Writer's Block

I feel like I have it.

Last month I wrote 10 blog entries, this is my 7th this month. While that might not seem like a big difference, it sure feels different. I just have nothing to say—makes me feel like my brain is slow. I guess if you count my Savaged Characters Blog you could add 13 to this month's total.

Embarrassingly enough I've only posted one Squishy comic this month. I just haven't had a good Squishy Idea all month.

I need to exercise my brain.


I think I'll bust out the Imagineering Workout that I got for Christmas. Just reading that made the ideas start to flow. Hm, I just discovered that there is a companion book The Imagineering Way.

I need to get that block off of my shoulder.

Do You Ever Wonder What People Are Thinking?

So we have this FLGS (That's Gamer Talk for Friendly Local Gaming Store—just say the letters F-L-G-S) that's literally just down the road.

The people that run it are nice, but I just have to wonder what they're thinking sometimes.

This first part is hearsay—via a friend of mine that spends a lot of time there. The Husband wants to sell Magic Cards. (For the uninitiated that's the Magic the Gathering Collectible Card Game) The Wife, who seems to wear the pants in the relationship, doesn't want to be a Magic Shop. The Husband continues to purchase Magic Cards and it is now source of the bulk of their profit, but she is still annoyed at him.

Now, I can understand not wanting to be a magic shop. However, selling Magic Cards does not make you a magic shop. That only becomes the case if you start buying and selling individual cards (likely from a big glass case). So her reasoning makes no sense, especially if their profit is mostly coming from those cards at the moment.

My second observation.

A few weeks ago, I wanted to go to The Game Store. Now, when I say The Game Store, I'm not referring to the FLGS down the road, I'm talking about the FLGS half way across the valley. So I went. My three year old daughter wanted to go with me, so I took her. Driving home she asked me when we were going to the game store. I laughed and informed her that we had gone to the game store. She said, "No, the game store with the puzzles."

The game store with the puzzles is the FLGS down the road. They sell wooden puzzles and have a few open on a short table at the front of the store where kids can play with them while parents browse the larger ticket items throughout the store.

The reason I prefer to drive half across the valley to an FLGS, rather than down the street is two-fold. They have a much LARGER selection of merchandise, and they have lower prices.

For the benefit of my daughter, I went to the FLGS down the road, since that's where she thought we were going.

The wife was not in the store (which I found unusual, and it occurred to me that it had been that way the past three times I had been in there) the husband greeted me and asked if I was looking for something, I told him I was there for my daughter's sake. He casually mentioned that everything in the store was 20% off. So I took a look around and ended up purchasing a game I had been eying for a while (Dicecapades) and then left.

A few days later, while riding home on the bus, I looked over and the store was completely empty. Then I remembered my friend that spends a lot of time there casually mentioning in passing that they were moving locations. Otherwise I would have thought that another FLGS closing it's doors for bad business sense.

But think about this, if my friend hadn't mentioned that to me, I wouldn't know. As it was, I didn't know that the sale I was benefiting from was a Moving Sale, until I noticed they were gone.

Because of that casual mentioning of the moving, I checked out their website when I got home. No new address on the main page. There was a blog entry that stated they were moving and noted the last day of business at the old location, but that was it.

I mentioned all this to my friend the next time I saw him and he told me that the reason she wasn't there, was because she had gone and gotten a job. Leaving her husband to run her store. Then he told me that the sale was technically a going out of business sale, because they knew they couldn't afford the rent in that location, and they did not have a new location. A few days later I checked again out of curiosity, and the front page still had the old address, but at least there was a blog entry with the new address and when they would open the doors.

I'm on their e-mail list, and I still haven't gotten an e-mail mentioning that they have moved. I find that odd.

The old location was half a mile away. The new location is just over half a mile away. So, they didn't move too far. I haven't had a chance to check out the new store yet. It's a pretty high traffic area, and much closer to the road. So hopefully they'll get more incidental/walk in business; and if the rent is lower, that's always a good thing.

I would never want an FLGS to go out of business. Sometimes I'm not surprised when they do.

There was another FLGS a while ago that we frequented, and I was not surprised when he went out of business. His space was huge, but his inventory was small. There was a time when I heard him answer the phone and tell the customer, "that's not the type of games we carry." I seriously wonder what people are thinking sometimes. If I ran a game store, I'd never tell someone that. If they called in looking for Chutes and Ladders—absolutely we carry that and then run to Wal*mart or Toys Я Us if I have to; but I think that I would have at least one copy of each of the run-of-the-mill, find-it-in-most-grocery-stores-or-Wal*mart, games on my shelves already. GET THEM IN THE DOOR, and then introduce them into the new and improved world of gaming.

Okay, that rant is oficcially off my mind now. I can get on with other things.

From the Journal of Angus MacGillean

How do I keep getting involved in this kind of stuff?

The boys in blue stopped by today asking about a customer. I told them she had purchased an alternator for her Volkswagen Bug a few days ago.

She's a pretty regular customer, always working on that Bug of hers.

I always cooperate with the "authorities" when they come in here, which is far more often than not, as of late. I don't trust anyone though—I've seen far too much as proprietor of this place.

I ended up spending the better part of the afternoon digging up what I could about her, it just didn't sit well with me that the local "constabulary" was asking around.

My ... sources led me to think something bad had happened on the waterfront. They told me about some big warehouse where rumor had it something was going down. I managed to get into the building without being seen (I'm not even sure why I was looking into this, but I just couldn't leave it alone). There was some sort of exchange going on; there was a computer, medical supplies and a lot of money changing hands; and these guys were agitated, one of them had disappeared and they were spooked. I was just about to get a good look at the medical cases when a group of bungling idiots barged in making all kinds of noise.

I recognized one of them, one of the computer geeks that's always scrounging through the bone-yard I seem to be accumulating at Angus'"auto". He recognized me too, he was trying to say something to me, I was trying to keep him quiet and all the sudden the boxes just below me blew apart. The warehouse guys must've gotten spooked again; they just opened fire on the boxes just below the catwalk where I was standing.

Then it happened again. It still doesn't make much sense. I fell through the catwalk and ... I don't know how to explain this, but I could tell that I was pretty much a puddle on the floor. Well I didn't know what to do at that point. I moved toward the middle of the room where I saw the medical boxes and found myself squeezing around and under the boxes that the warehouse guys had just torn apart with bullets, they seemed to be crates of guns.

I found myself under a couple of the guys with guns, and I guess I was slippery as they fell down on top of me and couldn't seem to get up. They were screaming and I was getting even more agitated; I can't even begin to describe how unusual it is to find yourself transformed into a puddle of goo. I just wanted them to stop and found myself reaching up somehow and grabbing their heads. They convulsed and then passed out. I tried to get to the medical boxes and lost grip of the two goons on the way.

I heard sirens (I don't even know how I see or hear when I'm a puddle) and a loud crash and then a motorcycle engine start up, there was gunfire all over the place and all I knew at that point was that I needed to get away from the cops. I moved over towards where I heard the motorcycle, I was right under one actually. I tried to reach up to it and ended up catching hold of the foot of the guy trying to get away on it. I managed to pull him off, but couldn't get on it.

Then there were more sirens.

I ditched the idea of trying to escape on a bike and moved out the door, no one seemed to notice the animated puddle of ... whatever and I figured it'd be best if I could just keep it that way; so I went and sat under a rain gutter downspout, and tried to act casual.

The police weren't there as long as you would expect after an incident involving that much money and guns and presumably illegal activity. They were gone, but I wasn't about to leave, I was still in a panic.

Presumably I fell asleep, I woke up later under the downspout, as my normal gray skinned self. I think I'll stay out of the main office for a few days, let the employees handle the front end of the business.

Lawyers Equal Unnecessary Hilarity

The world is sue happy. This is because a ridiculously large amount of people are convinced that winning a frivolous lawsuit is the only way to get rich. This is because people have won ridiculous lawsuits, when in fact, the gray matter contained within the head plus a little bit of common sense should have kept them safe. The lack of common sense on the part of idiots and judges (who should know better) has led to large amounts of copy being written that just don't need to be. But everyone lives in a state of fear. The fools are running the kingdom.

I present this little gem as proof. I was getting driving directions on Google Maps, and noticed this copy in the bottom left hand corner, that I had never noticed before, and genuinely didn't need to waste my time reading, because frankly, I knew it already—but apparently Google lives in fear that someone stupid will hurt them self and sue. . . . quoting:

"These directions are for planning purposes only. You may find that construction projects, traffic, weather, or other events may cause conditions to differ from the map results, and you should plan your route accordingly. You must obey all signs or notices regarding your route."

I rest my case.

Sound and Motion Sickness

I wouldn't say that my motion sickness is any worse or any less than average. I mock my wife a little when she gets motion sickness from reading in the car (be it a Zune menu, or driving directions, even a little bit affects her).

The first time I recall getting motion sick was at Lagoon when I was in Jr. High. I made the mistake of riding a thrill ride twice in a row. The first time was great, the second time was longer than I could handle and I didn't ride anything the rest of the day—bummer.

Around that same time Wolfenstein 3D came out and that too affected me—I got head aches, but I was so thrilled by the new first person shooter technology that I played on, and eventually stopped getting the headaches. I have since stopped playing first person shooters because, no matter how many innovations they introduce, they still all seem the same to me; and if I play them now, the headaches come back faster (less than a minute usually) and worse than ever.

I made the same stupid roller coaster mistake years later at Knotts Berry Farm and rode the Boomerang twice in a row and couldn't do coaster's the rest of the day.

So now I'm working on a project at work. The project involves people going out with a camcorder and documenting the external state of decay of buildings. This video is being done by amateurs, with no time and no budget, so these videos display all the typical amateur video hallmarks. They are shaky, move too fast at times, difficulties with focus and white balance and are the worst example of a first person perspective ever concieved.

My job is to author them to DVD. My template is in place and I can bust them out pretty fast except for one thing. I have to drop chapters in. I have tried scrubbing the video and just dropping the chapters where they need to be, but I get lost and don't know what to label the chapters.

I was only managing one a day for a while, because it was making me so sick. Recently I figured out a little trick. I can watch them with no audio, and it doesn't bother me. I listen to a little audio here and there just to make sure I'm oriented properly. Combine that with Google Maps and not listening to the audio for a majority of the time and my motion induced headaches have stopped.

I don't know what this means, but I find it highly intriguing—I tried to find out if there was a known reason that this might be, but was unable to find any information. If someone out there knows why this is; point me at an article or something, I'd like to know. If this is new and someone wants to take this and do a study of some kind, feel free—but I want footnote/endnote credit.

Odd Dice

I have admitted to being somewhat obsessed with dice. There's just something about the randomness that appeals to me on a primal level. Perhaps this is why gambling is popular—but I'm not stupid—the games I play never put my money on the line (other than the initial purchase).

Most people have only seen a six sided die:
A lot of Role Playing Games utilize a much wider selection of dice utilized as random decision makers for a variety of situations where the odds require percentages of possible failure that cannot be handled by the humble d6 (that's standard gaming dice notation for six sided die).

A six sided die can decide a 16%, 33%, 50%, & 66% chance of success. (and 100%, but there's no point in rolling for 100%)

Role playing games have introduced a number of different sided dice and a standard gaming set now includes:
a d4 a d6 a d8
a d10 a d% a d12
and a d20

My obsession has led me to purchase a number of non standard dice that have no practical use, but they're fun to have.

You can use a coin as a d2
I wanted a d6 with 3 zeroes and 3 ones for the same purpose



You can roll a d6, divide by three, and round up to simulate a 3 sided die—or if you're crazy like I am you can get a d6 numbered 1-3 twice

If you're really nutty you can get this rounded prism to use as a d3

I have a d10 numbered 1-5 twice
I have another prismatically shaped d5

I have a d7 as well



Due to their shapes you may think that the d5 and d7 aren't as fair as your typical platonic solid shaped dice, but the inventor spent a lot of time playing with the widths and shapes, and they have been scientifically certified as being just as fair as your standard platonic solids.



I have d14

A d16       
A d18 made of rubber that is not mathematically fair

A d20 that is numbered 1-10 twice
A d20 that made of rubber that is not fair

A d24
Another rubbery not fair d26

A d30
A d30 numbered 1-10 three times

A d34

A d50

And a d100 filled with sand so it actually stops



I have a standard gaming set in crystalline shapes.
d4 d6 d8
d10 and d% d12
and d20 .

A d7 based on illustrations found in a 17th century parlor games book.

a d8 numbered 1-4 twice

a wedge shaped d4
A d4 that forms the cap of a pyramid at games end



This constitutes the end of our tour of my odd dice. A lot of these are difficult to find, but then there are others that are not. I would like to create a game that uses a set of dice that are not standard, but not impossible to find. i.e. a d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24, and d30. But I have so many ideas bouncing around in my head, and so many unfinished projects that that is an idea that may never come to fruition.

Even More Zombies!!! Goodness on the Horizon.

Humans!!! 2: "Offering new and exciting ways for humans and zombies to try to take over the city." (Aug 09)

Bag o' Zombie Clowns: We always run out when playing Zombies!!! 7—so this is great. (Sept 09)

Zombietown 3: Expansion for the Board Game—No other details. (Oct 09)

Zombies!!! Scenario Book: Offering even more ways to play with hundreds of plastic zombies. (Oct 09)

and while not directly Zombie Related—The Deadlands Board Game. (Aug 09) There are Zombies in the Weird West.

These announcements are so new I don't have any more details than what's offered here. Take note that release dates are close to my birthday [Caveat—Twilight Creations release dates are always early. i.e. Zombies!!! 8 was origilally slated for Mar 09 and the word now is that most likely it will be through customs April 20; therefore on shelves a bit later than that.]