Missing PentaCon

Well, PentaCon is over and for the first time in 20 years, we were not there.

I really miss the friends we have made over the years, many of whom are right there at PentaCon.

Believe me, I miss the people.

This has been the worst eight months of my life, and to have to miss seeing friends on top of it, well, it makes me just a little sad.

It is important to try to balance these trials with positive thoughts, and right now, I am hoping things improve enough for us to get back to PentaCon next year.

Mark

Late, but here it is.

I got the Universal Boon sheets done and posted today. I had a couple more things I wanted to do, but with only five hours left before I have to get up and work with Sue on her meds, well, just not going to happen.

I have two more sheets I need to get converted for Tim. Those I will get done with spot work during the day. Should have done them already. Oh well, do what you can.

Next up I want to go through the comments on the Universal Betas, divide them into "P" and temporary cards. Should be 2-4 sheets. I would like to get them up Sunday night.

With those in hand we can go over a number of sets for players races, shifters, special abilities and professions and make them work with, enhance and expand the Universal cards.

I also want to get back to some GM cards. The last I checked almost every DS game has a GM. They appear to be very important, as any player without a game to play will tell you. I guess that is why, as players, we treat the GM's with respect and chocolate. (How do you give your Skype GM chocolate? I need to check into our selling Gift Certificates..)

Mark

Just a little DS Work

I am working on two sets of Universal Boon type cards for 2.0. Three of the eighteen did not pass early muster and others need a little tweaking.

A few of these are too complex for the standard card. I am going to lay them out as full text cards.

I managed to get a couple of hours in today, so I am through the first nine. I only have six right now for the second sheet, I thonk I will take a look through the Universal "P" type cards and see what fits in. I have an Herbalism card I like, but that would mean working on the herbs next, and I am not sure if Herb would like that.

I am really going to miss going to PentaCon, sigh.

Mark

Working out the weeks schedule

Need to work with Sue to on getting her something to do. Not as easy to do as you would think. She has the vision problems plus she has spikes of mental difficulties that distract her. Frequently it is a choice of working with her or doing my own work.

Got cards done over the weekend for the orders. Need to pack them and get them to the post office.

Have doctors appointments Monday and Thursday to work around.

Prioritize partially finished projects.
GM Primer book, got some good chapter headings, now I need words.
Talking Elethay for the new Talismans and Gift Ceremony. Using info in Kanchaka and Continent books as foundation.
Talking Armor. New shield system is good, it is going to open up the making of magic shields, but takes some explanation to help people know what we mean.
Review and correlate comments on the new Stealth set. Maybe it is good so few people want to speak up.
One more revision of Awareness Betas with Sue, then onward.
Want to update Griffon Betas, because I am using them.
Continue going through Universal sets to get Sue big cards.
Have several requests for beta updates, nightwitches, fire mages, prismatic wizards most frequent requests.
Work on site revisions to drop web sites, cost considerations. Get comics into Sue's site, Guild into DS. Pretty much have the Betas moved, at least the pieces people use.
Revise podcast outlets. Have 35,000+ downloads, but need cheaper server. Also need to get back to them. They are fun to do.
Zazzle needs more images, seeing some responses, and slight income.

Ok, looks like I have a month of tasks here, not a week.

Anyone have suggestions?

Mark

Well, maybe it never ends

I have just had three teeth pulled. Such fun. Now I think I will ignore the world for a couple of days.

Good Valentines Morning!

Valentines Day. One of the Hallmark holidays. However, in this case, I think I like it.

It is a wonderful excuse to show someone that you love them, and I have someone I Love. (Hi Sue!)

As my protest against the commercial holidays, no card, but we can share a steak!

On my way to Christmas.

It is now just a few days before Christmas and everything is quiet in the neighborhood. It is a good time for me to reflect on all of the good things in my life. The funny thing is that there are so many of them I have no idea where to begin. I am most thankful for Sue and all of my friends spread out across the country. Sure, there are problems, but life is too good to get depressed about the irritating details.

To make life even better, Sue got a Rainbow dragon in DragonVale.

Last night we played in a most excellent DS game run by Sue.
One thing I can say is that when a Warrior is in a labrynth, without a healer, you really should have a pile of Parries and Ducks. By the time you get to that twelfth or so fight without rest time, you really want to avoid getting hammered, again.
It was a good game!

Just another month, so they tell me.

The village Mother scowled at KaJon. She did not understand this Das Karr. Why could he not understand that his territorial marking is bad, offensive, and must stop.

She followed the scowl up with a nasty glare. "Why do you do this? Tell me!"

KaJon shuffled his feet and stared at the ground. "It is the Wakana. You see, those monsters mark territory too. They take my markings as a challenge and they can not help but respond with a mark of their own. So, each day I check the markings, and if a Wakana has been sneaking around, scouting for a raid, they will forget what they are doing and leave a mark. Then I know they are nearby and we can hunt them."

Mother Bastille opened her mouth, closed it, and reached back for her chair. She sat slowly and considered KaJon. "Crap, he actually has a reason and it almost makes sense."

"Ok, leave that for now. We have an ongoing mission I need you to join. Take these potions with you. I will have you teleported in to the Labryinth. Tell Jinxis that he must keep going. Clean out the place. That damned Rogue is continuing it's hunt for necro's. They will teleport to that warped Labryinth for safety. You people need to be there to catch them by surprise."

As KaJon walked out, she sighed. "Now, all I have to do is get some volunteers out there to rebuild farmhouses and pacify the innocents that the Rogue burns out of house and home. Damn the heart of Jikadell! Why do we always have to clean up after those Rogues? I suppose because someone has too."

Still slowly playing DragonVale. Got the three islands, the special Breeding ground and the Sun and Moon dragons. Still no Rainbow dragon in sight.

Sue just got a 48 hour breeding result from a Reindeer and Blazing Dragon getting it on. We will have to wait two days to see what special dragon it is.

Being sick leaves time to play.

As it turns out sitting in one place quietly leaves just enough energy to play with the iPad. And I have DragonVale for time consuming.

Last night I put together a breeding pair of Cold Dragon (lvl 10, left) and a Swamp Dragon (lvl 10, right) and got the special christmas Reindeer Dragon. Actually it was my second try, I got Seaweed the first time.

So, being sick does have rewards.

So, there I was at midnight putting myself to bed when I put in a Blue Fire (lvl 10, left) and Crystal (lvl 10, right) and I get this:

Ok, I took the picture late, but one of the special dragons (Rainbow, Moon or Sun) is on the way.

Next the new Breeding Island came on line. I put the Reindeer (lvl 10, left) and Scorch (lvl 10, right) and boom, another 48 hour breeding time. So I have a second special dragon on the way.

I think it means I will be getting better now. Good luck breeds good luck.

Christmas comes to DragonVale, and recovering.

Christmas has come to DragonVale. Everything went snowy.

I sat in a chair yesterday and drooled. I am feeling better health wise, but I feel guilty about the jobs not getting done. Building up orders to be shipped. We have sold through so much in the last month I need to manufacture cards to fill the orders.

Now, time to change tactics and stare at the wall for a day.

Health and Conventions, not looking good.

It began a few years ago, but it seems to be getting worse. Whenever I go to a series of conventions, I wind up sick. I have no idea what is causing this, but it is true. I assume there is a reason. I have a multitude of hypotheses, with no proof.

So, I am recovering from pneumonia. The body has decided that I will sit and do next to nothing. When I move, the nose runs. When I talk, the throat itches and I cough rather than talk. When I sit here and focus on writing, the chest tightens and I start to wheeze. The result is I am doing a lot of nothing. Fortunately I am very good at nothing.

What I have been successful at doing is to clear the old mind of a lot of preconceived "truths" that are just opinions and habits. It is helping me to recover my open mind. The problem with an open mind is there are a lot of people waiting to fill it with their garbage.

So far it looks like this blog posting software is going to work.

I also need to find out how it works with photos. I will give that a test by adding a DragonVale screenshot as a picture.

I have been playing DragonVale on the iPad. It is not a type of game I would have played in the past, but I am enjoying this one. I spend just a few minutes a day now on it as I diligently research dragon breeding. I am not very lucky at it, but what the heck.

Yes, I can put text in after a picture. It was certainly unclear how to do this, but it does seem to work. Now, let's post this.

Testing new Blog poster

The blogging software I was using to post to blogs has failed to update, so I am finally getting around to finding working software.

Getting ready for PentaCon and other thoughts

We are slowly getting a good system down for manufacturing the cards. Neal is coming over once a week now and doing the actual card cutting and packaging. If you look through your cards you will see some art by Neal Morrisey, yes, same guy. That means he has an idea of what we are doing, so he can make good judgement calls. Anyway, the card quality is getting better every week now.

I have printed and laminated a batch of cards for him to do tonight. The laminating takes a good deal of time in this process as getting the sheets into the laminate and placed correctly takes time. By getting them laminated Neal can keep up with weekly cutting.

November is going to be an interesting month. We have shows of one type or another every weekend this month. That pretty much takes out dedicating time to a longer project like another shifter or magic school series. I still have a bit of tweaking to do on the Witchcraft cards, the Get to Know pages need updating and there are a lot of other little projects I have let slide. So, for this month I am going to do a lot of little things that no one will notice. To try to help people keep up I will be posting the links to new stuff on my twitter account. You can either sign up for it direct or check on the right hand side of this blog for my twitter feed.

I am discovering all sorts of new tech going on around me, and I have to say that it fascinates me. When the time comes to get the direct to the brain computer hookup I am going to be right there in line using my cane to drive back the kids. I want my direct connection to the Internet NOW!

At the moment I need to do some tweaking on the backgrounds, get the orders packed to ship in the morning, and make some labels. Sue is upstairs painting, so I am using a jury rigged computer set up down on the gaming table. That makes everything slower, I really like my big screen so I can see everything I am working on.

Daily Thoughts, on a monthly schedule

It appears that I do not have daily thoughts. A disturbing concept, but there you have it.

My mother has been having trouble with her legs recently. Basically everything below the waist decides that moving is not in the cards. She has been in two hospitals for it and they are not finding a reason. Each time she gets back a little function and off home she goes. Surprisingly, at the age of 87, she is in a positive mood, she is sure she can overcome this one too. Gotta love the spirit.

I have been keeping half an eye on the OWS type protests. Not being a youngster I remember the protests of the 60's, I was there.

Declaration of Independence opening:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among those are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I love what they did here. First, they used the word Creator to include all beliefs. You can believe the Creator is Evolution or God, and it still works. They say all men are equal. Children of the poor, middle class, rich or oligarchs are equal, none are greater. And everyone of us has the born right to Life, Liberty and to try to be Happy.

Are the leaders in Washington trying to guide our country with these words in their minds? You decide. Go look, do your own research, examine their deeds, not the words.

OK, enough thinking, it wears me out.

At Detroit Fanfare

And Hello from Cobo! Seeing a lot of familiar faces. Good Coffee here. The only drawback is the 1.5 hour drive down from home.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Labrosse St,Detroit,United States

Making Progress and even writing

I have started setting time aside specifically for writing. It can be for DS books, Guides or for Podcasts. The important thing is to get some words down on paper.

Yesterday I got a couple of hours work done on Hadley's Safe House. It is an adventure and how to for starting players. I have been picking away at it for way too long and need to get it finished. The schedule is to dedicate three yours Monday, Wednesday and Friday to writing and editing my own work. I am going to try 1-4 each day. Yesterday I did reviewing of the work and added about 500 words. Not a big jump, but a good start.

Tonight I am running for our primary play group. They are running DS 2 experimental characters. Sue is running a Gargoyle Reaver with all new cards. So far she is pretty mean. Tonight will be a good test. Tomorrow we will finally talk about the cards she is using. I have several reviews of the new Gargoyle cards from our player/editors. I will be combining all of the changes and putting them together. I am hopeful that I can have a Beta set of cards done and up next week.

Is anyone else concerned that the good old US of A has become number one among western nations in Child Poverty? Is it wrong that we are not talking about this? How did we achieve this notorious position? Why is it OK with our cost cutting congressmen to finance school rebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not in the US? Is that the kind of decision that has relegated our children to poverty? Oh, and we got #1 for adult poverty too. Go USA!

Second day at Gencon

Morning at the con. I need more coffee.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

At Origins

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sickness and entertainment, the wandering mind

Being "under the weather" has done a couple of things. First, it has taken my computer away from me, it is really hard to use it and be in a half sitting, half laying position. Anyway, it has sent me to my entertainment to keep the mind distracted.

By now everyone, well, some people, know that Sue and I abandoned TV. Somehow paying for 720 hours of TV a day seemed rather extreme. Especially with us watching a few hours a week at most.

Now I rely on the Internet. I have a couple of archeology podcasts, legal, philosophy, sociology, psychology and grammar podcasts that I follow to keep up with my college degrees.

For technology I follow a number of the twit network podcasts, plus a couple of others. If the tech podcasts know less than I do, I do not stick with them, and there are a surprising number that are either dumb or paid pawns of someone.

On the news end I have a left wing, right wing, neocon, liberal, and a couple of extra wings as well. I must live in a quad plane society. My favorite is dan carlin's common sense.

I have a number of movies on my computer, usually I get them a few years after release for $3.00 at the dollar stores, but I have them, and I can watch those over the network on the iPad as I rest.

I also have a good number of audiobooks. They come from iTunes, audible and from cd's. These are also available across the network, well, the audible is not. They use irritating DRM. I can't listen to my own books over my own network. They have a work around, but why do I need it?
I have a number of open source audiobooks as well, reviewing Aristotle, Bacon and others is always good for the mind.

I have some TV shows that I have gotten into the computer as well. I go back and watch Babylon 5 on a regular basis. I have not gotten many of these, there really are not that many that I want to watch more than once.

Right now I have a radio episode of the Scarlet Pumpernickel playing in my ears. Beyond Midnight is up next.

The result is that I actually have more entertainment that I am interested in now than I did when we had TV's 720 plus hours a day.

I guess getting sick has made me realize just how good it is to live in a free society and be able to make my own choices rather than letting others choose for me.

Life is good.

-- Posted From My iPad

Tuesday talk

Life has thrown me a curveball here over the past few days. The warm, wet weather has exploded my allergies. A good deal of swelling is going on. It is causing my arthritis to be rather painful, and even typing is causing pain. One of the side effects of having no insurance and relying on good food is that while I am doing very well on average, when there is a flare up, it is a pain.

We got set 401 in and I am slowly getting the pre-orders ready for shipping tomorrow. I will also get it moved over to the regular item order page in the morning.

Working with Flint laminators and doing ink research we are building a way to be able to sell special orders of individual cards. We are having to layout our storage and numbering system in a way to make it reasonable. We will be able to sell the cards in batches of nine cards. Those nine cards can be different cards. We will be able to do that for $9.00, or $1.00 per card. That will allow people to order just the cards they want for a character.

Sue is still having trouble reading her Dragon Storm cards. What we are going to have to do is to strip out the backgrounds and and make the cards Black and White with a color art square. I still have a couple of days work to be able to make that work. The result is that Sue can read the cards.

This weekend we will be at Penguicon. I know the hotel has a number of "things" in the air that set off my allergies. With my current allergy attack, I will have to be very careful, and find ways to support Sue. It can be done.

I need to spend a day creating the newsletter in here somewhere. I think I should schedule that for tomorrow. I can do it after we get the shipping done in the morning.

Tonight we have a game, it will be with lower CP characters. This groups main characters all have a chance to get Boons, so they are taking an adventure off to account for the time used. Gives them a chance to build up the secondary characters.

It is interesting to watch how Second Edition characters build. We have a lot more "big" cards coming down the pipe, including the HP cards, so characters have fewer cards. This leaves them more vulnerable to Fatigue. To counter that characters are taking more small role-playing cards to create a buffer against fatigue. It is also making them, on average, more capable in hamlets, villages and when meeting merchant caravans. Players are damned sharp people, they quickly adapt to change. Their choices are also giving me, as GM, more variety in what I can create for them to encounter.

Tonight they will be spending some time traveling with a Trader Tribe of Das Karr. Their are about 40 of them. A dozen other humanoids are traveling with them for security. They travel between hamlets, villages and towns trading what they buy, buying what they can trade and selling entertainment.

Ok, enough for now, fingers hurt.



-- Posted From My iPad