like any good horror story, the smell is coming from within our house.
We have houseguests. My brother's son and daughter and her boyfriend. They are sleeping in the basement and I crack open the basement door and yeah, it's worse down there.
We wake them up, just to make sure it's ok, and I discover the source of the smell is a door that leads to our front insulation. It's likely the skunk burrowed its way under our front porch and has been living in the insulation for some time. Something the kids did down there frightened it, and it let spray. In our house.
Hooray.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
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November 25th, 2009
12:46 pm - Happy Turkey Day
Have a great Thanksgiving everyone...
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November 23rd, 2009
10:17 pm - All Gone?
I just realized that I ran my pants through the wash with my thumb drive in the pocket. I'm going to wait overnight, but I may have lost everything after the last backup. That's mostly just notes for LoB 3, but also a couple of keen card/board games I was working on too.
Sigh.
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November 20th, 2009
10:18 am - Name That Tune
It's been a while since we've done this, and I've since gotten a new mp3 player.
Here's the rules. I'll post the first lines of 15 songs. You guess the title and artist. 1 point for each. The winner gets the satisfaction of knowing their tunes. Using the internet to search lyrics is cheating.
Here are the lines:
1. I'm wearing my fur pajamas. I ride a hot potato. tafkad
2. C'mon and wreck my car. yunafonfabre
3. I have regrets. And most I can forget.* [Hint: by a local-to-Virginia band]
4. Yes New York, It's really us. Barnaby and Cornelius. aerynne
5. [XXX] just as it's finishing being cool.* [Hint: by a band about as non-local to Virginia as possible. Frankly, only i_Scribble has a chance here and I don't think she reads my lj anymore].
6. Jenny came over and told me about Fred. He's such a hairy behemoth she said. jadasc
7. Lift up your head. Wash off your mascara. ladysprite
8. The girl works at the store, Sweet Jane Sinclaire. yunafonfabre
9. Goodbye. Goodbye. [XXX] Every day I look across the office floor…
10. Old Godzilla was hopping around Tokyo city like a big playground [Title by zrealm; artist by aries_walker]
11. I don't have a library card, but do you mind if I check you out. jadasc
12. There's a rustle in the bushes… There's a tremble in the trees…* [Hint: From a musical]
13. It's all a game. You're not the same. Your famous name. The price of fame.* monster_girl
14. [XXX] Keep your bible off my balls. [title: tafkad]
15. All they ever smoke is tobacco in suburbia.* [Hint: It's an oldie]
Hints:
[XXX] is the song name removed from the lyrics.
Only three are from musicals. For those name the song title and the show.
Each song is from a different artist.
*are difficult and are worth double points.
Good luck!
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November 19th, 2009
10:21 am - Thanksgiving Prep
I feel that I should post since it's been a while, but I don't have much of an update on my life. I'm holding off on releasing new things on the II site until next year. I'm working on a couple more games for The Game Crafter. I'm working on LoB 3, and Slash. But mostly, I'm just goofing off and being lazy. Admittedly, goofing off and being lazy involves watching DVDs for LoB 3, but it's lazy for me.
We're also cleaning house and preparing for Thanksgiving. My family will be coming to my place and we want a nice spread. We've ordered a terducken and the best ice cream in the world. They are both scheduled to arrive today. Hope we have the freezer space.
See, I have a real non-larp life, too. I just never post about it.
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October 30th, 2009
09:56 am - Wow
In time for Halloween and hot on the heels of LoB 2, I present:
The Stupid Case Of DJ Jekyll and MC Hyde
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October 27th, 2009
01:05 pm - One Week Later
24 confirmed players. 17 registered. We're over 40. That's about 2/3rds full. Only a year to go. Wow!
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October 26th, 2009
09:56 am - Six Harvests
So, I was challenged to write an Agricola session report in the style of a Coen Brothers' movie. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ausir helped. dance_shiva helped like cats. i_scribble catered the event.
The final result is here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/456043 Enjoy!
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October 21st, 2009
11:24 am - 24 Hours Later
16 players confirmed. An additional 12 registered. 28 players. Not bad for one day.
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October 20th, 2009
11:56 am - Lullaby of Broadway 3 now available for registration.
Lullaby of Broadway Episode 3 is now open for registration.
To register, log in at: http://www.interactivitiesink.com/larps/broadway and select “Into the Woods” under the “Event Registration” heading on the right of the page.
Lullaby of Broadway: Into the Woods is the third and final episode in the Lullaby of Broadway trilogy. Join us as we explore the mystical, magical, mythological side of Broadway.
This may be your last chance to play in a big, full weekend, Mike Young production!
Our third episode, Into The Woods, will be held on the weekend of October 15-17, 2010 at the Hagerstown Hotel and Convention Center in Hagerstown, Maryland.
( More info )
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October 15th, 2009
04:38 pm - The Truth
Have you ever wondered what German LARPers think of us Americans?
Here you go (warning: rant audio not safe for work)
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October 12th, 2009
12:14 pm - Creative Writing Project
So, earlier this week, I challenged the denizens of Board Game Geek to choose a game and a literary style and I'd write a session report about it.
While the voting won't close until Saturday, the current clear winner is a completely nonexistent game called Poisson d'Avril, which they asked me to write in they style of "William S. Burroughs...or Hunter S. Thompson."
To stave off it being the actual winner, I wrote the session report this morning. You can read it here: You can't click here. This is bat country.
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October 9th, 2009
10:54 am - Help Me - A Zune Review
So, I have recently obtained a zune 120. I want to thank everyone who donated money, music, or whatever toward it. It is very much appreciated and I really enjoy listening to it.
First a review:
The zune itself is very nice. It is small, sleek, and responsive. My old mp3 player didn't have video and it is nice to see a picture of the album cover when the song is playing. It even plays games, including Texas Hold-em.
The car adapter is ok. The problem is that the radio dial around here is overcrowded, so it is tough to find an unused radio station. Also, the fm transmitter isn't that powerful, so even though I've found the best spot for it in my car, I still get static every now and then. It's a trade off. My old adapter -- a cassette jobbie -- has fine musical quality, but it makes a horrible grinding noise.
On to the software. The software sucks rocks. By default, it tries to dump everything in you "My music" folder on your zune, whether you want it to or not. I have some things I've mixed for LARP in there that I don't want on my zune. I have a lot in My Music I don't want on my zune. By fiddling around with the setting, I was able to fix that, but there are other issues. The software only allows you to access the song by artist, album, or title. Not filename. So there is no way to say "I want all the files from this folder on my zune, but not these files" without right clicking on each file and selecting properties. Or by moving the latter directory out of my "my music" folder. But it can't be done by the zune software.
Further, you cannot move files to the zune outside of the software. Sure, there are registry tricks where you can see the zune like a hard drive, but you have to deliberately crash the zune software to use it like a hard drive. It sucks. I look forward to the day when hackers manage to get around this and provide a good, working software interface for the device.
Finally, you cannot select a file that is being synced to the zune and say "remove this from the zune." No, you have to go to an entirely different screen, find the damn file again -- and the songs on the zune are sorted differently than on the computer -- and then remove it.
I look forward to the interesting wrinkles that will occur when I connect my zune to my work computer today.
On the plus side, it has kinda forced me to organize my mp3 collection a bit. Next step is getting rid of duplicates and triplicates and organizing the files into a better structure in "my music." If the software lets me. I tried moving a folder yesterday and dammit if it didn't somehow find its way back after I synced the zune again. Sigh.
Now for the help. I have about 10MB worth of music on the zune, about 3500 songs. But I need more. I don't have a lot of money for the cause, and I don't particularly want to pirate, so I'm looking for good, free music. I have the complete Jonathan Coulton collection, and have been listening to a bit of Tom Smith lately, but I like all kinds of music. Expand my musical horizons. What would you suggest I listen to? Links are especially welcome.
For the record, I especially like songs with clever wordplay, with interesting structure or rhymes, and have an upbeat tempo. If the song has all three I'll probably like it. If it has 1 or 2, I may like it. Genre is irrelevant. Thanks!
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October 6th, 2009
09:41 am - LoB Wrapup
LoB 2 went really well. They gave me a standing ovation. Then they gave me a 120MB zune. Wow. I have great friends. Thank you all so much!
The game wasn't perfect. I'd say that of the 77 players, a handful only had an ok time, and two went home early dissatisfied with the game. So, we'll say 90% success rate.
The overwhelming majority had an excellent time. I have little idea what really happened during the game as I was busy handling research requests, setting up scenes, and answering questions. But what I saw looked spectacular.
And you know it's a good sign when people start asking about the next episode.
My current plan is:
1. Clean my house. I have all sorts of relatives coming over for Thanksgiving and my house looks like I just ran a LARP for which my wife made three detailed puppets.
2. Get Hamlet up on TGC. I want a *real* game there.
3. Get the database ready. I want to do some tweaking before we...
4. Open the floodgates. Registration for Episode 3 will begin no later than the end of November.
Thanks to everyone who played. Here's a repost of the thanks list from the mailing list.
Thanks to…
Shane Amerman and Andrew Zorowitz – Sound tech.
Merry Peck – Behinds the Scenes, Scene Wrangling
Karl Musser – Floor GMing and General Help
Barb Jewell – Floor GMing and General Help
Gordon Olmstead-Dean – Scene/Cast Wrangling. Afterparty coordinator
Sue Lee – Continuity Checking
Laura Young – Props, set, and general support.
Andrew Zorowitz – Player Wrangling
Rita Flaherty –Running the Regatta. Prop and set creation.
Dan Gillespie – Backdrop creation.
Ginny Swann – Dead Dog coordinator.
Anna Bradley – Set/prop coordinator and creation.
John Corrado – Rock Band Coordinator.
Rebecca Corrado - General Assistance.
Lynn Anslow – General Assistance.
Julie Luxenberg – General Assistance
Carolyn Grodt - Playlist Collation
Mark Barker – Disk Jockey
Our cast of NPCs. Lynn Anslow, John Corrado, John Corradin, Abigail Hanley, Jim Husband, Amy Knoch, Robin Lee, David Lichtenstein, Celia Tite, and anyone who played an NPC for part of the game.
Anyone who came in at the last minute to play a character.
Anyone who helped with set or props or set up.
Anyone who helped with plotting: Shane Amerman, Dave Coleman, Kurt Dankmeyer, Rita Flaherty, Diana Gagliardi, Carolyn Grodt, Joshua Kronengold, Ben Llewellyn, Lisa Padol, Moira Parham, Del Schlosser, Jason Schneiderman, and anyone else.
Anyone who helped with writing or puzzle making: Ben Llewellyn, Carol Johnson, Merav Hoffman, Dave Coleman, Rebecca Corrado, especially Diana Gagliardi.
Anyone who helped with printing or stuffing: especially Dorothy Altmiller, Rebecca Corrado, Jim and Terilee Edwards Hewitt
Anyone who brought or lent props or set.
Thanks to all the players. Without you there would be no game.
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September 30th, 2009
04:29 pm - LoB Musings
So, as I approach the actual game day for Lullaby of Broadway, I am struck at just how much easier it is to run a simple weekend long adventure game than it is to run a full weekend theater game.
That isn't true; they both have their own stressers, but the big stresser for a theater style game is casting.
For games like Lullaby of Broadway, all of the action, per se, is in the interactions between the player characters. The players have all been given detailed character histories with an intertwining shared history, and things they want to accomplish over the weekend. And they accomplish these things by interacting with other player characters.
This means that even missing one of the 77 players can cause all sorts of ripples. Let's say that of that player, 20 other players have a plot involving that character to some degree. Now some might just need him for 5 minutes. Some might need him all game, as a rival, an ally, or even a suitor.
Those players have a diminished game, and the plots featuring that player are dropped or, if lucky, shunted elsewhere. But the ripples spread. Those 20 players might then pull on other players to fill their gap, but that upsets the equilibrium elsewhere. For example, X is not at the game, so Y doesn't have a rival. Instead Y focuses all her time on romancing Z. But Z was supposed to spend some time with A and B. But all of Z's time is filled with Y because X wasn't there, so A and B lose out a little bit even though they might have nothing to do with X. It's even worse if they lose Z and X.
Games are more interesting if they have a tightly knit history, but that just makes them more frustrating when players drop.
Now I don't have the drop headaches of LoB 1 where 15 people dropped the month before the game, and people are dropping for good reasons (family events, the horrible economy). And I'm finding replacements.
Finding replacements. Every minute I work on finding a replacement player is a minute I am *not* working to make the game better. I am -- at best -- running in place. Now at this point, it's all done except for a few more prop acquisitions and some small amount of printing, copying, and collating (the lyric book and credit reports). But even if I didn't have anything else to do -- and I would find something to do -- by adding to my stress you are reducing my efficiency as a runtime GM.
That's it! My rant has talked me into a solution. I have been relying on the players to take on some of the burden for this game anyway. What if when you drop the game YOU are responsible for finding a replacement? Obviously, this couldn't work for emergencies, but it might work for regular drops.
Do people think this is workable?
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September 24th, 2009
10:14 am - Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?
This morning I went out to my car to discover the driver's side window smashed in and my (junky old) GPS and my (junky old) mp3 player missing.
The police said I was the 8th one in the area today.
Only one on my court though.
Sigh. I'll miss the mp3 player. It had a lot of weird shit that will be difficult to replace on it. It's been a while since I backed it up too.
But, y'know, I could do with a little less shit in my life right about now.
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September 22nd, 2009
09:48 pm - Contingencies
This time last year I was bragging that LoB 1 had 209 contingency envelopes.
LoB2 has 218 and still counting.
Wow.
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September 20th, 2009
12:25 pm - Little Know LARP Facts #27
I am writing a quazi in-game note that includes the phrase "Cast Wrangler." The note should be in Spanish, so I go to Google Translate. According to Google, Cast Wrangler in Spanish is "Wrangler Pornostars."
While I somehow doubt it is the translation I'm looking for, it pleases me too much to try to change it.
So, come to LoB 2, if you want to see Gordon be the "Wrangler Pornostars."
...I need more sleep.
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September 14th, 2009
09:47 am - Back at work
Life goes on.
Thanks very much for all the condolences, e-mails, virtual hugs, offers of help, and on line greeting cards. I read and appreciated every one of them. I'm sorry I have not responded to each on personally. Last night was the first time in about a week I have sat down in front of a real computer connected to the internet. Prior to that, I was using my cell phone which didn't work at my sister's house.
But I'm back now. And, boy, do I have work to do.
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September 10th, 2009
01:21 pm - The Final Update
First of all, thank you all for your condolences. They are overwhelming.
My mom's funeral will be tomorrow, Friday the 11th, at noon, at Sol Levinson's (for those who wish to attend).
http://www.sollevinson.com/ (Click on Daily Funeral Schedule then Harriet Young).
The link answers most questions.
We will be sitting shiva on Friday and Sunday and accepting guests at the "House of Mourning" Saturday afternoon and evening (for those who wish to attend).
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