another day volunteering at the artificial mouth research lab. everyone keeps asking me

What's wild here is that, at least in the US, there are a TON of regulatory hoops one must clear before publishing any product with magnets to an audience under 14. Did this publisher do any of those? "Yes" would be surprising and depressing, "no" would just be depressing.

yeah so prior to this morning I had no idea how thorough Bardot was in saying awful things about various minority groups. like, it was impressive in its breadth

Hello and welcome new followers!! If you aren’t aware, Bluesky has a feature called “starter packs” that help jumpstart your account by following some of the best posters on a particular topic, curated by the creator of the pack! Here is one I created in the past, with a lot of great people in it!

It was a bit of a bumpy start, but after an intense couple of weeks, Mojo and Freddie seem to have become fast friends

!!! Top-tier escape room experience. Exciting!

I've kind of suspected this for a while. Still early yet, but this is a fascinating direction.

Donald Trump just bombed a hospital on Christmas. But a cashier at Target said "Happy Holidays" to me when I was doing a return this morning. I have never felt more politically homeless.

Bullshit Newborn Not Even Christ https://theonion.com/bullshit-newborn-not-even-christ/

Happy to have gotten one of my favorite board games, De Vulgari Eloquentia, to the table for game day last night.

Rolled credits on Rise of the Golden Idol, the follow-up to the previous Curse game. Graphics were improved greatly. They're still a bit ugly, but now in a charming way; I think the intention of the art direction comes through a bit better.

If the Romans had simply deported woke baby Jesus to South Sudan, a lot of trouble could have been avoided

This is a hashtag that *delivers*

I don’t watch much TV (ironic given my ludography), but you don’t need to know Pluribus to catch Tiffany’s drift. She’s on point as always.

“wet dream” implies the existence of—no. No. I’m not doing this hack shit. One thing existing does not mean it also has an extant opposite or inversion. No one thinks this and it’s usually just a way to write a dumb pun or intrusive phrasethought. I’m too good for this. Dry nightmare

Is there a Bracket City clone out there? I would love to play it without benefiting the goons at The Atlantic.

Mojo figured out how to open one of our kitchen cabinets. He is SO back.

A roleplaying game where you have to close every one of your 200 open browser tabs one by one, gradually giving up parts of yourself until you are reborn as an egg.

I'm convinced that the current obsession of the US government with annexing Greenland comes from people who have learned about global politics playing Risk (the board game). Just look at the map. (Image from Wikimedia commons) commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ri...

Now one year into NYC congestion pricing: * Vehicle traffic: -11% * Foot traffic: +3.4% * Storefront vacancy: -0.9% * Pollution: -22% * Revenue for mass transit: $548M

If anything could use a Streisand effect, it's this

There was a very funny BBC sci-if radio play a couple of decades ago called "Nebulous," by Mark Gattis. Leaned a bit hard on recurring episodic catchphrases at times, but was still genuinely enjoyable.

Games played this weekend… • The Roottrees are Dead: One of the best puzzle/detective games I've played. Great puzzles, great story, great hint system.

Phew, Mojo is feeling better, so no vet visit required, hooray! Now to get my arm to heal

Update: no fracture, but I might need to see an orthopedist this week if the pain doesn’t go away. Still to do: eat something, take Mojo to vet

Today I needed to take Mojo to the vet, and he was hiding under our sofa. It's a heavy sofa, heavier than I should have realized. When I lifted its side, I felt two pops in my right arm, and then I wasn't holding it anymore. (Thankfully, no Mojos were hurt in this process.)

This whole thread but this in particular

“And that makes it 4-3 USA. They’ll win the gold medal over the Soviet Union.” — 2025 Al Michaels calling the Miracle on Ice

Had a @hollandspiele.bsky.social game night yesterday. Striking Flint by @johndubois.bsky.social was really good, even though our strike got busted. Ten Dollar Words is going to become one of my favorite @amabel.bsky.social games, I can feel it.

not rting an ableist wall street journal piece on disabled folks on airplanes, but abled people truly do not understand what a wheelchair is for and are constantly scrutinizing disabled people as we try and live our lives for proof we're somehow "faking"

Just finished reading/listening to an excellent novel, There Is No Antimemetic Division. Strong start, strong end, and everything in between is strong. Really appreciate that listening to it is its own experience. You'll know what I mean if you read/listen to it.

Over on Mastodon, I’ve gotten a ton of recommendations for LibreWolf. It’s another Firefox fork, but its main focus is privacy. Give it a look! librewolf.net

If you need a timeline cleanse, please enjoy Marcia and Brutus doing a rare DOUBLE BLEP

We adopted a new ferret today. Meet Freddie!

I have switched browsers from Firefox to Waterfox, which is a privacy-focused independent fork that has no current plans to pivot to GenAI. So far, I've found functionality almost identical. Give it a try if you want to nope out of forced corporate GenAI adoption. www.waterfox.net

Over in England, once the corrupt conservative Tory party lost power after about 14 miserable years, the theoretically-left-wing Labour Party took over.

If YOU are making something and it's not bringing you joy, I - a random dude on the internet - hereby give you permission to quit it without shame or guilt. I cheer you, YOU DID A THING. Now you're freeing yourself up TO GO DO ANOTHER THING. It can be a private, personal, or anything you want.

It's called planned obsolescence! COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/life-9 PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm... STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com

If any publisher friends I know have a license or concept they'd like a game for, I have the availability to work on something. I have a proven track record in developing around licenses (Disney Villainous, Godzilla: Tokyo Clash, Marvel Battleworld, Funkoverse, Star War Rivals, etc.)

great blog post including some classic examples of games handling violence well.

I will be calling robot fights today for this weekend's GSCRL event! Plants and ants today. I won't be around for tomorrow - I have plans to wait for Godot. www.youtube.com/live/oz9mdTzD...

For 1.5 decades, Labyrinth has been a vital anchor of the Washington DC / DMV tabletop scene. It also happens to be a woman-owned small business -- and will continue to be! Thank you for all you've done for us gamers, Kathleen, and good luck, Melissa!

'Let it Snow' with all the positive lines removed

Prepare for trouble #critterposting

(TBC, I love Chip Theory and marketing is hard and breaking through is hard and coming up with a wild swing-for-the-fences copy block takes effort and a certain amount of boldness that I can appreciate - even if I can't parse it.)

This is what publishing board games in the last 10 years does to a person's brain

Howdy all you new peeps! If you're curious about Conviction, you can find it here: www.lunarpunk.games/conviction You should also follow @lunarpunk.games , since that's my latest vessel for talking shop on games, breaking down their hierarchies, and publishing weird indie stuff.

I have seen this SO MANY TIMES, in varying forms. People instinctively say their group is for "all kinds of games," when it's not. Like the wargame group that assured me they played Euros too, and I showed up, and they only wanted to play wargames instead of Euros.

those of you who put antlers on your car…i can still tell it’s a car

I linked to an NHRL Instagram post a couple of weeks ago. Asked our content team about the “paintball” reference, and they had no idea where it came from. Now we know!