So I’m experimenting with crossword setting again. Aiming for weekly, and managing to be so for three in a row now here: www.mycrossword.co.uk/cryptic/2839

Why do they call it RPG when you are do the pee and gee up on the table dice?

"I PITY THE FOOL who measures out his life in coffee spoons. I ain't gonna wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled, fool." Oh look. It's Mr T's Eliot.

Party of One has shown me so many systems and ways to play with past and future Jeff, too many to pick a favourite, but this would be on the list if I had to. pca.st/episode/c15e...

the duality of man

In important math news: new shape just dropped (the noperthedron) www.quantamagazine.org/first-shape-...

i'm so tired i could sleep a horse

www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/help... thinking about this for some reason this week

Heist Funicular is my new Blades in the Dark character

It's about time Strange Days finally begins getting the retrospective love and respect it deserves. To me, it's the best pre-Matrix cyberpunk film other than Blade Runner and Robocop, and still better than most cyberpunk films made since. www.polygon.com/strange-days...

The list of books from this era that will be considered classics in 100 years would probably horrify you.

Sunday

In food history, we notice how super-refined foods--gelatin, vienna sausage, white bread--lose class and become horrifying once they become industrialized. Suddenly, fingermarks in bread dough demonstrate skill, not clumsiness. Post-chatGPT, I'm feeling this about writing. Smoothness feels gross.

I am professional and literary and yet this

We're up to ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY NINE participants in our upcoming kitbash game jam. You should join them! It costs you nothing and will probably lose me money in the long run. I'm not even 100% sure why I'm doing it. itch.io/jam/one-hund...

@jntod.bsky.social I was enjoying Jen Calleja’s Goblinhood, and was suddenly delighted by your getting a call out in there.

BEHOLD! My first ever choose-your-own-adventure game! "i will strangle a horse" - over seven and a half thousand words of absolute nonsense, as you help Martin Jenkins on his first day at The Farm. brainmage.itch.io/i-will-stran... Totally free to play! I mean, you can pay, but you can also not!

www.tumblr.com/apoemaday/79... I don’t think I can describe the little technical thrill I got from this one without spoiling it.

#REMtop30 18. Nightswimming The Jools Holland version is one of the best TV performances I've ever seen, goosebumps it's so good. And the way Michael looks at Mike, seems like a beautiful friendship youtu.be/KVT0S0j7F9Y?...

The Amphora of Great Intelligence (AGI) #webcomic #krita #miniFantasyTheater

When you're having a snore Over books of old lore Nevermoré When there's taps at your door Darkness there, nothing more Nevermoré Perched and sat Up above my door A bird from Saintly days of yore Nevermoré Dreaming of lost Lenor It's a grief metaphor Nevermooooré

d6 Magic Items for you to flesh out: 1. Alexander Graham’s Belt 2. Desk of Many Things 3. +1 Longshort 4. Bag of Olding 5. Portion of Speed 6. Cap of Waterbeating

I was in high school during the Satanic Panic, so too young for my last share, and I got the Red Box for my birthday. I was excited about the game, and I had friends who were also excited, and I persuaded my head of year that we should be allowed to use a maths room over lunch to play D&D

Were you 20 or older during the height of the Satanic Panic? I'm researching that period for a game *and* novel, and I'd like to interview you about your firsthand experiences if you'd like to share them! (1/2)

The treadmill screening of ‘THE LONG WALK’ took place, where every person had to walk on a treadmill faster than 3MPH for the whole movie. If they stopped, they were escorted out of the theater.

Perfect. No notes.

Just a friendly reminder that your desire to have a bookshelf with a rolling ladder is valid. Don’t allow anyone to disrespect you by telling you otherwise.

Writing a GM section is hard. So instead I wrote down every role I could imagine that a GM might play and instructed the reader to kind of figure it out themselves as they go

A joy, this game

Also related (or maybe the same): Suspense is not generated by the reader not knowing what happens next. It's generated by the reader CARING what happens next.

Advanced crocodile problems are when there are various levels of them. Also known as alligator tiers.

My brother found this on IG and it is pure, shining genius, the pinnacle of the genre 🤌🤌🤌

@hwatweekly.bsky.social hello both, I’m listening to you mentioning the AI tools that try to help with pronunciation, and remembering a video clip I saw where an AI voice repeatedly referred to the people who do crochet - you know, crocheters - as crotch eaters.

Book titles are too long! Enshorten them! - The Greatsby - Warn Peace - The Brosamazov - The Catcherye - Crunishment - M'dick

For a bettir future we need poetrye, creativitye, historical studye, love of language, dreames, dialogues, new storyes, & intellectual curiositye. We must fund & expand higher educacioun yn HEART: H umanityes E thiques A rtes R hetorique & the crafte of T eaching

So interesting. The Tale of Genji translated poems are online here for free. There are different versions of the English translation alongside the Japanese original. It really shows translations are an art, not a science. genjipoems.org/search/searc...

I have destroyed the database that was in the action freeze in which there were probably about 1,206 executives Forgive me they were deleted so sweet and so cold

Well that does suggest what the word would be.

I worked on Edwin Morgan's Poetry Archive recording, where I loved the one that's in my rss feed today - apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/7877113...

The Stygian Library and The Gardens of Ynn are two beautifully evocative, procedurally generated depth-crawl #TTRPG adventures by @cavegirl.bsky.social. Both are perfect toolkits for generating zero prep sessions or filling campaigns for any fantasy adventurers, no matter the system or sub-genre.

I don’t think enough of us talked about the footage of the Norwegian Orcas makin’ out yesterday. www.livescience.com/animals/orca...

in CLOSE READING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social and I wrote a 36 page three-part introduction: What Close Reading Is, What Close Reading Does, and What Close Reading Has Been 30 pages of it is now online at @princetonupress.bsky.social press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

This has made me forget how I draw them. I’m miming in the air and none of them feel right. Going to stop before I summon something.

what do you mean 'normal tools'?

IT HAS ARRIVED

I just went to a leaving do where the escapee described her Excel practice as “what would Andrew do?” and have never been prouder

also just quite funny and bleak to watch all the mainstream headline news on video games when every gamer I know (myself heavily included) has spent a lot of the past year being head over heels obsessed with Balatro, a cheap-as-chips looking game made by literally one (1) random bloke