Included in the statement is a link to a feedback survey on the contents of the proposed OGL 1.2. I’ve taken the liberty of copying and pasting my answers here. My feelings may not match everyone’s, and I definitely digressed from the questions a times, but I feel strongly that this push by Wizards to turn D&D into just another micro-transaction-laden digital experience will be worse for everyone.

1. Would you like to provide feedback on the content of the proposed OGL 1.2?

Yes

2. Now that you’ve read the proposed OGL 1.2, what concerns or questions come to mind for you?

This still feels like a plot by a public company to extract money from its fanbase, rather than an attempt to create a compelling product for its fans to enjoy. I understand that Wizards is owned by Hasbro and Hasbro has a commitment to its shareholders, but this egregious attempt to wring money out of people that have willingly been giving it to you for decades is a bad look, especially in this age of greedy corporations getting gutted by organized people on the Internet.

The OGL 1.0a has allowed Wizards to flourish into a cultural touchstone that is STILL wildly successful compared to most products. The OGL 1.2 is at-best anti-competitive and at worst anti-consumer. We would have gladly supported D&D’s digital future because it would have been the best option with the most access to official content. Yes, other VTTs would have existed and had similar features, and they might have even taken some of your market share (though most would likely have simply collected customers that wouldn’t have wanted your offering in the first place because they couldn’t afford it). This arrogant decision has ruined the reputation that took 30 years to build.

This foolish attempt to extract as much money from your fans as possible is the single dumbest decision you could have ever made. There may be players that desire a digital experience over an in-person or analog one, but there aren’t enough willing to give a team of executives looking for their next bonus to justify this decision. There will be alternatives to whatever digital future you build and your greed will amplify their existence.

3. After reading the proposed OGL 1.2, how has your perception of the future of Dungeons & Dragons changed compared to before reading OGL 1.2?

Much worse

4. What would be needed to improve your perception of Dungeons & Dragons’ future?

A sincere apology to the community, the removal of the executives responsible for this incredibly stupid strategy (maybe let’s start with Chris Cao and work our way up from there), and a focus on a return to respect for players as people and not walking cash piñatas.

5. How would you rate your level of understanding and your level of satisfaction with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International? 5 = High, 1 = Low

Understanding: 5

Satisfaction: 5

6. How would you rate your level of understanding and your level of satisfaction with the content found in the SRD that will be released under Creative Commons? 5 = High, 1 = Low

Understanding: 5

Satisfaction: 3

7. Do you have any other comments about the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International and/or the content that will be released under Creative Commons?

The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license is a fantastic license and a great start to fixing some of the blunders you’ve made so far in 2023. However, the content being released to CC4.0 is incredibly limited: clearly an attempt to prevent anyone from using what you’ve released to build a competitor. However, what you’ve proposed to release isn’t even protected content in the first place. The methods and mechanics of any version of D&D aren’t protectable, so why not release the entirety of them to CC to show that you actually understand and value your players. You want to protect your IP, and I get that. So, do so by keeping your internal creations out of the CC release, but release the instructions for crafting races, classes, etc. so players can go ahead and homebrew to their heart’s content. The fanbase will be better for and far more forgiving. Especially if your plans to become a micro-transaction-heavy digital playset move forward. Let those of us that have no desire to be a part of that world continue to play the game we love without your capitalist hellscape.

8. How would you rate your level of understanding and your level of satisfaction with the Notice of Deauthorization? 5 = High, 1 = Low

Understanding: 5

Satisfaction: 1

9. Do you have any other comments about the Notice of Deauthorization?

You have lied to our faces about why you wish to deauthorize OGL 1.0a. You have invented a boogeyman in order to manipulate your fanbase into accepting a terrible deal. Yes, hateful content is a threat to any platform, but you have failed to explain how the OGL 1.0a fails to prevent hateful content in the first place. Further, the community already takes care of these issues on our own. We are an inclusive place, focused on building up instead of tearing down. There is no need to create a new OGL for this purpose. This is a lie attempting to prevent the OGL 1.0a from being used by those you view as competitors to continue to exist in this space. Do better. If you don’t like competition, just say so. Stop being cowards and just be honest about it. Trying to manipulate us is a bad look.

10. How would you rate your level of understanding and your level of satisfaction with the types of content covered by the proposed OGL 1.2? 5 = High, 1 = Low

Understanding: 5

Satisfaction: 3

11. How would you rate your level of understanding and your level of satisfaction with the content ownership rights outlined in the proposed OGL 1.2? 5 = High, 1 = Low

Understanding: 5

Satisfaction: 5

12. Do you have any other comments about the types of content covered and/or the content ownership rights outlined by the proposed OGL 1.2?

Since the OGL 1.2 aims to reduce the number of places we are allowed to use officially licensed content, the SRD 5.1 should include a larger selection of content available for use. The original intention of the SRD was to give players the basic ability to play D&D without purchasing any official books and have enough information to build their own games or at least whet their appetite for more content. Since the new monetization strategy is for all players to either have a digital subscription or be encouraged to spend money on cosmetics for a future digital project via micro transactions, there should be a larger portion of content made available via the SRD. Especially since the SRD will no longer be usable by third-parties making content that Wizards finds to be competitive.

13. How would you rate your level of understanding and your level of satisfaction with the “You Control Your Content” section? 5 = High, 1 = Low

Understanding: 5

Satisfaction: 5

14. How would you rate your level of understanding and your level of satisfaction with the “Warranties And Disclaimers” section? 5 = High, 1 = Low

Understanding: 5

Satisfaction: 2

15. How would you rate your level of understanding and your level of satisfaction with the “Modification Or Termination” section? 5 = High, 1 = Low

Understanding: 5

Satisfaction: 2

16. Do you have any other comments about the “You Control Your Content”, “Warranties And Disclaimers”, or “Modification Or Termination” sections?

I actually appreciate the commitment to preventing hateful content or conduct, except for the part where a faceless corporation is the sole arbiter of what is and isn’t hateful content or conduct and can unilaterally revoke this license without recourse (which is the opposite of “open”, I might add).

“We have the sole right to decide what conduct or content is hateful, and you covenant that you will not contest any such determination via any suit or other legal action.”

If a licensee firmly believes that you are a) over-reacting (a phrase your leadership team has been quick to throw at the fanbase in the last few weeks), or b) disingenuously accuse a competitor of hateful conduct/content in order to remove their content from sale, there is no way to challenge such an abuse of power. Let the fans do as we have always done and remove hateful content from our play space as we always have. Alternatively, allow an independent third-party review system to be utilized, if you insist on having a failsafe to remove licenses.

17. How would you rate your level of understanding and your level of satisfaction with the Virtual Tabletop Policy? 5 = High, 1 = Low

Understanding: 5

Satisfaction: 1

18. Do you have any other comments about the Virtual Tabletop Policy?

Finally, we get to the real reason for this OGL 1.1/1.2 debacle. It is no secret that Wizards has been working on their own VTT solution for years. Sadly, instead of competing to have the best VTT on the market, your plan is to simply cripple the competition so that only you can provide a complete experience. This is, again, the very antithesis of open. Further, it goes against the spirit of D&DG and tabletop RPGs as a whole. When one table comes up with a cool new way of playing, we all benefit. The hobby benefits. YOU benefit. Just because you aren’t making ALL of the money, doesn’t mean you aren’t making ENOUGH money. This is everything wrong with corporate greed. If Hasbro needs to continue to grow to appease shareholders, then they should either make themselves a private company, spin Wizards off as its own private entity, or just stop worrying about making the line go up. Such an asinine way of running a company and shows that leadership at Hasbro have no idea what made D&D successful in the first place.

19. Have you used the OGL 1.0a or previous versions of the OGL to create third party content?

No

20. Do you want to create third party content for Dungeons & Dragons in the future?

Maybe

21. Would you be comfortable releasing TTRPG content under the proposed OGL 1.2 as written?

No

22. Why do you say that?

Because as it stands, the OGL 1.2 is a bad faith agreement that serves to support everything wrong with corporate greed, instead of focusing on the original intention of the OGL 1.0a, which is to grow the hobby and to provide an open collection of content for the fanbase to enjoy in whatever way made the most sense to their group.

23. How would you rate your interest in using the Content Creator Badge as part of your third party works? 5 = High, 1 = Low

1

24. Do you have any other comments about Content Creator Badges?

If I thought creating and sharing third party works was a good investment of my time under a less-restrictive and self-serving OGL, I might be interested. But as it stands, the Content Creator Badge is just a symbol of willingness to serve Wizards rather than the community at large.

What other feedback do you have for us (related to the Open Games License or otherwise)?

I desperately hope enough people have similar feedback to encourage Hasbro and Wizards to rethink their priorities in this matter. I have loved D&D for more than half of my lifetime. I have spent more time in the last two weeks researching alternative solutions to continuing one of my favorite hobbies than I have ever spent in the last two decades. This poor executive vision has severely damaged the brand value of D&D and I really hope it’s not the death of it. But if this aggressive plan to monetize everyone through terrible business practices continues, I can’t continue to be a part of this community.

I held off on this until I knew I could get my characters saved. I don’t know where I go next. I’m looking for tools that will work as seamlessly as D&D Beyond, but even if I can’t find one, I just can’t support Hasbro or Wizards of the Coast at this time.

I want to keep my campaign alive, but I can’t do it in a way that funds this greed. I was really looking forward to D&D Beyond’s upcoming VTT, but I guess I’m going to FoundryVTT, now. Or just back to pencil & paper.

On the bright side, I guess I have an excuse to check out a new system. I’ve always wanted to give Warhammer Fantasy RPG a try, and there are a ton of great options out there with a heavier focus on role-playing and faster combat.

And I guess the world I’ve been building will one day adopt a different open license, instead.

I Hate Hamlet by Paul Rudnick

I’ve had this sitting on my nightstand for months when a friend of mine cleaned out her library and asked everyone at a party to take something home. It’s a Broadway play from 1991 with a cast of recognizable faces from the early and mid-2000s. I’ve attached the cast list photo below. I don’t read plays often. For years, it reminded me of homework (I love theatre, I love reading, but I have always hated assigned reading). The whole house went to bed early last night, so I figured I had time to burn through the whole thing and check it off my list.

The play is about a young TV star who moves to New York, moves into John Barrymore’s old apartment, and is visited by the ghost of Barrymore when he is cast in a theatre-in-the-park production of Hamlet. While reading, I wondered if I’m just barely old enough to remember who John Barrymore was and whether anyone 5-10 years younger than me would even care. But it was funny. I think it would be a lot of fun to stage.

Most importantly, it was quick and easy to read, which allowed me to relax and exercise making reading a habit again—while considering whether I want to try to finish The Ship of Theseus (the novel at the center of JJ Abrams’s S.) or Bats of the Republic, both of which I’ve started but been distracted by in the past.

Ultimately, finishing two books in the first two weeks of 2023 gives me hope that I will blow past my goal of 23 books this year (something that seemed impossible considering how many books I’ve read in the past 5 years).

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

What a blessing it was to receive this book as a birthday gift. I devoured it. It is everything I love about fiction and reads like a love letter to storytelling. I need to sit with it for a bit, but at this moment in time, it is in my top five favorite books.

If you like urban fantasy mixed with myths—ancient and ageless stories intermingling with our modern lives—read it.

During my initial read, I often thought of both The Sorcery Hall Trilogy (urban fantasy about a young girl using a violin to save Manhattan from an ancient evil) and A Wrinkle In Time (it is directly referenced, but I could see similarities well before). Both are stories that have stayed with me long after I read them. Of course, The Neverending Story kept nagging at my mind throughout, as well. The way Morgenstern connected familiar elements from these ancient and familiar stories we love with a world so entirely new was intoxicating.

I will read this again. And again.

And again and again and again.

So, to make sure I could carry everything with us, I pulled out the stroller and started pushing it along, sans kids. Of course, it didn’t take long before the children decided they didn’t need to walk anywhere, because there was a perfectly good stroller just not being used for anything. The first time they climbed aboard, I let it slide (because I’m a pretty nice dad and uncle). But, the second time a child decided they didn’t want to walk, I figured I’d make sure they really wanted that ride (plus, I wanted them to be on their own feet as much as possible).

I told them they could only ride the bus if they paid the toll: the candy toll, that is. My nephews didn’t even hesitate. My youngest joined in as soon as he saw his cousins doing it. And I started stuffing my pockets full of goodies. Every time they got off the stroller, they paid me as soon as they got back. Multiple times they would get off for one house and pay me their just-earned goodies as they climbed back on.

As the night went on, the pocket of my hoodie was overflowing, so my wife said I should use the empty “ghost liquor” bucket.

All I’m saying is that I probably earned more Halloween candy than most parents ever have and all I had to do was something I was going to do for free anyway. Pro tip, parents: charge your kids to be lazy. It pays dividends.

Eleven years ago, two years after the group’s creation, it stopped being used. Until today, I had forgotten it existed (honestly, when I got the notification today, I assumed it had been shut down by Google). I was surprised to discover that it’s still out there, sitting dormant (much like some of the friendships I made at Apple).

I look back fondly on those years as some of the most enjoyable of my life. The people I worked with remain some of the most dear to me. I wish life hadn’t dragged us so far apart, but I’m grateful I can remain connected with some of them in various ways.

Anyway, for those interested, the Clay app is a personal CRM I use that runs on my iPhone and Mac and connects with various social media accounts and emails to help me manage personal connections. I prefer it just for helping me remember birthdays and to be mindful of relationships that need rekindled. My ADHD means that a long-dormant friendship feels just as fresh as the day it started, so there are a lot of friendships needing rekindled. It has been really helpful in managing those relationships I sometimes forget need attention. I highly recommend it.

And who knows? Maybe you’ll find a long-forgotten group chat or relationship or two, as well.

Okay, “decided” isn’t really the right word. And technically, the appendectomy was this week, but the whole ordeal started last week. It’s a long story, but that’s not what I’m here to tell you about today. Today’s story is about a circumstance that only occurred because she had surgery.

On Friday, two days after my wife got out of the hospital, I had a vasectomy performed. Knowing full well that we would both be unable to lift anything, sprint after children, or be generally capable of more than lounging for a couple days, we smartly stayed home and did nothing.

Shortly before dinner, my wife decided she wanted ice cream—in her words, as a “reward for doing nothing all day and taking a nap”—so we decided to go to Sonic for treats after dinner. We loaded up the toddler, my daughter, and ourselves into the car to go get her “reward”.

While waiting for our ice cream, my toddler declared, “I have to go potty.” My wife, chuckled at the timing and said, “You’ll have to hold it.”

As expected, my youngest would have none of it. “I’m going to potty my seat!” came the urgent reply from the backseat.

My wife and I shared a glance. “There are some trees over there.” She tilted her head toward the opposite edge of the parking lot. I reached into my shorts to remove the bag of peas cradling my business and handed them to her. I could only imagine how it would look if I crossed the parking lot escorting my toddler with one hand, the other holding my crotch. “Hold my peas,” I requested and climbed out of the driver’s seat.

(In hindsight, I should have said, “Hold my pee peas,” but I didn’t. If you want, you can pretend that I did, since it makes me sound funnier.)

I opened the back door of the car to let my barefoot, shirtless toddler—whose chest was covered in face paint depicting a snowman—climb down from the backseat. I couldn’t lift him for at least another day, so we walked hand-in-hand across the asphalt to the bushes. He did his business with the steadfast determination of a 3-year-old that has been told he should single-handedly water all the trees in the world. Meanwhile, I’m looking around to make sure we’re not being filmed and no one is calling the police.

Mission accomplished, we begin the steady trek back to the car. He climbs back into his seat and his sister buckles him back in. All the while, Autumn is struggling to breathe and holding her incisions as tight as she dares as silent laughter rolls over her. for a brief moment, I thought we might be returning to the hospital to have her surgical glue reapplied, but she managed to recover before that bill became necessary.

So, yeah… if you’d like to know how my June is going, I hope this provides some much needed clarification.

A few weeks ago, I created another Jumprope explaining how to make a new cocktail. But, I only just found the time to sit down and actually post it here. So, if you are looking for a way to keep yourself warm during this frigid week we’re having in the Midwest, give this a try.

As always, follow me on Jumprope to see my other tutorials or go make your own!

It has been around 2 years since I first downloaded Jumprope, an app for iOS and Android that allows you to quickly and easily create how-to videos and share them with the world. After several discarded drafts, I finally found a setup I liked enough to complete one. I created this recipe on a whim the other day when experimenting with a cup of coffee. I liked how it turned out, so I decided this would be my inaugural post.

If you like the way this turned out, follow me on Jumprope to see more (hopefully, as soon as I can come up with some other ideas). Or make your own and get to sharing!

But I was wholly unprepared for Ted Lasso.

For those that don’t remember, Ted Lasso was a character created for a series of NBC Sports promos in 2013 to advertise the Premier League coming to the network. The premise is that of a Kansas football coach (the American kind) getting hired to coach football (the rest-of-the-world kind) in England. Of course, he knows nothing of the sport and hilarity ensues. As soon as I heard they were making a show, I was sold. I didn’t care if it was going to be possible to make the show good or not. I just wanted to enjoy Jason Sudeikis playing a goofball on my TV. Worst case scenario, I’ll have a few laughs and the show will get canceled.

What I did not expect was a heartfelt, character-driven dramedy that takes the time to give all the major players (and several minor ones) their own story arc that showed growth and change for them all. What I did not expect was to hear inspirational quotes from a fictional coach that made me want to get out on that pitch and make him proud of me. What I did not expect was for numerous moments in the series to move me to tears.

Here’s the thing: I’m not afraid to feel things. I get choked up in the theater all the time. The hero moment at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy still gives me goosebumps and I have to get a speck of dirt out of my eye every time. I still get choked up when Gandalf and Boromir died in Fellowship of the Ring (SPOILERS). “I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I—” absolutely wrecked me and my wife had to console me while I bawled like a baby in the theater. So, it’s not surprising that a show manages to make me feel something. Catharsis is why I became an actor in college. It’s why I still care so deeply about quality storytelling. But all that aside, I started “Ted Lasso” expecting some fish-out-of-water oddball comedy and Sudeikis and Hunt snuck in and under my radar to deliver a heartwarming tale with the most optimistic, generous, and kind-hearted protagonist in a long time.

I just finished my first rewatch of the show on Monday night (the series’ first season wrapped up on Friday) and I found so much more to love the second time ’round. I really hope that the next season continues to build on the foundation they’ve started, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Roy Kent.

If you have Apple TV+ and you haven’t started it yet, you should. And if you don’t have Apple TV+, it’s worth a month (or free trial) just to watch this show. Please give it a viewing or three and, when you’re finished, be a goldfish.

Also, if you have Apple Music, you should totally check out the playlists from this show. They are both fantastic.

So, if you’re looking for something to watch, want to rep KC, or just need a reminder that a show about hope doesn’t have to be satire, check it out. And until season 2:

Onward. Forward.

#RichmondTilWeDie

Though the figure is partially deconstructed and jumbled, the piece quite clearly depicts an archer nocking an arrow and drawing back to fire. Who is this archer? What is his foe? What deeper meaning exists beneath the surface of this print?

Scholars have long wondered at the history of Cash’s childhood, before the Reckoning began and we came to understand him as a figure of great renown. Before his rise to prominence, little is known of the man. Some believe the fire he revealed during the Reckoning was exhibited in his childhood, which we hope to discover here with our continued foray into his earlier works.

One thing is certain, however. The answers we seek may be lost to time entirely. With the apparent demise of Jared Cash and the destruction of his estate at the hands of extremists, only those artifacts recovered from the rubble and in the hands of private collectors are left to grant us insight into the history of the Archon.

Little is known of Cash’s artistic endeavours during his tenure at Graceland University, but we do have a rare specimen here, indeed. Records from before the Reckoning are incomplete, but it is believed this carving was for the high school Cash attended, as writings have indicated his early life in an unnamed farming community in Kansas. Additional research into the location and history of Smallville, Kansas is ongoing.

Years ago, I found a couple websites for buying unique iPhone cases with art from artists all over the Internet. Love Ninja Turtles but hate that you can’t find a good iPhone case with them on it? Don’t worry, it’s out there.

For the last several years, I’ve used Society6 and Redbubble to also sell some of my own photos that I find to be just the right level of kitschy. Recently, a friend of mine mentioned her store which made me realize I hadn’t added anything new in a few years. So, I dusted off my photo library and got to work adding some of my favorite shots to it.

So now, if you have always wanted a duvet cover with the Kansas City skyline on it, I’ve got you covered. Wish you had a bath mat featuring a blurry photo of some trees in the mist? Here you go. Love computers so much you’ve always wanted a coaster set with close up photos of a circuit board on it? Neither have I, but I made some for you anyway!

Okay, but enough of the ridiculous stuff. You can buy almost anything for your home on this site and find tons of great photographs and artworks on them. Maybe your walls are looking exceptionally bare now that you’re trapped in your home with nowhere to go. What better way to liven it up than to put art on your walls that reminds you of all the places you love and can never go visit again?!

If this sounds exciting to you, check out my portfolios at Society6 and Redbubble to see what they’ve got.

And if you just want to see some of my favorite photos, you can check those out here. If you see something you’d love to buy on a mug or a shower curtain (because why not?), let me know and I’ll be happy to throw it up there, just for you.

While Apple has eliminated a number of features from their macOS Server software over the years, there are still a number of instances where using a Mac as a file server in a Windows-friendly environment is necessary. Unfortunately, those using a Windows computer to connect to the Mac file server often face connection issues due to some out-of-the-box security and communication incompatibilities between the two systems.

If you need to get a Windows computer connected to a Mac file server quickly, these tweaks below will solve the problem.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Press the Windows key and “R” together on the keyboard and enter secpol.msc in the run dialogue.

Navigate to Security Settings / Local Policies / Security Options.

Find Network Security: LAN Manager Authentication Level, and set it to Send NTLMv2 response only.

Finally, ensure that Network Security: Minimum session security for NTLM SSP Based (including secure RPC) Clients is set to Require 128-bit encryption.

You may need to restart your computer for these changes to take effect, but once they do, you should have no trouble connecting to your Mac server from Windows 10.

I’m not writing about the pandemic. There will be plenty of far smarter individuals that will have much more to say about it than I. Instead, I want to talk about my hero during this moment. You see, I’m not one of the people who suddenly found themselves holed up at home with copious amounts of free time (a curse, more than a blessing, for most). If anything, I find myself busier than ever trying to assist others with setting up contingency plans for working from home. As a result, my wife has been pulling extra duty as caretaker around here.

If you’ll permit me a moment, I want to brag on her for a bit. Before the toilet paper began disappearing from shelves, she quietly made note of what supplies we needed at home to disinfect and self-quarantine, if necessary. She picked up the essentials and a few extra items to make sure we were covered, but not hoarding. She organized our food stores, took the kids for walks, encouraged them to play outside, read them books, and basically took care of everything while I spent most of the last 3 days in the basement trying to help people figure out how to work in a place never meant for their work.

And through everything, she’s been cheerful, though concerned and occasionally overwhelmed by it all. But today, she ran back out to the store—not for us but for others unable to do the same. She picked up some staples for a pregnant friend and some toilet paper for an elderly man in a nursing home whose granddaughter is in Texas and knew he just needed something to ease his mind. She checked on everyone to ask if they needed anything and has been reaching out to others that might need a friendly voice to feel safe.

So, I just want to say how impressed I am by this incredible hero of mine. She does so much more than she needs to do and does so with joy in her heart. I wish we were all just a bit more like her.

As always, I recommend leaving the decision up to the Dungeon Master, but I feel that the underlying argument comes down to one of a misunderstanding as to what hit points are meant to represent. Here’s my attempt to quickly summarize my interpretation of hit points in D&D (and specifically, how I try to utilize them in the games that I run).

Hit points aren’t really a measure of a character’s blood loss or anything so specific as how much damage you’ve taken physically. Instead, they are the numerical component of a mechanic used to negotiate contested combat. Did you, Cordric the Magnificent, hack-and-slash your way through a dungeon full of baddies to arrive at the inner sanctum of the vile Rippah the Malevolent with only 5 HP left? You’re not physically holding your entrails in your body through sheer force of will. You’re just worn out and beat up and could make a mistake that allows someone to slip past your guard and deal a fatal blow at any time.

Sure, you’ve probably been cut here or there, particularly that time Ashford the Axe rolled a nat 20 two rooms back and hit you for 33 damage. But Ash didn’t bury a hatchet in your back and leave you clinging to life. He just landed a blow that cut deep enough to distract you. Sure, if you don’t tend to it soon, it will be a problem, but you’re not in danger of bleeding out in seconds. Instead, you’re distracted, in pain, and struggling to maintain the upper hand.

So what does that have to do with attacking a sleeping adversary?

Let’s presume for the moment that you’re the DM. In the most common scenario, a sleeping NPC isn’t in combat. You haven’t rolled initiative, and your player is likely sneaking into their adversary’s camp. At this point, if you want to allow Francis the Forgiving to die in his sleep, you can. If you don’t, then you should come up with a reason why they don’t. Only ask for a roll if you want their death to be contested. It doesn’t even have to be a combat roll. In this particular case, rolling the player’s Stealth vs. the NPC’s Passive Perception would be my recommended option. You can even give the NPC disadvantage what with the visit to Nodsville and all. Not all deaths in D&D have to be the result of rolled damage. Mix it up a bit. Do what works best for the story you’re trying to tell.

And remember, the rules exist to help everyone have a good time, but the beauty of being a Dungeon Master is that—sometimes—you get to rewrite the rules to make sure everyone has a good time.

Besides, it’s really important to remind the players that if they can do it, so can the monsters.

A: You’re not a sandwich.

J: No, I’m a manwich.

A: You’re a man witch?

J: Yep. See, I can make this mac & cheese disappear.

(J proceeds to eat mac & cheese)

A: That’s not magic.

J: It’s slow magic.

J: Ready to dance until you drop?

A: I’m ready to dance until you drop, ’cause…

J: ‘Cause what?

A: ‘Cause you’ll drop first.

J: Why? Because I’m so old?

A: Probably.

∞∞∞

For a poll to be effective, it has to use a large enough sample size, randomly selected. It’s the same methodology that stores use when they ask you for your zip code or address. They’re trying to determine where their shoppers are coming from to determine if they need to open another store closer to their base.

It’s also how drug testing works. Test on a large enough sample and you can get an idea as to the effectiveness and severity of side effects.

Just because you’ve never been polled doesn’t mean anything. Most people don’t answer surveys by phone or mail because they don’t want to be bothered.

That said, polls can be manipulated just like any statistic. On the flip side, just because a poll disagrees with your (the royal “your”, not any specific “your”) viewpoint and you don’t know anyone else that was polled (again, royal “you”), doesn’t mean the poll is incorrect. It’s natural to be in the minority on a particular subject and still feel like the majority because we tend to surround ourselves with people that think like we do.

It’s why herd mentality and groupthink are so effectively dangerous. We’re too busy fighting against “the other team” to figure out what we have in common and work toward that. It’s how our political system has divided us for decades to allow corporate interests to supersede personal interests. Our country has always been a democracy fighting against its own innate nature to transition to an oligarchy. But most people are too stupid or too easily distracted to fight those pulling the strings. They’d rather righteously declare themselves “correct” than admit that the side they’ve chosen doesn’t care about them at all.

Before I begin this diatribe, let me be up front by saying that I realize that I could have prevented all of this disaster by simply not signing up for Disney+ on day one, waiting until I could find detailed answers to all my questions. But, I didn’t, because I was excited to watch The Mandalorian, the first Star Wars property since Rebels to make me feel like I’m watching stories set in the same universe as the original trilogy.

That said, the cascading failure of my Disney online services experience is worth noting for anyone else out there in a similar situation.

On August 23rd, I received an email from Marvel telling me that my Marvel account would soon (as in, 4 days, soon) be merged with my Disney account. Unfortunately, the Disney account that they were going to merge was not my active Disney account, but some account that had likely been created by accident years ago when trying to sign up for some service or another. Instead, I wanted to merge my Marvel account with the Disney account I had been using with the Disney Movie Rewards program for years.

I emailed Marvel support to ask how to merge the accounts correctly, but got back crickets. With the pending merge date looming, I tried to trick the system by changing the email addresses for the accounts so that the account I didn’t want to use had an unused email and the account I wanted to keep had the email address for my Marvel account. Turns out, that was a colossal mistake.

The merge date comes and my Marvel account merges into the Disney account with an unused email address (we’ll just call it Email U from here on out) and my other Disney account containing my Disney Movie Rewards goes right on living.

No big deal, I decide. I’ll just change the email addresses back and lose the Disney Movie Rewards. There’s not much there, and the Marvel digital comics library is worth more anyway.

Except that I can’t. Now, for some reason, the account that I changed to Email U won’t let me go back to the email address it had been because it says that email address is already in use. And when I log in to the merged account, it still uses my primary email for the login, instead of Email U.

Fast forward to today: Disney+ launch day. During the sign-up process, I tried to sign in to my existing account using my primary email, but instead it created a third account, completely separate from the other two. Worse, since the email address I used to create a new account didn’t match my Hulu+ account, I’m now getting billed full price instead of receiving my discount on the Disney+, Hulu+, ESPN+ bundle.

Strap in, because this is the part where I make things worse.

In an attempt to fix the issue myself, since support had egregious wait times, I tried deleting the account that I had inadvertently created this morning. At first, this didn’t seem to do anything. I could still log into disneyplus.com and see my account. I could still try to contact support to submit a ticket about my issue. Then, once I got home from work, excited to finally dig into the Disney+ catalog, I saw that I had received an email. My billing process had been completed. Turns out that, since my Hulu+ account had a different email than my Disney+ account, it had been determined that I didn’t have one and I was not getting the discount.

Again, I wasn’t too worried. I figured I could just watch The Mandalorian tonight and deal with this tomorrow or the next day, when support wait times came down a bit. At the very least, I’ll see if I can start a chat session on my computer while watching a show. So, I signed in to disneyplus.com and… this:

So now, even though I’ve PAID for Disney+, Hulu+, and ESPN+, I can’t actually sign into my account and use it while trying to get this whole mess sorted out, because logging in tells me I have to contact customer service by phone (which I’m currently trying to do, but have been on hold for nearly 90 minutes and counting). So, yeah… happy Disney+ Day, everybody. I’m gonna go watch Netflix like a plebe, I guess…

I can’t believe that 18 years ago today my cousin and I ran around a campground with toy guns and made our very first movie together. A lot has happened since then (most notably, the lack of becoming famous). But I still look back fondly on those days. Though filmmaking never became a part of my daily routine, it’s responsible for a large portion of how I view things creatively. I still write with a cinematic mindset and I even develop scenes as a dungeon master as though my players are experiencing them both onscreen and as the audience.

So, as a tribute to the impact that the first Ripcord had on me as an adult, I present it to you all without shame or fear of judgment.

Okay, maybe just a little fear of judgment. Be nice to me. I was a child.

Spoilers for Lost Mine of Phandelver after the break…

This weekend, as the party slowly crawled their way through Wave Echo Cave, they finally reached the end of the final dungeon. As the party grew in size, so did the challenge of ensuring the encounters were deadly enough to keep them concerned for their safety. Fortunately, they gave me ample opportunities to build the enemy forces and to make it seem like natural consequences to their own decisions.

My favorite thing about this particular group of players is that they don’t always resort to combat to resolve encounters. Granted, this can also be headache-inducing, when they want to befriend every monster they encounter so that they can bypass combat altogether. I think that if my paladin had his way, they’d have an army of bugbears, goblins, and dragons following them around fighting on behalf of the party. Sure, if they build a reputation for being truly dangerous foes, they could sweet-talk a lich into letting them pass or taking a run at his boss. But currently, their adversaries are more likely to see them as a group of popular high school grads showing up to their first day of college and expecting to run things.

This is what I get for letting them befriend a nothic in their second session. Which brings me to what my players lovingly dubbed “The Tower of Terror”.

The bard brought an initiative tracker for our game on Saturday. It’s incredibly simple and quite helpful. While I track initiative on my laptop or iPad for most encounters, the players can’t see who is up next and are rarely prepared for their turn. This tracker served as a great tool for them to see who was up next and to start thinking about their actions beforehand, speeding up combat significantly.

In the picture above, you can see my players by name (plus the Guest marker, for our latest player). When they arrived at the final encounter, I let them walk into the room and begin discussions with Nezznar, the Black Spider. He assured them that he would help them find whatever they were looking for in the mine if they agreed to vacate the premises forthwith. The party tried to negotiate a truce or a surrender or whatever else they thought might allow them to Easy Mode the campaign. During the discussion, three ochre jellies (née one, before it was split twice by stabby-stabby) from which two party members had run earlier in the dungeon shlorped into the room and two wandering monster bugbears (that I decided not to make them fight while they took a short rest) closed the doors.

As I began filling the initiative tracker with monster after monster, they began to speculate that my goal was to execute them¹. It wasn’t. But I can see how they believed otherwise. Just when they thought I was done, I began to skritch my fingers on the table as I revealed not one but four giant spiders skittering down the pillars at the edges of the room. It was at this point that I was informed we were out of “Baddie” markers for the tracker. So, we improvised, and used the NPC markers, instead.

I’ll be honest, by the end of the combat, I thought I had wiped the party. Four of the seven players went down and one crit-failed a death save she rolled just after the cleric announced he would cast Spare the Dying on her. Had he been one second slower, Hillie Odillie, halfling bard of the Forgotten Realms, would have been no more. Fortunately, the druid soaked up a dragon’s share of damage in her bear form and delivered several gargantuan attacks to the giant spiders. While the bugbears may have beaten down most of the party, the cleric and paladin managed to put them down. In the end, even an invisible Nezznar succumbed to a deadly arrow from the ranger (before a spider munched on his tasty, tasty Aasimar blood).

Dragging the unconscious almost-corpses of their friends to a nearby room and discovering that it housed an imprisoned Nundro Rockseeker (one of the quest objectives of the mine) they closed and locked the door, then prepared for a (hopeful) rest. Will I let them sleep? Only time will tell². But you can bet your bardic inspiration that I’m going to take great joy in scheming… err… crafting their encounters from here on out.

¹ I must admit, I do threaten them a lot, but I’m simply not the stereotypical DM out to murder players. I want to tell an engaging story in a collaborative manner and care deeply about ensuring the challenges feel real.

² Spoiler alert: I won’t.

There are days I wish I could go home again, even if Iâ€m already here.

Me: “His girlfriendâ€s gonna be in that meeting.”

Wife (after a brief pause): “His ‘bodily playmate’.”

Once I managed to stop laughing, I said.

Me: “I’m going to change your nickname in my phone to ‘bodily playmate’.”

She is so quick-witted she slays me.

One of the greatest struggles of any D&D campaign, however, is scheduling. With five players and a DM/father to four children, trying to align schedules can be akin to befriending a beholder. Especially during the holidays. After more than a month with no opportunities to play together, we managed to lay our schedules upon the altar of good fortune in a runic pattern capable of opening a gateway to Toril in the Prime Material Plane so that my adventurers could continue their journey. Alas, it was not to be.

Our Druid managed to injure her back and apparently the D&D books don’t actually give you magical powers, despite everything I was told as a child. As such, healing her was not an option and we decided to find an alternate activity for the evening.

Luckily, my cousin (one of my players) decided he would run a one-off campaign for the rest of us. We quickly rolled up a few characters (or grabbed a pre-gen from Wizards’ website) and dove into an Adventurer’s League campaign for a night of mayhem.

One of my favorite aspects of D&D is the collaborative nature of the experience. While the Dungeon Master sets out to guide the players on a journey with delineated plot points, adventure hooks, and designated goals, once the game starts it becomes a joint effort to tell the story. Players often find ways to alter the course of the adventure and force the DM to think on his or her feet. In this particular instance, while being mobbed by a swarm of miniaturized goblins, I decided to keep one as a pet by shoving it in my bags. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that its curse would soon wear off and he would restore to full size. In an effort to keep my new companion, I asked the DM if I could determine the nature of the curse and make it permanent. While explicitly stated within the pages of the adventure that the curse would wear off in time, my cousin let me put the goblin in a confined space and make a Strength check (a die roll with my character’s Strength used to add a bonus on top of that roll) to keep the goblin compressed when the curse wore off, preventing him from returning to full size. My new companion, Pocket the Goblin, gets to travel with me on my journey, all because the DM decided to “Yes, and” instead of “No, but”.

In the end, my character’s choices won’t bear much significance, as our next session will return us to our regularly scheduled campaign. But I still had a blast playing again and have some great ideas for future encounters for my players, thanks to my brief stint as an adventurer. I’m looking forward to digging out the Dwarven Warlock, Thu’udin Hjalgrim, for his next excursion, whatever it may be. He was a lot of fun to play, and I hope his future journeys are filled with laughter in the face of darkness.

Marriage isn’t a straight line. It’s a circuitous path, circling back on itself in a fashion that must appear to be a strange doodle when viewed from above. But within that path are intersections where the struggles meet the successes and that is where the greatest moments of a marriage are born.

Eleven is an auspicious number. Celebrations of tenth anniversaries are as common as they come. The number 12 has a special place in my heart, but eleven is the first double-digit prime. It’s also an incredible visual representation of marriage. The two individuals (both the numeral 1) becoming a single entity, the number 11. I am so grateful that my “other number 1” in life is my wife Autumn. I could not have asked for a better partner in crime. I am well and truly blessed today.

I love you, babe. Here’s to 11 more years.

Quiet

Waiting

Full, but empty without you
Our final piece
The familial puzzle nearly complete
The picture on the box finally visible

We wait

I gulp the remaining life from my mug
I watch the shadows play across the room
The marching band, in the distance,
Heralding your arrival
Unwitting messengers of fate

I listen for your knock at the door
The telltale struggle to enter

Still I wait
In silence
But soon
Soon

I wait

It’s important to note, my son has never heard this song. But he now associates all music from the ’70s with the Guardians of the Galaxy. As such, as soon as that sweet, soul music started to play, he knew what characters were about to make an appearance.

Well done, Marvel.

It’s phenomenal, and I have clients that use it as an alternative to Acrobat Reader. You can get a free trial to check it out before purchasing, to make sure it will do the things you need to do (since it’s obviously not as feature-rich as Acrobat). The iOS version of the app is NOT on sale, but it’s also a fantastic app that I’ve been using for years. Definitely give it a look, as well.

No details on when the deal will expire, so I’d hop on this one as soon as possible. Plus, while you’ve got the DIRECTV NOW service, you can start using it right away on the iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire, or FireTV app to see if you’re interested in keeping the service. If you don’t want it, go ahead and cancel once you receive your Apple TV.

Thanks to The Loop for the heads-up on this great deal.

If that’s not obvious for you, then click here.

If you’re too lazy to translate, though, then I suppose you can just keep reading.

Keep scrolling, it’s further down.

It spells “pregnant”.

As in, we are. Well, Autumn is. But I’m the one that has to do all the work for the next six months, so I’m going to double-down on that “we”. She just has to grow a baby. I have to feed her and bring her things and bathe her and all that.

Well, maybe not bathe.

Maybe.

Anyway, that’s our news. It’s a thing. If you care about that sort of thing, you can wish her congratulations. I am accepting donations for my therapy bill. Whiskey in lieu of cash is doubly appreciated.

WARNING: VULGARITY AHEAD (not profanity, I mean actual vulgar language; you’ve been warned)

“Dude, I found two holes in the wall of your cockpit. What’s that all about?”

‘Oh, that. One of those is my glory hole. The other is my gloriole.’

“What the fucking what?”

‘Yeah. You put your dick in one and the ship’s AI gives you a blowie. It’s awesome.’

“And the other?”

‘Exposes it to pure Traveler’s Light.’

“Which is better?”

‘The glory hole. But if you put your dick in the gloriole, it glows in the dark for a week. And if you fuck a Vex with it, they explode.’

I’m so grateful that I got to enjoy Dad’s music. It heavily informed what I would grow to love as a teenager, a young adult, and then later, a father.

When the iPhone was first announced, the Apple faithful (which included pretty much everyone with whom I worked, since I worked at an Apple Store) were reasonably excited. Very, very excited. We were like kids waiting for Santa Jobs to bring us a Buddha’s Day present (I know that’s not a thing). Shortly after the announcement, my wife sent Steve an email, asking him to please not have the release of the iPhone on our wedding day, that October. I like to believe he listened to her.

Regardless, the day came on June 29th, and we were all bouncing off the walls. We closed the store so we could unbox the new toy, put it out on display, and (for the Genius team and a few others) play with a couple so that we could answer questions about them. One decade ago, today, was the first time I ever dropped an iPhone.

The well-worn shirt I wore, leading up to launch day.

I was turning it over in my hand, marveling at how the engineers had managed to compress a computer more powerful than the original Mac into such a small form factor (compare it to today’s iPhone, and the original is so fat). It slipped through my fingers, hit the floor, and slid to the center of the room. Everyone in the Genius Room got really quiet and looked first at the iPhone lying face down on the concrete, and then at me. I walked over to the nearly $1000 pocket computer and reached down to pick it up.

I fully expected the glass to be shattered, as I flipped it over. I was more than a little relieved to find there was nary a scratch on it. I gladly passed the device to someone else, thankful I didn’t have to explain that one to a manager.

We opened the door a couple hours later and the crowds rushed in to pick up their own. We sold and sold until we were all physically exhausted, but still mentally wired. It would still be some time before any of us got to take one home for our own, but we didn’t care. We had experienced the launch of a product that would rival the Mac in its importance to pushing technology forward. It’s a day I will never forget, not only because of my new technological friend, but because of all the human ones with whom I got to experience its birth.

SaveSave

My daughter came outside to see the grill and to take a few selfies, because that’s what you do when you’re the father of a five year-old in 2017. We had some smiles and made some silly faces. She kissed me on the cheek and went back inside. On her way in, I could hear her humming The Imperial March.

This is shaping up to be a beautiful summer.

SaveSave

“Grunge is dead,” he said to me.

“What?” I replied.

“Soundgarden broke up,” he explained. “Grunge is dead.”

Twenty years later, he got one step closer to being right.

As I’m sure most of you are aware by now, Chris Cornell died today.

Twenty years ago, one of my best friends in the world reminded me of the importance of a band like Soundgarden and its frontman. That same friend saw him this past Sunday, in concert, in Kansas City. I found out about the concert too late to attend and missed it. I feel like I might regret that for some time. My devotion to music as a medium has wavered, in the last few years. It has become more and more difficult for me to listen, simply due to work and having a shitty car with a shitty stereo (podcasts played off my phone sound great, but music doesn’t have the impact it should). As a result, I missed a lot of great music in the last 5 years or so.

Today, I pulled out my headphones, plugged them in, and let the music flow. I discovered entire albums I’d never heard and enjoyed lyrics from one of the great poets of our time, stretched across that unique vocal range Cornell had. It was wonderful. I listened to old favorites and fantastic covers and new works that proved that neither age, depression, nor drugs had dulled the mind of one of the greatest of greats of my childhood.

Cobain. Staley. Weiland. And now, Cornell.

Stay strong, Eddie. We need you now, more than ever. Someone needs to pass the torch to the next generation, before it’s dropped and lost forever.

After, she mentioned that she wasn’t sure if she should feel comforted or disturbed. So, not one to let such conflicting emotions leave so vexatious a feeling upon her mind, I invented a new emotion that combined the two. Using this quote by John Kenneth Galbraith, I fittingly appropriated his name:

galbraith
transitive verb  |  gal·braith  |  \’gal- brāth\
1. to instill a sense of simultaneous comfort and discomfort • “Her surprise visit to find me at this secluded cabin that I never told her about has me very galbraithed.”

Anyway, I don’t know that it will catch on. But I’m keeping it here, just in case future generations want to know the etymology of the word that best describes the comfortably familiar hellscape they live in after we’ve gone.

Why is this security measure important? Well, aside from attackers having access to potentially private information stored in your account, iCloud contains a security measure that allows you to remotely erase your iPhones, iPads, and Macs if they are ever lost or stolen. This feature is called Find My iPhone (or iPad or Mac). If your account has been compromised, and Find My iPhone is enabled on any of your stuff, then your devices can be wiped remotely, against your will. This is what the hackers have reportedly claimed to do if Apple does not pay their ransom by April 7th.

News flash: Apple will not pay the ransom.

So, for your protection, I suggest following these steps to allow you to keep your accounts and devices safe. Because no one wants lose all the pictures of their food they’ve taken for the last 10 years. I stole these instructions from Apple’s own support pages, so if you feel like you need more details on these, check out the original links by clicking on the links below.

1. Sign in to your Apple ID account page.
2. In the Security section, click Change Password.
3. Enter your current password, then enter a new password and confirm the new password.
4. Click Change Password.
5. Sign in with your new Apple ID password to access Apple features and services.

Two-factor authentication is currently available to iCloud users with at least one device that’s using iOS 9 or OS X El Capitan or later. Learn more.

You can follow the steps below to turn on two-factor authentication.

On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 9 or later:

1. Go to Settings > iCloud > tap your Apple ID.
2. Tap Password & Security.
3. Tap Turn on Two-Factor Authentication.

On your Mac with OS X El Capitan or later:

1. Go to Apple () menu > System Preferences > iCloud > Account Details.
2. Click Security.
3. Click Turn on Two-Factor Authentication.

If you already use two-step verification, turn it off, then turn on two-factor authentication.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204915

That’s it. Hopefully, everything will work smoothly and you can move on with your life, stress-free. If not, give Apple a call and they can help you ensure that Two-Factor Authentication is enabled, as well as confirming that the only devices confirmed with your account are those you own and trust.

Infinity Blade – $0.99

Infinity Blade II – $0.99

Infinity Blade III – $0.99

Waking Mars – $0.99

Transistor – $2.99

Don’t Starve: Pocket Edition – $2.99

Prune – $2.99

Attack the Light – Steven Universe Light RPG – FREE!

Space Age: A Cosmic Adventure – $0.99

868-HACK – $2.99

Banner Saga – $4.99

Tales From Deep Space – $1.99

Til Morning’s Light – $1.99

Lost Within – $1.99

The Martian: Official Game – $0.99

Hitman Bundle (Hitman GO & Hitman: Sniper) – $0.99

Also, pretty much every Tin Man Games gamebook is on sale, so if you’re a fan of Gamebook Adventures or Fighting Fantasy, you will probably find something to love here.

if some dæmon in love bewrayeth more woe,
what shall betiden of necessity make?

till thou com’st home, thy sweet voice afar confounds me.​
— Written with assistance from the Creative Writer keyboard app for iOS.

I’m quite enjoying this app. A friend of mine sent me one of her poems last week, and it was very beautiful—far more beautiful than my own, in afraid. I’ll have to ask her permission to share it.

Anyway, I performed edits to this one after it was finished, as some of the word choices I was given this time were the wrong tense or worked well if there was another word placed before it that had not been offered. The coolest thing, though, is how well it gets the mind turning. I could very easily see poems born entirely of this app by someone that knows not what they wish to write, but that discovers it upon looking at the words they have writ.

The above poem was written using Creative Writer, an iPhone app that replaces the keyboard with a list of words that are suggested based on context (kind of like iOS’s QuickType feature on steroids). Be sure and check it out.

Hello, reader!

Did you recently update to the latest version of Facebook on your fancy, schmancy iPhone only to discover that it plays annoying bleeps and bloops every time you do anything?
Well, talk about a first-world problem! There are kids starving in… somewhere. I forget where kids are starving these days. When I was a kid it was either India or China. But I’m pretty sure they’re starving elsewhere, too. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, you want your $800 pocket computer to just SHUT UP when you’re busy trying to see if the girl you had a crush on in high school is finally single so you can finally get up the courage to—oh, come on, who are you kidding? You’re not asking her out. You’re pathetic. But, hey. You still don’t need to broadcast to the room that you’re Facebooking when you’re supposed to be paying attention in the HR meeting that is only happening because you (once again) made inappropriate comments to the receptionist.

Dick.

Anyway, here’s how you turn it off. And since I know you barely read, I put the instructions in picture form. And made it all one picture, because I know how hard it is for you to click or tap on more than one without getting bored.

So, I found this pretty awesome website a couple months back, but never set aside the time to check it out. Itâ€s a story written by William Boyd that is pretty fucking sweet. Sort of a paranoia thriller, it looks like. Iâ€m only through the first chapter.

Anyway, the website scrolls the text over background images and movies while itâ€s narrated by the main character. You can click on certain key words to get access to additional images and whatnot. Not all of them, but sometimes.

Of course, it was paid for by Land Rover, so one of the key words in the first chapter brought up photos people had posted to Twitter of their Land Rover with a certain hashtag. But other than that, itâ€s pretty awesome:

https://thevanishinggame.wellstoried.com

You can also pick it up for the Kindle or as an Audible book at Amazon for free.

Or, if you prefer, you can pick it up as an interactive iBook for the Mac or iPad.

Or just as a straight epub for iPhone.

The President’s Summer Playlist: Day

The President’s Summer Playlist: Night

Also, while you’re checking things out, you should check out my Redbubble and Society6 pages, where you can purchase prints, throw pillows, and even iPhone cases of my work.

There is currently a Flappy Bird-esque game on the App Store called The Legend of Zeldo: Lonk’s Awakening DX. No, that is not a typo. This is an actual game someone developed, because of reasons. It’s not terrible, as far as Flappy Bird clones go. It has a unique inventory system where you can collect items as you go which affect the game play (Pelican Boots let you dash ahead a short distance, Irony Boots increase the speed with which your character flies), which almost alleviates the frustration of the core gameplay conceit. Almost.

It’s free, though. And it will likely only exist for a short period of time before the developer receives a cease & desist (even though it is clearly parody and protected, the dev likely isn’t willing to pay a lawyer to prove that), so if you think it might even be slightly interesting, you should pick it up now before it’s gone forever.

Studio Neat released Highball, their latest iPhone app, today. It’s a cocktail app with an emphasis on sharing. As a result, recipes are designed around beautiful cards: visual recipes that are easy to parse and can be imported into the Highball app to save the recipe and even edit it to fit your own tastes.

To get a feel for the app, I went ahead and made my own Sazerac recipe, with a Kansas City twist. And yes, I know that KC is technically the City of Fountains. However, this recipe name rolls off the tongue much better.

Be sure to check out Highball – free on the App Store.

Enter Amazon Echo. By now, nearly everyone in America has access to some sort of smartphone or tablet that includes a virtual assistant. Whether it’s Siri, Cortana, or Google Now, users can simply speak or type a natural language request and receive desired results. Even devices that don’t come with a virtual assistant built-in can almost always install apps that provide some, if not all, of the same features. But, when your hands are otherwise occupied, getting your phone out to do some menial task can be aggravating. And while, yes, iPhones and Android devices are capable of listening for a “wake word” to trigger voice actions without pressing a button, the results are often hit or miss (and, at least on the iPhone, require it to be plugged in and charging).

When the Echo arrived, I was struck by how much smaller the box was than I expected. It had been some time since I watched the reveal video and had forgotten just how compact the device is. But I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the packaging. Amazon has really impressed me with their Apple-esque attention to packaging detail. When I purchased my Amazon Fire TV Stick, I noticed the same attention to detail for beautiful packaging. While I still think Apple does a better job of not wasting any space in their package design, I had to admit that unboxing the Echo was a very delightful process: something that has long-been Apple’s forte (almost exclusively so).

The Echo box bears a striking resemblance to the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The first thing I noticed, of course, when I set the box on the table and prepared to open it was how much it resembled the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey: a comparison that places no small amount of pressure on the contained device to assist its users in their technology-assisted evolution. I carefully removed the outer shell and laid the box flat to get a look at the subtly embossed product logo on the box.

Every picture from here on out will pale in comparison to the first. Like an echo.

And then I opened it up and was actually pleasantly surprised by what I found inside. The Echo was placed gently into a curved cradle that protruded from both the front and back (or top and bottom, depending on your preferred spacial orientation) of the box. Where many tech companies would have been content to just place the Echo in a recessed space, Amazon went the extra step to ensure that the front of the Echo was protected during transit. At this point, I took one last photo of the box and then proceeded to the fun times.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

The instructions in the box were incredibly simple and easy to follow, though they omit the ability to setup your Echo using a web browser on your Mac or PC, a feature worth noting for anyone wishing to use an Echo without one. I simply plugged the power outlet into the wall and then into the Echo, fired up the Echo app (which I had already downloaded on my phone as soon as it became available), and the app walked me through the setup process. The only part that wasn’t seamless was when I was required to connect my phone to the Wi-Fi network the Echo created to create the initial sync before telling the Echo to which wireless network it should connect. I have been spoiled by the use of Bluetooth to quickly pair and set up Apple TVs with your iPhone. But, this seems to be the most effective method for the setup of a device that needs to work with several different platforms, especially since the Bluetooth features of the Echo appear to be limited to streaming audio from a smartphone, tablet, or computer to the Echo’s speaker.

And then, just like that, the Echo was ready to use. The app walked me through several example queries and commands to get me comfortable with the device and then I was off and running. My children were enamored with her, though perhaps the most adorable moment was when my daughter tried to activate her by calling her Siri, rather than Alexa. A few more taps inside the app itself and I had paired my iHeartRadio account and set off a stream from a local radio station via TuneIn. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed to discover that there is not currently support for Audible content (though I have been informed by Amazon support that they are working hard to bring more audio sources to the Echo). My son has recently become quite persistent in his requests to listen to the Star Wars radio drama and I must admit that I would love the ability to stream them to the Echo while I’m working in the kitchen. Fortunately, a workaround exists: simply redirect the audio from your iPhone or other smart device to the Echo via Bluetooth. However, I have not yet had the opportunity to test it and see if Echo can remotely pause audio playing from a third-party device.

As with Siri, much of the fun of the Echo comes from trying to get her to respond in entertaining ways. For example, my son asked her to “Set phasers to kill,” to which she replied “That’s a feature for a later version!” The Echo also includes a voice training feature, which I’ve not yet tried. I am hoping that it can be used to improve understanding of my children, as they’ve not yet learned to articulate. However, she already does a remarkable job of recognizing my requests. In fact, the only issue I’ve had so far with the Echo is that I don’t know what else to do with it. It makes for an excellent Bluetooth speaker and Internet radio device. But, I hope for so much more.

One exciting feature of the Echo that I’m hoping gets better over time and with usage is the Flash Briefing. This particular feature is one of the key things I want from a digital assistant: the ability to quickly get brief news snippets, the weather, and other info about my upcoming day while I’m getting ready in the morning. Unfortunately, I was so tired this morning, I completely forgot to ask Alexa to give me one. I suppose I’ll just have to do it tomorrow. There are several other 1.0 features that I’m hoping to see get better in 1.1, 1.2, or even 2.0. For example, the Echo has the ability to set an alarm for you. However, there are no options for configuring alarm repetition (I would love to have an alarm that goes off every weekday, but not at all on weekends).

Part of me hopes that Amazon decides to go all out with the Echo and eventually allow you to sync it with an iCloud or Google calendar so that you can be notified of upcoming appointments, find out what the roads are like on the way to the movies or date night (currently, it can only give you information on your daily commute), or even schedule events for you. While Amazon may have their own ecosystem that they want you to use, it’s clear that the Fire Phone is never going to be popular enough for features like that to exist as an Amazon exclusive. But if the Echo can outdo Siri and Google Now in convenience and tie into their respective ecosystems slightly, they might be able to carve out a nice niche in the home before the battle for the smart home truly heats up.

The top of the Echo has a ring that adjusts volume, and has just the right amount of heft to feel awesome.

Until then, I’m happy with my Echo. As Amazon adds features, I hope to discover that I like it enough to have several in my home in different places for different purposes. I also look forward to the day when I can rename my Echo to Jarvis, give it a male voice with a stuffy, British accent, and ask it it power up my Mark IV armor. A man can dream, can he not?

If you squint just right, the top of it almost looks like a face.

No one can run forever.

I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly, waiting for the telltale click of the hammer-release, microseconds before darkness. But it didn’t come. I began to sweat.

No one should be forced to know their demise is imminent and then be made to wait. It is an unbearable torment to know your time on this plane has come to an end, yet listen to the ticking of the clock on the wall delaying the inevitable. This cancer in my mind gnawed at my sanity as the seconds slipped past.

Tick

I continued to exhale the remaining air from my lungs. Soon, I would need to take another breath. What a cruel fate to know that I might be interrupted by an ounce of hot lead caroming around inside my skull, tearing chunks of nervous tissue and compressing them into a useless pool of viscera.

Tock

I sucked in air. My calm was officially gone. I suppressed a scream of outrage at my treatment. To know that death had come to escort me hence and to stand, impatiently staring at my wristwatch while he chats up the receptionist was infuriating. Doesn’t he know that I have places to be? This isn’t his lunch break. He doesn’t get to decide my time has come and then push the appointment back by an hour!

Tick

I forcibly expelled all the air from my lungs again, this time refusing to draw another breath. If the gunman won’t pull the trigger, I’ll pass out from temporary asphyxiation. Then, at least, I won’t have to wait any longer for the finale. I can sleep right through it.

Tock

FUCK THIS, I’M THROUGH WAITI–

BLAM!

Deep within our linen fortress
We stand against the cold
Huddled together
Cupping dark roast blend within our fingers
Listening to the silence
Finding tranquil peace

The mountain air setting us free