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 - Go Kings Go!  If ANYONE has access to a schedule of when/where the cup will be in the South Bay, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could send it my way.  I missed out on all the viewings in 2012 and I realize after the second cup it might not happen again, so I want Wy and I to get a chance to see it in person if possible.  Danke, friends!

 - I backed this and am excited!  XenoShyft by CMON Its a coop deckbuilder where each hand you need to build a defense against 4 unknown aliens that attack each player.  If they player cards defending all get overrun, then your base takes damage.  You need to keep your base alive for 9 rounds of attacks to win.  I watched the whole 1hr 20min play through and wished that regular TV would just show people playing games - I would TOTALLY watch it.  Anyway, it looked fun and interesting and I think/hope we'll get some mileage out of it.  Check it out for yourselves!

 - I also picked up a copy of Winter Tales, which should arrive sometime next week.  It appears to be a weird mixture of card management, storytelling, and boardgame that seems pretty interesting.  In a nutshell, there are fairly tale characters that are fighting for control of their land.  You use the board to move around the land and help to give context and location for the story.  When you 'battle' I guess you play a certain number of story cards, which are essentially cards with small abstract sketches on them (not unlike Dixit), to 'win' the battle (or whatever).  The trick is, you need to use the sketches IN your description of what your side does in the battle.  I guess the game is decided by the number of wins vs. losses in these different conflicts, but that I'm not totally clear on.

ANYWAY, it seemed really fun, different, and interesting and reading some of the stories that other people have created while playing inspired me to pick it up.  I look forward to playing it for the first time 9 months from now at Cayuco 2015!!!

 - Wy and I are back playing on the Minecraft server, though the IP changed.  The new IP is 198.52.168.132 and the port stayed the same.  It's a new world, though I have the old one saved so the kick-ass, resource-consuming lighthouse was not lost!  Anyway, jump in if you want sometime.

 - Reading through all my old Cthulhu adventures is interesting.  I need to come to terms with a few things.  First, older CoC stuff is basically epic level D&D in a different setting.  Lots of big horror, lots of interaction with pretty high-level baddies, access to many spells, books, etc.  It's a much more crunchy game than I think I ever wanted it to be, much more pulpy (even though I don't think it was supposed to be).

All that being said, I need to get over it because I THINK that's just what it is.  The new school of CoC-like games are much more thematic, personal, low-epic level, but I'm not sure that 1) I as GM could pull off a game like that, b) we as a group could pull off a game like that, or c) there is anything better about that.

I've always wanted to run a slow building game with a lot of ah-ha moments where the magic of mythos discovery is part of the fun of the game, but I need to be realistic and honest - I'm not a great storyteller and we the fact of the mater is the best parts of our games are not the story but memories of shaking down kids in high school until they cried (Delta Green), visiting whorehouses and sticking shotguns in said whores faces (Mountains of Madness), and watching Rudes character get hit in the left leg like 5 times in the same fight (Horror at Red Hook, I think?).  I Rude also said it best, (paraphrasing) 'Just stick all our characters in a room together and we'll fuck around enough to make a full night of roleplaying'.

 - Happy Father's Day, those of you nerds that have offspring!