We got the furniture delivered and I am quite happy with it. The house is really starting to look like a home now.  My wife does a great job with all the little things that make a place look good.

I am working on making the Audio Commentary Podcasts better.  Right now they are all broke, but I am working on it so they will be back soon.  I discovered an issue with them when I did the little player for the Behind the Spells product for Tricky Owlbear.

I did go to the gun show, and took my in-laws with me.  Believe it or not it was all “product research” for a new business venture my mother-in-law is contemplating.  I have never gone in and out of that show in such a short period of time!  I didn’t even buy anything.

The Verizon Fios guys will be at my house tomorrow.  Looking forward to that.  Will be canceling Comcast five minuites after they finish the install.

Headed home right after work so I can…get back to work!  Only it will be on stuff for Skortched Urf’ Studios and the house.

They did up a podcast to go with their “Behind the Spells Compendium” collection.

 

 Behind the Spells Compendium Commentary: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

They are delivering our living room and dining room furniture tomorrow afternoon.  That means tonight and tomorrow morning will be making the main room ready for the delivery.  We need to clean some stuff out of there, steam clean the carpet and put some trim up.

Somewhere in there I will also make the time to get a PDF out.  Hopefully tonight.

Last night I clipped out and put together a few of the 40K miniatures from the new box set.  Very cool looking minis.  I tried to pick up the latest Warmachine release (Legends) but my FLGS was sold out, so it will have to wait.

I just realized the huge gun show is this weekend.  It snuck up on me.  I will try to see if I can get by but I am not sure.  Of course I don’t have any spare money to blow so I would just be window shopping.

Next week is shaping up to be a busy one.  Tuesday the Fios guys will be installing our new fibre optic network.  All week at work we will be having a government inspection, and Saturday one of my long-lost best friends is coming to town for a conference.  We’ll pick him up Saturday morning at the airport and then spend the day getting our game-geek on.  Not sure what we are gonna play, but Boot Hill 3rd edition and Paranoia are both great “one-off” games.  Boot Hill 3rd edition is one of my all-time favorite games; the rules are simple and combat is deadly.  If you find a copy in the bargain bin, used book store or on ebay; do yourself a favor and pick it up.

I just saw on the ENWorld forums that the GSL revision is still being worked on.  It looks like we are at least a month away from seeing the new GSL.  Of course all this is still casting its “chill” on the PDF market.  I think that when the new license comes out it will still suck, but not as bad as the monster they tried to push on us before.  But once the cat is out fo the bag it will allow those publishers who are gonna go with it to do so, and the rest of the market to “get back to work” without all this uncertainty about how to proceed.  I personally would love to put out 4E stuff and convert some of our current products as well; but I am not one for submitting to the insane restrictions of the GSL 1.0.

I wrote this email on September 14th, 2001…

Dear America,

Like all of you I was shocked, hurt and angry at the attack on my
country and the freedom it stands for last Tuesday. I have been glued
to the news since then, as I am sure most of the country has been also.
I have received all manor of e-mail regarding the tragedy; from calls
for prayer, pictures of the wreckage, direction to display the flag of
the United States and a yearning for justice, or, barring that, revenge.

I have read first hand reports from people who were in the WTC Tuesday
morning. I have heard people on the radio and TV express their views as
well. Though I was not at the Pentagon or in NY on Tuesday; I had dear
friends in the Pentagon, extended family in New York City and a child in
school when these events took place. I feel moved to share a few
thoughts.

This attack was not against our country in a military sense. Four
airplanes, stolen from American companies, against the might of United
States pose little military threat. (Despite the large numbers of dead
and wounded.) This attack was against freedom. America stands for
freedom on the world stage. We let freedom ring from our shores like no
other country. We worship it. We fight for it. We cherish it. It
defines America. That is why we were attacked. This attack is meant to
force America to shun freedom, restrict rights, and give power to those
who would covet it. I am pleased to hear that our leaders understand
this and have vowed not to give in and change our way of life.

I hear our leaders use the word ‘war’ when speaking of this attack.
This is as it should be. (There is even legal precedent for this IIRC
as George Washington declared a state of war against pirates ravaging
shipping in Colonial America; we declared war on a people without a
country.) We are at war with terrorists, nations that shelter them and,
more importantly, ANY nation, creed or belief that would restrict
individual freedom. It is no longer a war of ideology, it is now a war
of weapons and of will.

We must understand that wars cost lives,
American and ally; enemy, guilty and innocent. This should not blunt
our resolve or our actions. When this war is won, and terrorist
organizations are left leaderless, ravaged and defeated the world will
be a safer place. This campaign should not be one designed to only
eradicate a handful of terrorist leaders. We must work to free the
people under their ideological boot; until we do this there will always
be more zealous men willing to give their lives for an evil cause.

That is not to say that the handful of men responsible for this attack
should not be punished. They will be. Harshly. And in the process we
will find out which countries should be punished with them. Furthermore,
countries that support terrorism do not deserve the respect of our world
community. Their regimes are little more than fiefdoms built upon the
backs of oppressed peasants, led by wicked dictators. We may never
change every country in the world into bastions of freedom, but a small
step in the right direction is better than a descent into servitude.

Which brings me to my next point. Many speak of revenge, justice and
using our military to extract it. This is what our military is for; and
it will be employed in that capacity. What we must NOT do is act in
anger, hatred or haste. Force of arms is a choice. Violence is a
choice. War should not be waged in anger; it should be waged with
resolve. The professionalism of our armed forces is legendary, and they
will successfully acquit themselves in this mission.

Though it may be far too soon to suggest; I also think we should
re-build the twin towers. They were powerful symbols of freedom and
America, as is the whole city of New York. If the New York skyline must
be changed, let it be re-modeled with even larger towers of stone and
glass to show the world that we as a nation are even stronger than when
those buildings were first built. America and New York deserve such a
distinction and though it might take a decade or more to complete;
America and its corporate citizens can erect a monument to freedom and
her cherished dead on an unprecedented scale.

What we as a people must not do is give in to fear. Though the tree of
Liberty has been watered with the blood of Patriots, and will shortly be
fed the blood of tyrants, its roots are strong and its branches cover
North American and reach to all points of the world. We must continue
our lives, buy goods, travel, interact and ‘engage in the animating
contest of Freedom’ as our founding Fathers put it. If we must change,
let us be more mindful of ourselves, our family and our security. Let
us also be more mindful of our freedom and our rights. Let this tragedy
remind us of our place in this world; and be proud of what our country
has accomplished and will accomplish in the decades to come.

-An American Citizen

Well, it looks like the Psi-Watch Campaign Setting is off the front page.  It has been selling OK, but again the overall slump in PDF sales means that I need to put the sales numbers in perspective.  I’ll try to get another PDF up today or tonight to keep the momentum going.

Still waiting on the revised GSL, like everyone else.

I worked on the garage last night after I got home.  My wife had class so she tied up the computer and my daughter was doing homework on the laptop.  So I commenced to arrange some stuff and tear out a “Harry Homeowner” closet that one of the previous owners had installed in the garage.  (Who puts a closet in the garage?)  I managed to get all the drywall off, making a big dusty mess in the process.  I broke all the pieces small enough to go into our trash can and then started in on the framework.  The dude used some massive nails and lots of them!  I got a few sections off but I think I need a pry-bar to get at some of the seriously sunk nails.  So I cleaned up the floor and arranged a few things for better access and called it a night.  I got all the stuff I need to make one entire wall nothing but shelves to give us better storage and organization.  Before I can put those up I need to clear out the closet and move stuff off the opposite wall.  Maybe this weekend.

I picked up the new 40K boxed set Assault on Black Reach over the weekend.  Man, for sixty bucks you get some serious 40K goodness!  I have to give it to GW; they know how to make some plastic models; the new ones are chock full of detail.  Love the new Def’ Kopters!  And now I have a handy new rulebook as well.  Lord only knows when (if?) I’ll get around to painting any of the stuff.

Larry Correia is hard at work on the sequel to Monster Hunter International and has a post on his site asking for a cool money quote to kick off the book.  I was reading through several of them and this one jumped out at me:

“Heroes aren’t born, they’re cornered.” -unknown

Gave me an idea for a short film.  I told my daughter about it and she loved the idea.  Stay tuned.

Sarah Palin stymied my drive into work today!  Apparently she and McCain are appearing in Fairfax, VA and they moved the event to a park that was going to be driving right past on my way to work.  So I ended up turining around and heading another way to avoid the mess.  While I am a registered Libertarian, fiscal conservative and social liberal; I have to say that Palin was a masterful choice.  The conservative “base” has never been excited about McCain.  Palin is someone a true conservative can rally behind because she actually is one.  Not to mention the “small town girl makes it big” story, and her good looks and sharp wit.  The worst thing McCain could have done was to pick some old white guy to be his running mate.  Plus, it sure is nice to see a polotician that isn’t married to a lawyer!

While I am on the subject of politics, let me lay out some of my core political beliefs.

I think Government is a necessary evil.  Sure we need it to dome some things, and ours is by far the best one going world-wide.  BUT… Gummint’ doesn’t do anything well, efficiently, on time, on budget or frugally.  It also does not shrink or give back anything it doesn’t need.  It must be kept small and as unobtrusive as possible.  Why do I want the Gummint; the same fine folks that run the DMV to give me health care?  Look around the world, sure Canada and other countries have “free” health care; which is relatively easy to provide basic Cold/Flu/Virus/Broken Bones care to people.  But try getting cancer or other serious diseases up North and see how the care stacks up with what we have down here.  We have MRI machines all over the country; Canada has like three of them!

Free speech; all for it.  Even and especially the free speech I don’t personally care for.

Gun control.  Don’t let anyone tell you guns are for hunting or target shooting.  That’s like saying the First amendment is about poetry. Guns in the hands of a free citizenry are a supreme check on government power.  Five judges or 51% of crooked politicians can pass whatever law they want; if the people decide otherwise we have the means to “aggressively negotiate” an alternative. No, I don’t think it will come to that; I really don’t.  But the reason it will never have to come to that is because of the soft voice the very big stick carried by the population of this country.  Same goes for an invading foreign power.  Ask Japan why they never invaded the West Coast of America after Pearl Harbor.  Plus we gotta be ready in case Canada ever gets imperialist notions! Oh, and being able to protect yourself from crooks and other villains is a nice bonus also.

Gay marriage. Look, I go to church and I have actually read the bible.  BUT…in America we have the right to “Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness”.  So who am I to judge if you find happiness with a man, a woman or no one at all? That may not be how I roll, but if that’s how you roll then good luck with that.  And frankly, if we look at the oldest recorded history of the human race (i.e. the Bible) we will find homosexuals. They are in the mix from the dawn of recorded history to today; so why the drama?  I’m not one for the whole born-that-way/choice debate cuz I don’t really care.  If that is the way you are then you have the right to be happy.  Call it a civil union or a marrage, I don’t really care. But I am not down with discriminating against a class of people that have been with us since the beginning just because they are different than the majority.

Taxes.  That’s my money.  I earned it and Uncle Sam is not entitled to it.  Sure, we pay taxes to fund things that Gummint’ does and I am down with that.  Comes back to the role and scope of Government.  I think the role and scope needs to be small.  So do the taxes levied.  Our current tax system is a joke; we need s imple fair NON-PROGRESSIVE tax system like the Fair Tax or a flat tax.  Government must live within its means just like the rest of us.  And our goverment must also use what resources it does have wisely.  When our government stops wasting money and spending unwisely, only then should you ever concider coming to me for more of my income in the form of taxes.

Drugs.  I don’t use them and never have.  I don’t think people should use them.  BUT…in the name of ’safety’ we have let our government deem possession a dried plant leaf a felony that can get you jail time for most of your adult life.  Our police are nearly indistinguishable from our military in many respects and that is a very bad thing.  We clearly are not going to “win” the War on (some) Drugs so why are we wasting our efforts there?  In short, the war on (insert whatever bogey-man of the moment works here) is really little more than a way for Governemnt to claim power it does not have and expand its role and scope.  Don’t do drugs, stay in school.

Some of my political thoughts and motivations.  Go make some of your own.  Don’t just listen to what others have to tell you; your gonna have to read some books and stuff.  Sorry, it’s the price that must be paid if you want to actually participate in our little Republic.

Here is a great book to start with:

Sorry for the lack of posts; lots of stuff going on here at Skortched Urf’ Studios HQ!

I picked up the new motorcycle on Friday.  (My first ever brand new vehicle!)  For the first 500 miles you have to keep it under 6,000 RPM’s to break the engine in.  So I have been driving it like a granny; as I can only go about 70mph max speed to keep it under that RPM range.  That’s plenty for around town but on the freeway you had better be in the slow lane at that speed.  So far I am loving it, and the ability to use HOV lanes coming to work saves me scads of time from the new house.  I’ll have 500 miles on it later today, after my commute home from work.

I also sold the Yamaha motorcycle to a local guy; we got to talking last night and he asked me where my bike went.  (I moved it to the new house, so it was no longer parked at our old residence; which is why he asked.)  He agreed to buy it, so we are either going to ‘do the deal’ later tonight or this weekend.  I kind of wanted to keep it as a “project bike” but I can sure use the cash more than I can use another project to work on! My wife dug out the title early this morning so I am ready whenever he is.

My parents came down to see the new house on Monday, so my wife and I spent all weekend working on the house to get it in as good a shape as we could manage.  We really made some headway.  I added some shelves to the new office, hung some pictures, a huge mirror and a clock, cleaned and organized stuff into the various rooms etc.  Last night I used the wood shop at my old residence to cut a bunch of plywood strips that will be the basis for tons of shelving in the garage.

As a side note, my old residence was an apartment inside a local High School!  My wife and I were Security Residents with the local county school system.  We got a small apartment to stay in for free in exchange for checking the doors and windows each night and being on site to respond to alarms, while keeping our full-time “day jobs”.  It was this arrangement that allowed us to A) buy our house in the first place and B) funnel money into my publishing business to get it off the ground.  It has been a very fun experience, though I will have to admit I have lost a lot of sleep in the past three years! I called it my seven-hundred and fifty-thousand square foot one-bedroom apartment; complete with a wood shop, gym, track, library, auditorium and tennis courts. Last Thanksgiving we had over fifty people in for dinner; we put several long cafeteria tables together and fit everyone at the same table.  We also used the home economics room (with four complete mini-kitchens!) to prepare our turkey and several other dishes. It has been a very fun experience, but we needed more space and it was time to move on.  I will miss the free rent though!

Monday we also stopped by the local furniture store to take advantage of the Labor Day sale.  We bought the living room and dining room set my wife was in love with, and it should be here in about a week.  That means for the next week I need to finish up the main level in anticipation; paint the chair rail I hung last week and vacuum/steam clean the carpet on that level, move all the junk that we have been storing there etc.

I see that several new people have posted ads on BitzBox.com!  Not many, but a few.  The site is slower to take off than I had hoped, but I still firmly believe it is a solid execution of a great idea.

We played our Star Wars Saga Edition RPG on Saturday.  It was a BLAST!  I rode the new motorcycle over there early in the morning since we all needed to make some changes to our characters since the KOTR source book was released. I was driving down the George Washington Parkway by Mount Vernon on a beautiful Saturday morning, stopped off for breakfast and was at my friends by 9:30am.  He is really putting a lot of effort into the campaign, and as Sith we are having a blast.

Our Comcast cable sucks.  The internet keeps crapping out, and on the DVR downstairs all the channels over 100 have no sound.  My wife was unable to attend her online class for her Masters program Tuesday night.  We’re done with them.  I got an offer in the mail for Verizon Fios; the fiber-optic service that does TV, Internet and phone.  They are coming on the 16th to install it.  I mean my wife NEEDS to connect to take her classes, and I am running an online publishing business so I can’t afford to mess around with high speed internet that…well…isn’t.

Which brings us to the publishing front.  I am almost done with  the Psi-Watch Flash flip book.  Once that’s done I’ll post it for sale.  (With luck later today.)  We have plenty of releases on deck and lined up right behind that one too.   Of course we are all still waiting for the revised GSL to see what will happen in October to the overall electronic RPG market.  I don’t think it will be quite the “gold rush” that 3.5 was; not even close if I guess right.  (But what do I know?)

So we got the Wizards of Shadowfell out and people seem to really like it.  (Aside from some slight confusion about the name, apparently some other company has something out with Shadowfell in the title.)

Next up is Chris Fields homage to early Image comics; the Psi-Watch Camapign setting!  I expect that to hit this weekend. We have several other releases lined up right behind that one as well. Chris has been busy like a mad-man and I have a stack of PDF’s ready to go.

Lots going on here at Skortched Urf’ Studios HQ.  Someone backed into my Yamaha motorcycle and did some minor cosmetic damage to it.  (Cracked front fairing, busted off rear view mirror, bent fairing stay bars.) He left a note, and has agreed to pay me some cash to replace the parts, which is nice.  I’ve decided to sell that bike and get a new one.  Monday I went to the bike shop during lunch and put a deposit on this baby:

They had it in stock, but at the warehouse.  It is being readied for me to ride it out of the dealership as we speak!  I will go to the dealership tonight and crunch the numbers.  We still need to work out the final sale price.  The sale of the Yamaha will give the the down payment on this one. I want to ride it to my friends house Saturday morning for our next Star Wars Saga Edition RPG session.  I found the same bike at another shop so there are a few out there.  I also saw two on eBay and printed out a copy of the dealer price so I have the ammo I need to get a good price on it. I plan to take delivery tomorow.

I was off work yesterday to handle a ton of errands that needed doing; daughter to a dental appointment, license renewed at the DMV with the new house address, turned in the cable TV boxes from the old place and picked up a couple new ones for the house, dropped the other mototcycle off at the shop for a safety inspection and some new tires, cleaned some more stuff out of our old place etc.  (I’ll be oficially out of the old place next Friday; then I’ll be living at the new house full-time.  Yay, I get to actually live with my wife again!)

I got my DVD copy of the movie Gamers: Dorkness Rising this week as well.  I’ve seen it twice with my daughter and its her new favorite movie.  If you are a gamer you need to check this movie out!

Some fun non-spoiler quotes from the movie:

“As if killing the Bard impresses us!”

“I waste him with my crossbow!”

“Everything is better with Pirates.”

“Q. Are you paying attention? A. Oh God Yes.”

“Waffles Ho!”

“You have to admit, that landelin is quite persuasive.”

“Man, Bards Suck!”

First up, we just released the Wizards of Shadowfell PDF after a long gap in our release schedule.

Look for more releases to folow right on the heels of this PDF.  To get things moving a bit faster I had Daniel Perez (High Moon Media) help with the layout. I am still buried under a massive To-Do list at the new house, so he really helped get this one out the door.

One thing I noticed and thought I would comment on.  Flip-Book previews.  When I started doing them people liked them a lot.  OBS jumped on board and implemented the feature so you don’t even have to code any HTML or configure an XML script.  (Which I do for all my previews; it gives me greater control but the OBS solution is a cake walk to use.)  So OBS has this great feature and I never see anyone using more than a page or two in the preview.  Why?  I let people see each and every page; just like a real bookstore where you can flip through a book before you buy it.  I was checking out a couple of products on the new release page and flipped through three or four pages of a fifteen dollar (!) book and that’s all they would show me.  For that kind of scratch I want to see as much as possible. So come on publishers; why so stingy with the previews?

My wife has driven the motorcycle to work the last couple of days.  She told me she really enjoys riding and save a bunch of time since she can use the HOV lanes.  I take my bike less often, but once the move is completed (I am still camping out at our old place for about two more weeks.) I’ll be doing the same.

I saw the new Clone Wars movie the other day with my in-laws.  I enjoyed it but it did feel a tad “Saturday morning cartoon”.  The soundtrack was Star Wars but just “off” enough to feel like a cheap imitation.  There was no crawling text to start the movie off; that part was narrated.  While these things threw me off a bit they were not deal-killers.  I enjoyed the animation style a lot, and the battle scenes were very well done.  One thing I really hated; the whole plot of this film.  [Spoiler ahead. You have been warned!] So Jabba’s kid gets kidnapped.  Now the Jedi/Republic want to get him back so the Hutt clan will let the Republic use the Outer Rim shipping lanes in the war effort.  So you have Jedi working with Jabba, Jedi Masters essentially bowing down to the “Mighty Jabba” etc.  Hated it.  Jabba isn’t the head of the Hutt Clans, never was.  And Tatooine was supposed to be this little backwater no-where planet no one ever heard of; and it turns out Vader was from there and it was a major strategic factor in the Clone Wars and Yoda, Anakin and Count Dooku all went to Jabba’s palace!  Look all you people lucky enough to work on Star Wars stuff; there are MILLIONS of planets out there in our favorite galaxy far, far away.  How about we have some stories revolve around new places instead of Endor, Yavin, Hoth, Couresont and Bespin.  (At least Alderan won’t be bothering us again!)  Again, I enjoyed it but felt Jabba got way too much ‘respect’ for a gangster.  How about the Republic roll in there with like a zillion clones and just TELL Jabba they are gonna be ‘borrowing’ the space lanes for a while?  And if he doesn’t like it then they can send a few Republic Commando’s or even some Jedi to “aggressively negotiate” for them! My two cents.

So apparently the database data over at OBS got messed up due to human error.  (Maybe someone ran a DELETE statement when they should have run a SELECT statement.)  The first ten or eleven days of the month are gone, as the backup data wasn’t correct either.  It doesn’t affect me too much, since I have not had any new releases this month so far.  But Morrus over at ENWorld is pitching a fit.  (Rightly so, as he has multiple thousands of dollars on the line for just the ten days in question!)  Hopefully the OBS folks will make it right. I fully expect they will, but timing is the real issue here.  I can afford to wait for a few dollars; a few thousand is not something I would be happy having to wait for.  (Especially during GenCon!)

We played 4E again last night.  hey just got down into the dungeon crawl part of the module. They are all 2nd level now, and are starting to ‘figure out’ how to play their characters.  They did much better against a room full of Goblines (even if one of them fell into the pit trap) than they did against the very first Kobold ambush.

Chris Field is chomping at the bit to get some stuff released.  I’m right there with him.  Look for the first of several to hit this weekend.