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4/5/2006 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark HaddonI took a trip over the weekend and got a bunch of reading in, including "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon. This was a really quirky book about an autistic kid trying to solve the mystery about who killed his neighbor's dog. It's written from the boy's point of view, and Haddon does a really good job of getting readers to empathize with him.
Christopher finds a dead dog on his neighbor's lawn late one night, and decides to investigate what happened. He shows off all of his idiosyncracies and somehow pushes closer to the truth. When the story started, it seems pretty straightforward story about life in a English small town. But, as Christopher digs deeper, he finds things that completely change his life (but I won't give it away here).
His trip to London on a train was scary, funny, inspirational, sad, and much more. I thought this book was great and a quick read to boot... 3/27/2006 Ilium by Dan SimmonsIlium is an interesting mix of Greek mythology and science fiction. In this story, the Greek gods are actually a group of enhanced humanoids from the future with nano-technology and quantum teleportation that live on a terra-formed Mars -- Olympos Mons to be exact.
The gods brought in old Iliad scholars to watch over the ongoing Trojan war. At first, the war is following the path laid out in the Iliad. The Greek and Trojan heroes battling one another. However, one of this scholars learns about the gods and decides to change the fate of those in the war. He sets up the gods by pretending to kill Patroclus (Achilles' friend) and having Hector's son killed. Both of the heroes blame the gods. They take control of their respective armies, settle a truce, and declare war on the gods. It was quite an interesting story.
In the meantime, sentient robots from moons on outer planets have noticed the excessive quantum disturbance on Mars and decided to intervene. I couple of robots set off a device on Olympos, which opens gates from the plains of Ilium and the asteroid belt. And, futuristic robots join the greeks and trojans in an attack on the gods. Unfortunately, this was the first book in a 2-part series, so it ends with the start of the seige on Olympos. But, the next book is in already out, so I'll have to pick it up to see how this ends.
There was a third storyline with humans that live in the same future timeline. They're completely dependent on servant machines and have forgotten how to do anything on their own -- including reading. They're somehow involved with this war (because Odysseus shows up to teach and guide them), but their involvement hasn't become clear yet. And, I thought that storyline was the weakest part of the book. We'll have to see how that wraps up in the next book. 3/22/2006 GM Prizes From Treasure TablesTreasure Tables is running a contest for GMs that register and post on their new forums. Hey, who can't use some free stuff. Give it a try; I just signed up. 3/21/2006 Monster: Fiendish Black PuddingI'm always on the look out for interesting new monsters to throw at my players. Here's a cool one that Jeff just posted: the Fiendish Elder Black Pudding. Mmmm, puddings with 380 hps that split into multiple puddings (that share hit points) when hit by slashing or piercing weapons. That's just some good, clean DM fun.  3/20/2006 GMing AwardsMartin over the Treasure Tables is talking about GM awards for products: books, adventures, accessories, and tools. Many of the current RPG awards are too general and aren't really meaningful for most GMs. But, something specifically targetting and voted on by GMs could be really great.
There are already some really good comments on the thread and I've added my own there as well.
I think an open nomination to start on some (or several) online forum(s). Then, having a panel of experts that filter the list down to a list of nominees (5-7 should do it). And, final voting online by the fans for the winner in each category.
And, I definitely think having them be independent from any specific vendor is essential. 3/17/2006 Fantasy Adventure GeneratorI'm always a big fan of generator programs for different aspects of D&D. Here's a new one that lets you roll random adventure elements (you select how many). There's pretty good, and used in combination, you can come up with some unique ideas. 3/14/2006 They're Taking the Hobbits to IsengardHere's a fun little video that someone put together. It's a techno, rap remix of the quote from Lord of the Rings: "They're taking the hobbits to Isengard." It's quite fun and has a lot of air time with Legolas rapping that line. 3/7/2006 Stardust Being Made Into A MovieThis is so exicting I can hardly contain myself. Stardust by Neil Gaiman is being made into a movie. I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan -- ever since I first read American Gods. And, since then have gone and read all of his other books. He's a very unique author, and I think this will be a good movie.
Here's an announcement from his blog about the movie:
Now, that's an exciting cast to have on the movie... 3/3/2006 A Million Little Pieces by James FreyWell, after all of the controversy about this book (the truth, lies, what really happened), I just felt like I really needed to read it. And, regardless of what was true or false, I found it to be a very good book. It was quick to read and was nearly a stream of conciousness put down on paper. A view of his thoughts.
I'd seen some of the coverage on the controversy, so I knew about a couple of things that were lies in the book. After reading it, they weren't very central to the book. The biggest issue was could you believe the rest if you knew some of it was lies. I found that I didn't really care because the story was good. And, I wasn't hung up about it being a memoir.
And, I can see why those battling addictions found it inspirational. Here was a guy that was horribly addicted to drugs and alcohol - to the point that we was drug and high all day for years, puking daily, and blacking out. And, he was able to persist enough to get clean and stay clean.
And, piece of it were terribly hard to read (but I still couldn't put the book down), like his description of his tooth operation, his brother's first visit, his confession to his parents.
I also see why many (including the AA and 12-step organizations) were so ready to tear him down, when he gave them the ammo to do it. Throughout the book he was vehemently opposed to the 12-step program, and everyone insisted that it was the only way for him to stay sober. He refused to believe that and found another way. That may have worked for him, but many in the addiction recovery community see that as dangerous. But, it's not like their success rate is that great, something like 25%, and some folks just aren't wired right for that program, so maybe a more open mind might help those...
So, my recommendation, ignore the hype and the criticism; read it yourself; and, make up your own mind. 3/2/2006 Shark SpiesHere's a funny link (via BoingBoing) about the pentagon doing research on using sharks with brain implants as spies. Now, if they only had frikkin' lasers beams attached to their heads, that would be really cool. 3/1/2006 Motorized Ice Cream ConeHow truly lazy do you have to be to require one of these: a motorized ice cream cone. You just put some ice cream in it, start it up, and put out your tongue, while the cone spins around for the perfect licking experience. How can we have survived all this time without it. 2/28/2006 Space Invaders on Your WallHere's cool wall art that's a line of space invader decals in an assortment of different colors. This would be very cool for a game room or kid's room. 2/23/2006 Amazon Associates ProgramA couple of weeks back, MSN Spaces released an update with some new features. One of them was integration with Amazon for booklists. So, I decided to give that feature a try. All of the book links on my blog now point to Amazon entries with my associate id. Any book referrals and says will have some small amount of change put into my account. Cool.
It will be interesting to see how much click through this will actually provide.
2/21/2006 The Problem with Social Sites2/20/2006 Free Software ListI just came across this really good list of free software that's available on the web. Lots of this freeware is created by open source projects, and some are free programs that companies supply to help in further their business. Either way, there are some very good alternatives for some software that you may currently be paying for.
I thought this was a great idea, and we could really benefit from a comprehensive list of free rpg gaming software too. I've seen a couple of smaller lists that people have put together for specific types and areas of tools. I'm considering putting together something more comprehensive both to help me out in my DM work and to help others find existing tools. 2/18/2006 What Happened to the NBA?Years ago, I remember watching the NBA, excited about the games, the teams, and the players involved. Today, it's all-star weekend, and I don't even care. Remember when the best players in the league were involved in the slam-dunk contest and 3-point shootout. I never watch the games on TV anymore, and I may watch 1 or 2 live Sonics games a year.
It isn't that I don't enjoy watching sports. I can and have spent whole weekends watching football. I'll sit through a baseball game. I've even just sat through the winter Olympics biathlon (cross-country skiing and sharpshooting) with more interest than I've had for an NBA game.
And, it isn't that I don't enjoy watching basketball. I love watching college basketball -- the games are exciting, the stories of different schools are compelling, anyone can win (even a lowly seeded team can beat the best teams in the country). And, with March Madness around the corner, college basketball is just picking up steam.
So, I'm not sure exactly what it is: the games are boring and mostly a foregone conclusion until you reach the playoffs; or, too much defense and not enough scoring; or, the players just aren't as interesting to watch (but, they still seem as talented); or, the playoff system is set up for the best teams to win, so there aren't as many upsets (like the NFL and college basketball); or, some mix of all of the above...
Not sure. What do you think? 2/15/2006 Altered Carbon by Richard MorganI just finished reading the sci-fi, who-done-it Altered Carbon. The book had some really great sci-fi concepts. People recorded the memories and more onto stacks attached to their brain stems and when they were killed their stack would be downloaded into another body (or sleeve) -- possibly a clone or a body no longer in use. If you really wanted to kill someone, you had to kill the body and destroy the stack before it was retrieved. Very rich people had their stack uploaded every few days so there were backup copies in storage somewhere in case they were really killed. So, death really became a minor inconvience. Except for catholics on Earth, who were morally opposed to this concept.
Also, rather than constant space travel, people would beam their stack to another world (one inhabited by humans) and download it into a sleeve.
Convicted criminals had their stacks removed from their bodies and placed on ice, where they waited until their sentence was serviced. Meanwhile, their bodies were up for sale for others to use.
The who-done-it part of the book wasn't that great. It starts with Laurens Bancroft believing he was killed but everyone else saying he committed suicide. After a lot of searching, much killing, and several plot twists. In the end, it turns out he had committed suicide to forget something he had done after his last upload.
The ending just didn't come off well for me. 2/13/2006 Kids Say No to Selling CandyHere's a cool story about a group of kids in Florida that refused to sell candy to raise money after completing their health class. Good for them. And, for doing the right thing, Veronica Atkins donated $16,000 to the school for their field trip -- good for her too. 2/8/2006 Songbird Looks CoolSongbird is an open-source music player and online music browser. It's a Windows-only application for now, but they're promising support for other platforms as well. It's currently a preview, so you should probably be careful using it.
It's UI is similar to iTunes, but in some ways sleeker. It lets you play music that you've saved in your music library, or browse the web for music. They're able to connect to lots of different musical sources so, it should be really useful. Check out this link for some Q&A about Songbird.
I haven't downloaded it yet (their site appears to be very busy). But, I plan to first chance I get. 2/1/2006 Seahawks vs SteelersThis weekend's game is looming, and I can't wait to see it. It would be great to see the Seahawks win. I've never been in a city or area when they've won the Super Bowl (unfortunately, I was long gone from New England before they started winning them). Seems like it would be exciting.
At the risk of offending a few Steelers fans out there, here's a funny little joke I just got sent to me:
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