The New PJs (1/4)

Five Songs is out! A little bit on 2016, including talking about the A Tribe Called Quest album out that year. Also, the usual bullshit. www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/f... As always, get off social media! It's poisoning your brain! Take control of your reading, use RSS or email!

RIP to John Blanche, the best to ever do it. Before Warhammer was even Warhammer he understood what it was: weird, gross, unsettling, maximalist.

This is great news, I loved the first season.

New Five Songs is up, in which I come to an obvious observation and talk about some 2015 albums. Please do check out the EP from Crackerbash in here, it's a serious banger: www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/f... And now, the usual: follow on RSS or by email. Social media is bad shit!

Latest Five Songs is out, featuring some 2015 records (including maybe two obvious ones if you know me), a euphonium, and a taxonomy of Superchunk records: www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/f...

This looks really neat, super easy back for me!

As I prepare to wing my way to a 6/10 risotto, it occurs to me that cooking shows have probably done damage by convincing people that some pretty forgiving stuff is hard. Gordon Ramsey isn't going to screech at you if this isn't perfect! It's really a pretty easy dish.

Latest Five Songs went out the door, wherein I realize that I'm also bad at writing show reports: www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/f... As always, RSS or email is the way to keep up, social media is bad.

Five Songs (Sunday edition) is posted, featuring some brief consideration of 2013: www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/f... As always, email and RSS is probably better than keeping track here, as social media is all bad.

New Five Songs is posted, in which 2012 is contemplated: www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/f... As always, RSS or email also works.

Five Songs for today! Some ruminations on 2011, some recent albums, five random songs. You know, the usual stuff. www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/f... Email should be going out soon, RSS feed is updated.

Sad news - the Game Cabinet was essential back in the day, a tremendous resource for the hobby.

Latest Five Songs is out: www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/f... A look at three old albums, three new ones, and then the usual five random songs. As always, you can follow here, via RSS, or though email.

Love to flip on the game literal seconds before my team serves up a gopher. Baseball is an endless gift.

Both of us will direct people to the other's mailing list, but I'm right and he's wrong.

Well, so much for once a week. I got antsy and did another post today. Here's another roundup of a half-dozen albums and five songs: www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/f... Hopefully the email is fixed, I guess I'll find out soon.

Woah, what's this? It's a new Five Songs post. I've switched to a weekly format, highlighting some albums that I've been listening to (both new and old), and then the usual five random songs. I've also an email list. Here's the first one: www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/f...

Five Random Songs has also been resurrected and rebuilt using a static site generator: www.fiverandomsongs.com/posts/2026/t... I'll start actually posting about music again soon.

My games blog was hacked tonight - sorry for the two spam articles that went out over email. I'm working on fixing it, it's turned off in the meantime.

Scraped myself on the microplane and made the exact noise the Dark Souls guy does when a skeleton ganks him.

Well, it happened again. Through the magic of separate listings under the band and label, I have purchased an album on Bandcamp that I already had. I thought, huh, I thought I had already purchased it, but no, Bandcamp said I had not. Alas. Should I do something different to avoid this? Shut up.

MUSIC NERDS: Very cool, new Angine de Poitrine record! ME: fuck yeah new Yambag.

Gulo Gulo is a fantastic game to play with your kids, and Jennifer working on it is delightful. Great to see this!

This time period is the time when I was least plugging in to music. There was at least one baby in my house during this time, for one. So while I don't know as much about this music, I'll learn about some fun stuff and it's a great time to read anyway.

I had to listen to it twice, but the Mariners feed of the Mariners/Yankees game tonight has a promo for upcoming tickets that says "then the Mariners are back for an 'Al' west showdown with the Astros", pronouncing it like the name Al, instead of A-L. Have to assume they're using a generated voice.

This shit is completely unacceptable, and you can just add it to the list of disqualifying stuff from Newsom.

Baseball is back (derogatory).

No budget? No problem! Free art from dead people for your games: www.skeletoncodemachine.com/p/public-dom... #ttrpg #boardgames #gamedesign #publicdomain #freeart #art

Fascinating information in this thread.

A delightful thing that I have backed into is just refusing Samsung's changes to their privacy notice. It seems to have disabled a bunch of their crap on this phone. They forlornly ask once a day, but no. I do not agree, Samsung. I will never agree.

I didn't have to go very far to find Einstürzende Neubauten on the list, so you know it's legit.

Oh my god. In On The Killtaker might be my favorite album, I cannot wait to listen to this.

The best part of subscribing to the Swanboy Patreon is that now I see the comic a day early, love it, get the comic the next day in my RSS feed, forget that I've already read it so I get fired up there's a new Swanboy, click through, and love it again. I get to leverage my own idiocy!

To The Teeth's FFO on this album are killing me: totheteeth.substack.com/p/to-the-tee... To The Teeth rules, by the way.

In the same way that you can order Girl Scouts cookies to be directly donated to charity, there should be a pledge level for the new Awaken Realms Labyrinth crowdfunding project where they just chuck your copy straight into the dump, saving everybody time and shipping costs.

People are gonna make games using LLMs, and they’re gonna be hollow. [5/6]

Got curious if people's copies of Fox in the Forest Deluxe have been posted here (I know of one pre-order which has arrived), and...uh, kinda forgot which site I was on.

Since other game designers are showing prototypes, here's an early prototype of Fox in the Forest. Just slips of paper that I printed out and slipped into sleeves. Earlier than this was just me writing on playing cards with a sharpie.

I hope AEG is ready to flip on their magical game design robot, because I will personally make sure every designer that I know sees this and realizes that AEG hates their guts and is actively trying to destroy game design as a discipline.

One of the truly delightful things about Bandcamp is that every now and again, when I buy an album on there, the band will send me a DM thanking me. It's my pleasure! Thanks for making great music!

New Action Cookbook Newsletter! Surprise! There's a new voice in your group chat this morning, and before you ask: no, you cannot turn it off. (Free post, but you should subscribe after reading it, IMO) www.actioncookbook.com/welcome-to-t...

Not only are they useless, as a view from nowhere tells me nothing, they're also really, really boring.

The Dice Tower funding campaign is a grotesque mess, and DT does not deserve any attention or funding. It's good that Sam is leaving, but it doesn't excuse all the other times DT has been bad. The hobby very much does not need them.

I know that it can be easy to think "they're not sending their best" but I think that's wrong. I think they really are. "Guy Who Backed Into Phrenology By Looking At Dogs" represents the top of their intellectual spectrum.

What stage of capitalism is "ads on fruit"?

I am not posting it through the Leder Games website, instead going to my personal network to look for candidates I know. We are looking for 1 possibly 2 graphic designers as I build our team for growth. This is not a remote position. Thanks! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

A classic "imbecile's spring" day today - crisp enough with dudes wandering around in shorts for my most dogbrained part to think "huh, I guess spring is basically here". The true sign of spring, of course, is telling myself a non-descript fifth outfielder "might really be something".

Discord wants to know how you feel about AI. Go tell them: discord.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

I wrote some thoughts on 2025 music. It's not a ranking, it's just some records that I loved this year in no particular order: fiverandomsongs.com/2025-year-in...