I played a few friends in a game of Settlers of Catan last night. I won the game, which was the second one I’ve ever played. I got lucky and acquired points early. That made me a target but also psyched out the other players. Isn’t it interesting how sometimes part of a game is playing the players?

I met with Jason to help with the newly formed Atomic Squash Productions. We are putting together next year’s Spycraft LARP for Die Con 6. I’ll post more details in the future.

Let me share how people find from my humble home on the Internet. The following is a list of search terms resulting in a link to gazpacho.net. Uhm, woman dragon?

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:: TIONOL

It is old news now, but I went to the St Louis Brewery Taproom to check out an Irish jam session called Tionol.

Click on an image for a larger version

A Dozen Musicians playing at Tionol

Jam Session Continued

:: EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGNS 2005

In older news I went to the Egyptian Campaigns 2005 with a buddy. It is a gaming convention run by the students at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. It was disorganized and noisy, but we made our own fun.

The year 2004 was filled with many overhyped products. I decided to give some exposure to a few items I feel did not receive the praise they deserve.

Good news! My Windows installation is mostly working. Look for the article on quiet PCs soon.

Another year, another Archon. Archon is a science fiction convention held yearly in Collinsville. I have been attending it off and on for the last few years. This year was the first time I actually got a hotel room and participated in the night-time activities. Oh yes, the party gets going when the sun goes down.

Archon took place in the Collinsville Gateway Convention Center. They also took over of the nearby hotel. That is where all of the fun is centered. They had Japanese anime showing in the video rooms and a Klingon dance room complete with a bartender serving up frosty beverages with names like: Romulan Ale and Spock’s Blood.

I signed up for live-action role playing (LARP), another first for me. This year’s LARP was live-action vampire! I was randomly assigned the role of a human, a Teutonic Knight diverted from the Holy Crusades to investigate the strange things happening to a town in Transylvania. It was fun to run through the hotel asking fellow LARPers to “touch my holy symbol”. No, lower! Ha ha!

This year featured an addition to the schedule: Robot Wars. I was expecting so much more than what I saw: two radio-controlled cars that appeared to have been bought from Radio Shack. One of them, the apparent victor, still even had its stuffed purple Barney stapled onto the roof. Puh-lease.

I attended a lecture given by Larry Elmore, the Artist Guest of Honor. He produced most of the TSR Dragonlance covers among a number of other book covers. He was down-to-earth and entertaining. I was drawn into his discussion of being an art student in college during the 60s. He also discussed how he overcame a deep depression after a serious illness.

My artist friend there with me worships Elmore. It was cool to see Elmore take time to talk with him when he got his book signed. Later he bought several hundred dollars worth of Elmore prints, which Elmore graciously signed.

Check out next year’s Archon. I had a blast this year. The rumor is some Hollywood people will be Guests of Honor (GoH). That means you probably can add +1 to the average convention attendee’s Charisma value. If you know what I mean.