Edit – The upgrade went swimmingly. Enjoy your day!

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Of course, we’re in the midst of a wicked recession (in case you ain’t heard), and it wasn’t just me, so there’s really no hard feelings. Fortunately for me, my wife owns her own company, and she’s offered to let me help her out, so I won’t be entirely useless. Still, I find myself with some excess free time.

One of the things that I said I’d do was to post more. Obviously, I’ve failed to do that. However, I’ve had a couple of ideas for games that I need to get written down, and, well, there’s not much better places to do that than the blog that I’ve set up for exactly that purpose.

In any case, the beginning of those posts should start on Monday. Hopefully.

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So, what’s been going on in the ol’ gaming world.

First off, while my friend and podcasting co-host, Randy, has been on a between-semester break, we’ve ramped up our gaming schedule from 2 weekly games to 3. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to cut back once school starts back up, so we’re going to have to decide which of our three games we’re putting on hiatus until the next semester break.

One thing that I’m really going to try and do is to recap our gaming sessions and give my thoughts on what worked and what didn’t. I’m also going to try to post some on any one-shots that I’ve played, or games that I haven’t played, but have read. That should give me enough source material to keep this blog going somewhat.

In any event, I’m going to try and do some recapping of the two Burning Wheel games that we’ve been playing later today, in addition to posting some thoughts about a zygote of a game idea that’s been rolling around in my head for a while now that I have yet to actually put down on paper.

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I’ve got a new job (sort of), and some new opportunities, and I need a place to talk about them that won’t interfere with the content over at This Modern Death. Also, I need to do some serious work on my game, since Randy challenged me to get a game to print before he did. Anyway.

I just joined up for the Dresden Files RPG Burning Alpha Playtest, and I must say, I’m really excited. It’s going to be a real learning experience. I’ve never playtested a game before, so not only is my group going to get to help make an awesome product, but I’ll get to learn first hand how to slog through and fix drafts of game mechanics.

So, yeah, consider this blog restarted. Feel free to beat me if I don’t update regularly.

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So, the news.

First off, Kristin decided to forgo her commencement ceremony from Chico State University in favor of going to Kubla Con. We have been convinced that we wouldn’t be able to make it this year, but it looks like we’re actually going. Had I been more on the ball, I would have registered earlier, but c’est la vie. Unfortunately, since I just registered the two of us today, I was too late to submit a Shadowrun event like I’d planned to. Perhaps next year. Or, I could always wind up running a game on the fly again. Perhaps I’ll come prepared, just in case.

Kristin also talked to our favorite folks over at Good Omens Games about doing some recording with us. This has prompted me to start looking at the Flip Video Ultra. I’ve been thinking that there is a glut of audio convention coverage in the world of gaming podcasts, so I figured that some con video footage would be appropriate. I have a feeling that I’ll be conning my fiancée into asking the questions, since nobody wants to see the fat guy on camera.

For those who are interested, I’ve been using Google Reader for my news feeds lately, and I’ve been actively sharing a great deal of articles, not a few of them from Pharyngula, the blog of biologist PZ Myers. I don’t think that I’ve ever really made much of an attempt to hide my opinions regarding the teaching of Intelligent Design Creationism in the classroom, but it hasn’t been an issue that’s come up a lot in discussions of RPG design. Suffice to say, if you read Dr. Myers blog, or see the articles I’ve been sharing, you’ll probably have a good idea of how I feel about the subject. I’d also like to encourage everyone to check out Expelled Exposed, a site that addresses the claims of Ben Stein’s anti-evolution film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

This brings up another thing of note – as of next semester, I’m going back to school. A lot of things have changed in my life lately, nearly all of them good, and that’s prompted me to start taking a look at where I’m going in life. With my fiancée graduating from college, I just can’t stomach the thought of living off her residuals after we’re married, so I figured that I should do something to pull my own weight. So, it looks like I have to start trying for a degree in earnest.

To be honest, the thought of going to school as a 30 year-old is a little frightening to me, but I think I’ll manage to survive. Given the comments I’ve posted above, it should be no wonder that I’m seriously considering making an attempt to enter a scientific field. My problem is that I’m far too interested in far too many subjects to make the choice easy. So, I’ll be waffling around with general education courses while I work full time until I manage to come to a decision on what I want to do with the rest of my life.

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