• Jonathan Walton’s Geiger Counter
• Orx, by Raven Daegmorgan
• Annie Rush’s Red Robot Red (redux)
• Greg Stolze’s A Dirty World
• the Zanfabulous Zorceror of Zo, by Chad Underkoffler
• Josh Roby’s Sons of Liberty,
• Seth Ben-Ezra’s A Flower For Mara (which we played the night before with Seth and Emily and company)
• Dirty Secrets, also by Seth
• and Eero Tuovinen’s edition of the Solar System rules (which power games such as The Shadow of Yesterday)

So, yeah. Last night was a pretty intense game of A Flower For Mara, followed by a much lighter, but still fun, playtest of Misery Bubblegum. Today there was more chatting and less playing, but I still managed to get in part of a Fae Noir session, and got in some good zombie fleeing and fighting on a cruise liner, using the Solar System rules and a bunch of customized Keys and Secrets for that. More hanging out and game design/theory talk after, and now it’s late again. More thoroughness on what went down, later.

• Eero Tuovinen’s Zombie Cinema
• Josh Roby’s Conquer the Horizon
• Clint Krause’s Roanoke
• Gregor Hutton’s 3:16 - Carnage Amongst The Stars
• Anna Kreider’s Thou Art But A Warrior
• Emily Care Boss’s Under My Skin
• Josh Newman’s Beowulf (based on Vincent Baker’s In A Wicked Age)
• Vincent Baker’s new edition of Poison’d
• The full release of Kevin Allen Jr.’s Sweet Agatha
• Things We Think About Games
• Jared Sorenson’s ashcan of DarkPages
• Clyde Rhoer’s Silence Keeps Me A Victim
• D. Marshall Burns’s The Rustbelt
• Danielle Lewon’s Kagematsu
• Darcy Burgess’s riveting (ha!) ashcan of Black Cadillacs
• Shreyas Sampat’s Mist-Robed Gate
• Ralph Mazza’s stunning ashcan of Blood Red Sands
• Robert Bohl’s Misspent Youth
• Nathan Russell’s Space Rat
• Tony Dowler’s How to Host a Dungeon
• and a new copy of Tribes from SJG, because I forgot mine, and it was five bucks.

These are all pretty rad in their own ways, which I will go into detail about when time permits. Played a game of 1930’s Inspectres with Graham and some folks, and now we’re off to get some dinner before buckling down for a proper night of gaming at the Embassy. Looking forward to what’s to come…

Here are a few things I am looking forward to seeing, buying, or playing, in no particular order:

• Zombie Cinema
• Maid RPG
• Geiger Counter
• Medical Hospital!
• In A Wicked Age
• Red Box Hack
• Don’t Rest Your Head
• Transantiago
• 3:16
• All the freaking ashcans
• All the sweet jeepform
• Playtesting, playtesting, playtesting
• Bliss Stage
• Poison’d
• Slag!
• Mouse Guard(?)
• Under My Skin
• Some sweet story game poems
• Tales of the Fisherman’s Wife
• How To Host A Dungeon
• Thou Art But A Warrior
• The Mist-Robed Gate
• Misspent Youth
• It’s Complicated
• Something Is Rotten
• Rumble
• Trollbabe
• NightTime Animals Save The World
• Best Friends
• Midnight hallway Werewolf!
• Any other awesome thing that anyone wants to swing my way
• And hey, board games. I think they have those there.

If you know me, and you’ll be there, email me at my last name at gmail dot com, and I’ll get you my number, and we’ll roll.

Coming soon to an improv stage near you.

Been doing well. Busy busy busy. New sweet job making games, still working out the new house situation, lots of awesome improv. More later when less busy.

Tonight is the second perfect awesome Texas summer night in a row. Kind of warm, but not hot, a little damp, with a stiff breeze to even it all out. You can drive with the windows down. I think one of the neighbors has jasmine or honeysuckle or some nice-smelling vine, which is like the sprinkles on the cupcake, but not the long skinny waxy ones that turn into a big clump of chewed brown crayon if you try to eat a whole bunch at once by themselves, I mean the little flat sugar ones that are usually pink and yellow and shaped like stars or hearts or something.

I think after I finish up the two books that I’m reading now, I’m going to start the long, slow slog through Infinite Jest with support from a couple of co-reading buddies. I figure if we read like five pages a day, we’ll be done in way less than a year, which is like a tenth of the time that I’ve actually owned the book and carted it around from one side of the country and back. This had better be worth it, Wallace.

Starting a new job! Full time, doing pretty much exactly what I want. Details will inevitably be recounted later, but I’m flying to Los Angeles next week to meet with movie studio people, writing up game design documents, and starting to wrangle a team of Flash and multi-user server developers in Argentina. Craziness, sudden craziness. So, I’ll be up all night finishing off work for my current gig, and waking up early to crank out documentation and getting remote people up to speed. I’ve been trying to eat better lately, but this might call for a midnight run to the 7-11 on the corner for donuts and a big coke slurpee to boost the motivation.

Improv has been kicking ass lately, too. Awesome rehearsal with the guys tonight, bringing cinema to the stage. Every week we manage to discover at least one technique that has boys jumping and fists pumping. Very much looking forward to putting some of this stuff to the boards in a live fire situation. Tomorrow is the first step in the direction of Start Trekkin’, as well, which will lead to even more fun.

This weekend, my buddy Phil and his new wife Yasuko will be visiting from Tokyo (by way of San Francisco), and then there will be trips to the Salt Lick and the Drafthouse and shows at the Hideout and game night and swimming and hanging out and whatnot. Haven’t seen Phil in a long time, and it will be good. But now, work work work. Slurp slurp slurp.

On the right side of my desk is a small trash can, with a few things in it. On the floor on the left side of my desk is a pile of junk mail, mis-printed sheets of cardstock, discarded packing materials, and other bits of detritus. I should seriously consider looking into moving my trash can to the other side of my desk.

Last night, after another awesome cinematic improv rehearsal and subsequent coffee and pie stop at Magnolia, I returned home to find a new projector and screen that I bought off a dude for a super duper used price. I watched a little bit of movie on it from my desk, and it’s very bright and awesome. I see movie nights happening in the near future, after the boxes are fully cleared away.

We’ve started a Basecamp for the new and old house projects. The one on Frazier is going on the market tomorrow, so if you’re looking for a sweet little house in a really good location, there’s one waiting for you.

Seriously. Buy it. We can’t do shit here until that thing is sold. Poppa needs a new roof.