The Earth is healing.

Ran Masks for a full table at the TTTTRPG group this evening. Game holds up well.

The letter from Bill and Hillary Clinton to James Comer explaining their refusal to testify in his Epstein investigation is really remarkable, not like any letter of this genre I've seen. It's signed by them, not a lawyer, and the arguments are not legal ones. Reprinted from their X account:

Evro, the elven thief, lasted maybe two or three game sessions before I somehow became a GM for life.

It's actually that one. But if you want something different, it's this one.

"We've improved water," the C-suite exec says as he dumps a handful of mud into the pitcher. "Here, grab a straw."

The thing about the artists/indie game designers passing around the same $10 joke is that sometimes you need the $10, the next time someone else will and you’ll have $10 to give. In this way we uplift each other and get to keep making art.

It'e got to be either M*A*S*H or The Good Place. Newhart and The Shield are up there, but those are mainly because of the final scene in each. I'm also tempted to put Justice League Unlimited in contention, but that's probably landing just above The Shield and Newhart.

uh holy SHIT?

Me, in Maine: NOOOOOO! TAKE ME INSTEAD!

Wife has her classical music station on while driving and this banger suddenly comes on after a half hour of Bach, Mozart, and friends.

Starting the year off in a good way: I came across a mention of someone trying out one of my vs. GAMES (vs. MARS) in a #TTRPGWRAPPED thresd. I rarely see notes of my little games actually being played. It's nice to see those little booklets of potential fun being converted to actual fun.

Oh my God, this extensive and ongoing thread of insults about Rob Schneider from @kevinmkruse.bsky.social is the most savagely funny roasting of someone I've read since Goth Ms. Frizzle/@Spookperson's legendary series of Tweets about Roger Stone's fashion choices back on the Bird Place.

happy anniversary to the rightest call I have ever made

I woke up from a nap and remembered this cover from Daniel Horne. May your arrow fly true, my friends. Have a happy New Year.

We're all still doing wordle, right? My starting word is CANOE. It does me good. Found out that my co-worker's is OCEAN, which is the same letter combo!

The monochromatic color scheme of this layout that minds me of Mayfair's version of Chill, a book that is beautiful (to me).

I was in line at a deli near Wall Street. Wallace Shawn was in line behind me. He ordered the tuna.

Finally saw Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning and boy, do I have thoughts, but everyone else has probably made them half a year ago.

Howe er there have been several playtesting things my old group (and current one) have been on that went great. That was the only very odd one.

Addendum: after we submitted our playtest report (after actually playtesting), weren't invited back to the second round of playtesting and were left off the playtesting credits. Pretty sure one of the playreaders was named in the final product.

Remembering that time I playtested an RPG where the company didn't know how to do an NDA. By the terms of, I technically couldn't share the game docs with my players. And while I couldn't talk about the game, there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that prevented the players from talking about it.

Advice I now give to grad students and postdocs in the sciences: Don’t just try to meet and impress senior scientists. They’ll retire soon. Get to know your fellow students - make friends where possible, be colleagues at least. These are the people you’ll be sharing the field with for decades.

Dumbly, Tiny Tim shambles about, a thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance. Tiny Tim has no mouth. And Tiny Tim must scream.

Three Christmas songs I must hear each Christmas season. 1. Christmas Wrapping, The Waitresses www.youtube.com/watch?v=nud2...

And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, eventually became a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Dawn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth!

if they had just shown it on 60 Minutes nobody would have seen it

Two games I've always wanted to play!

Continuing our cross country trip and realizing we might be back home and the cool bookstore might still be open before closing for Christmas Eve + Day.

They say there are no heroes any more. I say there are.

Listening to a slightly racist audiobook on this x-country drive. Protagonist is the most competent gung-ho special forces operative saving the world pretty much by himself. Oddly, two different Star Trek references in this book, including one where some operative buddies appear in Klingon cosplay.

For the record, the law states that "No record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary." www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

Just hit Infinite Rank in Marvel Snap for the very first time. Thanks to the folx that suggested changes to my Cerebro 2 deck!

Love this stuff, man!

Tonight! I get to run Brindlewood Bay's "Jingle Bell Shock" at @owlbears-rest.bsky.social! There will be caroling! And MURDER! "Why is it that every time there's a gruesome murder in our little town, you four always are involved?" —Sheriff Dalrymple

I keep getting these ads for STARZ where they keep showing promos for Ballerina, their Spartacus TV show, and the Borderlands movie and quite honestly if the Borderlands movie is one of the top three things on your streaming service, you should just close up shop, man.

Omg omg omg

Closer...

Also up there is the second time I saw Aliens. I saw it in the theater the night before and knew I had to see it again. That first showing: we were all silent, on the edge of our seats. Perfect. The next night? The opposite of the previous. It was like I was a football game. They were so into it.

Second most memorable was a test screening of Strange Days. It's one of my favorite movies, but there this one scene that is absolutely horrific. A third of the audience got up and left the theater. (There were no changes to the film made based on the feedback.)

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. The wife and I loved the first Mortal Kombat movie, so it was a given that we'd be there opening weekend for the sequel. And so we were. But also at this Saturday matinee showing? Every 12 year old in the tri-county area.

It's so fucked up to have been a kid during the D&D is the devil freakout and the Tipper Gore dirty lyrics freakout and live to see the teen suicide machine get such a pass.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Goodbye, American tourism industry!

I love that! The duffel bag full of shotguns and sex toys was inspired by an old news story about a Dallas Cowboys player who was reportedly found in possession of such a bag during an arrest for some drug-induced nonsense. It was a throwaway line in the article, but DUDE. That stuck with me.

Hey, remember back when we were all making Fiasco playsets? Good times, man. Good times.

"I asked chatgpt--" Shut the fuck up. I asked the Lady of the Lake, and she said you are unworthy of the sword Excalibur. You will never be king.