http://www.randomwebsite.com/ - used to generate the four links below
http://www.oneeyedcleric.com/ - one of those fakeout search-results based jobbies, but kinda cool nonetheless
http://www.evado.net/ - those crazy kids and their 'hacking the matrix'!
http://www.streetstudio.com/ - An interesting photography project.
http://www.marrowmonkey.com/menu.html - "interactive art works"
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Winter War Preview: Sunday Morning
For those of you just tuning in, I've been spending some time giving my chatty opinions about the upcoming Winter War gaming convention. In its 34th year, Winter War is Illinois' oldest local boardgame, miniatures, and roleplaying convention. About 300 souls gather for a long weekend of dice-slinging and general fun. This year Winter War will be from Friday, February 9th to Sunday, February 11th at the Hawthorn Suites in Champaign, IL. If you like cons that focus on games and gamers, not publishers and celebrities, then Winter War might be your kind of thing.
Today I'll be talking about the events on the pre-registration schedule for the Sunday morning of the con. For earlier events, check out my previews of Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening. And don't miss this update to the Friday and Saturday events.
Sunday, February 11th, 9am
Sometimes at cons (including Winter War) the Sunday morning events can be a little underwhelming. Alot of people game or debauche heavily the night before. But there are several good events on the schedule for Sunday morning run by straight shooters who will show up on time and run a fabulous game despite any festive activities the previous evening. As mentioned in every previous installment, the Advanced Squad Leader and Living Greyhawk people are expected to still be doing their respective things. Personally I can't play the same game for 2 and a half days straight, but different strokes for different folks.
The boardgame area features three guys running five games. Clark Barthel offers newbies a chance to try out Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix, a racing game that is totally new to me. Tom Hendricks (I really need to find out if this is the same Tom Hendricks I used to game with. That guy is cool.) offers another session of the chesslike game Feudal and also a board full of Shogun. My brother-in-law Jim will be running both Mississippi Queen and Puerto Rico. Both these games are good, clean fun and Jim is a great guy to have running a game. And I'm not just saying that because he's my wife's brother. Jim's great. Both of Jim's games are listed as 'newcomers welcome' but if you're new to both of them I suggest going with Mississippi Queen. While Jim can handle teaching Puerto Rico to newbies, that game takes longer to really grasp. Pick Mississippi Queen if you're going to the event to play a game, but go with Puerto Rico if you're there to learn a game. If you already know how to play Puerto Rico, then that's my pick for the Sunday morning boardgames. Great game, excellent game moderator.
Over in the miniatures depaartment we have six games on tap. '40K At Its Finest' is billed as a game where you show up, pick an army, and smash it against an opponent. This no-frills straight-to-the-point action is provided by Mr. Jake Welch. (I first read that name as Jack Welch, the ex-CEO of General Electric. I bet he'd play the Imperial Guard.) If you like your elves without lasers, then look to Russ Hartley's 25mm Victors of the Realms session, which promises hot human-on-demihuman action. Ron and Shawn Ralston offer a second session of Starmada Compendium, once again in a slot that makes the game unavailable to me. SC is one of those games I enjoy so much I bought an extra copy of the rules so that multiple people could reference stuff during play. Not that Starmada even requires that much page-flipping. The mechanics are simple and rock solid, delivering fun space-operatic capital ship shoot-em-ups.
Ken Vreeman, subject of much praise in previous installments in this series, will be offering an Advanced Civilization game. Advanced Civ is a much-beloved boardgame, but this event is slotted in the miniatures area. I presume this is because Mr. Vreeman will be using one of his large, elaborate custom boards with 25mm figures replacing the counters. If you like the idea of playing out some alternate history, consider 'The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming', a 6mm micro armor look at a speculative Russian invasion of West Germany in 1948. The rules for this scenario are Cold War Commander and the referees are Steve Massey and Terrance Haas.
In my opinion the most intriguing event in the miniatures area would be Chris Fawcett's French Foreign Legion event, 'The Last Remake of Beau Geste'. An emphasis on player interaction and secret agendas makes this event look like one of thos proto-RPG things that usually make for a great con game. If I wasn't running a game Sunday morning I'd probably be at the Starmada game, but don't let my personal obsession with exploding starcruisers keep you away from 'The Last Remake'.
Speaking of me running a game, as I type this I have the entire RPG room to myself Sunday morning. The RPGA folks will still be doing the voodoo that they do, but they usually get their own room. My event is entitled 'The Revenge of Obiwan Shinobi' and will be run using something resembling S. John Ross' faux retro sci-fi/fantasy freak-out, Encounter Critical. I ran EC last year and we all had a frickin' blast. If you like wild gonzo games with things like elf ninjas and robots that worship Satan, come and play Encounter Critical with me. This year Obiwan Shinobi, the newly-rebuilt robodroid warlock IG-666-A, and a new crew of adventurers will attempt to infiltrate the Crawling Chaoskeep of Darth Viraxis!
Okay, folks, only one more preview to go. Next time I'll go over the events scheduled for Sunday afternoon, the last session of Winter War.
Today I'll be talking about the events on the pre-registration schedule for the Sunday morning of the con. For earlier events, check out my previews of Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening. And don't miss this update to the Friday and Saturday events.
Sunday, February 11th, 9am
Sometimes at cons (including Winter War) the Sunday morning events can be a little underwhelming. Alot of people game or debauche heavily the night before. But there are several good events on the schedule for Sunday morning run by straight shooters who will show up on time and run a fabulous game despite any festive activities the previous evening. As mentioned in every previous installment, the Advanced Squad Leader and Living Greyhawk people are expected to still be doing their respective things. Personally I can't play the same game for 2 and a half days straight, but different strokes for different folks.
The boardgame area features three guys running five games. Clark Barthel offers newbies a chance to try out Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix, a racing game that is totally new to me. Tom Hendricks (I really need to find out if this is the same Tom Hendricks I used to game with. That guy is cool.) offers another session of the chesslike game Feudal and also a board full of Shogun. My brother-in-law Jim will be running both Mississippi Queen and Puerto Rico. Both these games are good, clean fun and Jim is a great guy to have running a game. And I'm not just saying that because he's my wife's brother. Jim's great. Both of Jim's games are listed as 'newcomers welcome' but if you're new to both of them I suggest going with Mississippi Queen. While Jim can handle teaching Puerto Rico to newbies, that game takes longer to really grasp. Pick Mississippi Queen if you're going to the event to play a game, but go with Puerto Rico if you're there to learn a game. If you already know how to play Puerto Rico, then that's my pick for the Sunday morning boardgames. Great game, excellent game moderator.
Over in the miniatures depaartment we have six games on tap. '40K At Its Finest' is billed as a game where you show up, pick an army, and smash it against an opponent. This no-frills straight-to-the-point action is provided by Mr. Jake Welch. (I first read that name as Jack Welch, the ex-CEO of General Electric. I bet he'd play the Imperial Guard.) If you like your elves without lasers, then look to Russ Hartley's 25mm Victors of the Realms session, which promises hot human-on-demihuman action. Ron and Shawn Ralston offer a second session of Starmada Compendium, once again in a slot that makes the game unavailable to me. SC is one of those games I enjoy so much I bought an extra copy of the rules so that multiple people could reference stuff during play. Not that Starmada even requires that much page-flipping. The mechanics are simple and rock solid, delivering fun space-operatic capital ship shoot-em-ups.
Ken Vreeman, subject of much praise in previous installments in this series, will be offering an Advanced Civilization game. Advanced Civ is a much-beloved boardgame, but this event is slotted in the miniatures area. I presume this is because Mr. Vreeman will be using one of his large, elaborate custom boards with 25mm figures replacing the counters. If you like the idea of playing out some alternate history, consider 'The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming', a 6mm micro armor look at a speculative Russian invasion of West Germany in 1948. The rules for this scenario are Cold War Commander and the referees are Steve Massey and Terrance Haas.
In my opinion the most intriguing event in the miniatures area would be Chris Fawcett's French Foreign Legion event, 'The Last Remake of Beau Geste'. An emphasis on player interaction and secret agendas makes this event look like one of thos proto-RPG things that usually make for a great con game. If I wasn't running a game Sunday morning I'd probably be at the Starmada game, but don't let my personal obsession with exploding starcruisers keep you away from 'The Last Remake'.
Speaking of me running a game, as I type this I have the entire RPG room to myself Sunday morning. The RPGA folks will still be doing the voodoo that they do, but they usually get their own room. My event is entitled 'The Revenge of Obiwan Shinobi' and will be run using something resembling S. John Ross' faux retro sci-fi/fantasy freak-out, Encounter Critical. I ran EC last year and we all had a frickin' blast. If you like wild gonzo games with things like elf ninjas and robots that worship Satan, come and play Encounter Critical with me. This year Obiwan Shinobi, the newly-rebuilt robodroid warlock IG-666-A, and a new crew of adventurers will attempt to infiltrate the Crawling Chaoskeep of Darth Viraxis!
Okay, folks, only one more preview to go. Next time I'll go over the events scheduled for Sunday afternoon, the last session of Winter War.
morning TV
Until I saw this video I had never heard of the group TV on the Radio. But I totally dig their sound on this track and the video is pretty fun.
I also caught some Star Trek this morning, the episode where the Kelvins hijack the Enterprise to Andromeda. Scotty gets himself and an alien drunk by clearing out his liquor collection. "What's that?" "It's green." And Kirk gets his mojo on with that old "Tell me more about this thing called kissing, Earthman" chestnut. Classic stuff.
newsflash
Comics guy Kevin Church is reporting that Stephen Colbert's Tek Jansen is going to be made into a comic book! You got that right, the Nobel Peace Prize winning epic sci-fi/fantasy/adventure/espionage/romance novel series that doesn't really exist is finally making the translation to graphic novel format. Hi-yah!This is either going to be one of the best or worst comics ever made. And it will be *awesome*!
weird dream
I was in this Big Brother style gameshow where a group of strangers lived together for weeks at a time. During the course of the week you scored points by playing stupid reality gameshow challenges. Then at the end of each week you spent those points buying yourself necessities and luxuries for the following week. Your points purchase things like use of the shower, better food, etc.
The catch was that you spent your points during a lightning round where you had to juggle a bunch of numbers fast. I froze up during the lightning round and failed to spend all my points. Over the previous week I had earned enough points for a comfy week, but I failed to purchase laundry priviledges or changes of clothes. Nor did I get any food. The result was I doomed to wearing the same set of filthy clothes all week. And for sustenance I would receive a glass of milk three times a day.
The idea of the show was to put people in situations like that to drive them to quit the game. No one was voted off, the game simply continued until only one person could stand to live under these annoying conditions.
The catch was that you spent your points during a lightning round where you had to juggle a bunch of numbers fast. I froze up during the lightning round and failed to spend all my points. Over the previous week I had earned enough points for a comfy week, but I failed to purchase laundry priviledges or changes of clothes. Nor did I get any food. The result was I doomed to wearing the same set of filthy clothes all week. And for sustenance I would receive a glass of milk three times a day.
The idea of the show was to put people in situations like that to drive them to quit the game. No one was voted off, the game simply continued until only one person could stand to live under these annoying conditions.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Winter War Preview: Saturday Evening
Winter War is the oldest annual gaming convention in Illinois. This year is the 34th installment in the series. Come join us in Champaign from February 9th to 11th for a weekend devoted to gaming.
In today's Winter War preview I'll be looking at the events in the Saturday night section of the pre-registration schedule. If you haven't checked them out already, here are links to the Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon events. And don't miss the update to those earlier installments.
Saturday, February 10th, 8pm
Several events continue into Saturday night from earlier in the convention, such as the all-con Advanced Squad Leader tournament, the awesome Blind Sniper throwdown, and action in the dedicated Living Greyhawk room. The Warmachine and BattleTech Total Warfare events from Saturday afternoon will continue into the night as well.
The boardgames area is bursting with cool stuff to play on Saturday night. Don Botkin has reserved room for two full tables of Puerto Rico, one of my alltime favorite German games. El Nyberg offers a 16 player Settlers of Catan tournament. He notes "Using resource start plus Soldiers' Perogative rule." I've played Settlers more times than I can remember and I have no idea what that means. Super-nice guy Al Conrad offers a particularly intense session of Roborally specifically designed for veterans of that game. Racing game afficionados Leland Black and Charlie Priest present Daytona 500. And Glenn Overby offers even more Memoir '44 and BattleLore. That last one, BattleLore, is generating a lot of internet buzz. I plan on checking out that table to see what the big deal is. That's a lot of good stuff in the boardgame section, but I'll give my top recommendation to Al Conrad's Roborally event, with the notation that you need to have played that game at least once before showing up.
Over in the miniatures area you get your choice between beating up Nazis, zombies, or ninjas. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call a win-win-win scenario. Travis McLin supplies the anti-Nazi action with his 15mm Flames of War game. Steve Massey and Bob Legro offer All Things Zombie, the 28mm game of post-zombie apocalypse skirmishification. And Ken Vreeman, subject of much gushing in earlier installments, once again will be running 'Shogun-Maker' his big Kingmaker/Shogun/house rules hybrid freak-out. Making a recommendation here is a tough call. I want to once again tell you to sign up for Ken Vreeman's game, but if you want something historical the real pick is Flames of War. And don't forget those zombies.
Besides all the Living Greyhawk events, the Saturday night schedule includes 3 role-playing games. 'Terror From the High Seas' promises to be a historical Call of Cthulhu event by GM John Harting. Important Tip: Evening Call of Cthulhu events almost always fill in pre-reg! If you want to play this game, go sign up for it ASAP. I think this particular event is a repeat or sequel to a similar game last year. Players from that previous game had a glowing report. If horror is your bag but the CoC game fills you might want to consider Brad Trumpinski's GURPS Space/Horror adventure. The event is called "In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream." Man that sounds familiar. Where have I heard it before? Finally, Dave Hoover is on the schedule to run Iron Gauntlets. Based upon recent events I don't expect that item to remain on the list. Look for Mr. Hoover to run another system in this slot. And look for that game to be awesome. Seriously, you could do a lot worse than filling out your pre-reg sheet with "Whatever game Dave runs".
Tomorrow I'll look at the game running in the Sunday morning slot of the con. Like many cons that's usually the hangover session, but I see a lot of cool stuff on the schedule. Also, this will give me a chance to talk more about my favorite subject: me! ;)
In today's Winter War preview I'll be looking at the events in the Saturday night section of the pre-registration schedule. If you haven't checked them out already, here are links to the Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon events. And don't miss the update to those earlier installments.
Saturday, February 10th, 8pm
Several events continue into Saturday night from earlier in the convention, such as the all-con Advanced Squad Leader tournament, the awesome Blind Sniper throwdown, and action in the dedicated Living Greyhawk room. The Warmachine and BattleTech Total Warfare events from Saturday afternoon will continue into the night as well.
The boardgames area is bursting with cool stuff to play on Saturday night. Don Botkin has reserved room for two full tables of Puerto Rico, one of my alltime favorite German games. El Nyberg offers a 16 player Settlers of Catan tournament. He notes "Using resource start plus Soldiers' Perogative rule." I've played Settlers more times than I can remember and I have no idea what that means. Super-nice guy Al Conrad offers a particularly intense session of Roborally specifically designed for veterans of that game. Racing game afficionados Leland Black and Charlie Priest present Daytona 500. And Glenn Overby offers even more Memoir '44 and BattleLore. That last one, BattleLore, is generating a lot of internet buzz. I plan on checking out that table to see what the big deal is. That's a lot of good stuff in the boardgame section, but I'll give my top recommendation to Al Conrad's Roborally event, with the notation that you need to have played that game at least once before showing up.
Over in the miniatures area you get your choice between beating up Nazis, zombies, or ninjas. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I call a win-win-win scenario. Travis McLin supplies the anti-Nazi action with his 15mm Flames of War game. Steve Massey and Bob Legro offer All Things Zombie, the 28mm game of post-zombie apocalypse skirmishification. And Ken Vreeman, subject of much gushing in earlier installments, once again will be running 'Shogun-Maker' his big Kingmaker/Shogun/house rules hybrid freak-out. Making a recommendation here is a tough call. I want to once again tell you to sign up for Ken Vreeman's game, but if you want something historical the real pick is Flames of War. And don't forget those zombies.
Besides all the Living Greyhawk events, the Saturday night schedule includes 3 role-playing games. 'Terror From the High Seas' promises to be a historical Call of Cthulhu event by GM John Harting. Important Tip: Evening Call of Cthulhu events almost always fill in pre-reg! If you want to play this game, go sign up for it ASAP. I think this particular event is a repeat or sequel to a similar game last year. Players from that previous game had a glowing report. If horror is your bag but the CoC game fills you might want to consider Brad Trumpinski's GURPS Space/Horror adventure. The event is called "In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream." Man that sounds familiar. Where have I heard it before? Finally, Dave Hoover is on the schedule to run Iron Gauntlets. Based upon recent events I don't expect that item to remain on the list. Look for Mr. Hoover to run another system in this slot. And look for that game to be awesome. Seriously, you could do a lot worse than filling out your pre-reg sheet with "Whatever game Dave runs".
Tomorrow I'll look at the game running in the Sunday morning slot of the con. Like many cons that's usually the hangover session, but I see a lot of cool stuff on the schedule. Also, this will give me a chance to talk more about my favorite subject: me! ;)
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