I am in a state of stunned disbelief. A bit of news has crept up on me from the vast buzzing of the interwebs. This news is arcane and oddball, like so much of the info soup out there, but it has seeped inside me and found some long-forgotten place of joy and excitement - and killed it. Gary Gygax, the mastermind behind Dungeons and Dragons, has died. Geekboy enough for ya? Well, it gets worse. I not only spent countless hours playing D&D - I did it by myself. I was both Dungeon Master and Players. I designed vast worlds and complicated labyrinths, drawing up countless maps on graph paper and populating them with creatures both good and evil. I then rolled up character after character to explore these lands and live these stories - those games are still some of the strongest and most engaging memories I have from my youth. But it wasn't all just play. Profound lessons can be learned when you play god and mortal both. Characters I had nurtured for months could be slain by one bad roll, and I was the one with the power to change that outcome. But there in the Dungeon Master's Guide, Gary Gygax had written more than just the instructions for how to play the game - there was a tone to the underlying scheme that encouraged the rational analysis of ethics. I feel that D&D, like all great fiction - especially fantasy and science fiction - is a metaphor, a sign pointing the way to truths that are beyond the storyline. So much important learning and interaction is scoffed at by the mainstream because it is couched in the "uncool". So simple a thing for a man to do as to invent a game - but that game can hold the key to a deeper understanding of life itself. A belated, unheard, and ultimately useless:
Thank You, Gary.

Tags: Quality

I am slowly, inexorably being driven insane. How can something as simple as a truncated, oblong pyramid be so damn hard to model? Oh, sure, it could be the .001 tolerance I'm dealing with or the fact that everything is -just- a few degrees off the cartesian planes - or even the fact that I'm just too goddamn picky - but how many days are acceptably wasted in the interest of just offsetting one virtual 12 gauge sheet the thickness of another?

Tags: Doh!

"It was a fun experience, as I haven't done any smaller works like this, where client interaction is taking place just like on the bigger projects."

Is this the most poorly constructed sentence EVAR, or what? Sheesh. Sure, I could go back and just edit the post, but then all my fans would think I'm this perfect, god-like being who never fucks up - and we all know how boring that would be, don't we?

Tags: Doh!

I've been goofing around with some new themes in RapidWeaver. I really dig this one - it's by Elixir Graphics and called "Origami". Seems kinda apropos, with all the metal folding and stuff. Oh, yeah - to the three people on the planet who actually visit my site, I'm sorry for the lack of new posts. Hopefully I'll have the time to work up something interesting. At some point. Maybe.

Tags: Doh!

Ok, RealMac Software has released an update to Rapidweaver. Looks like they got everything fixed.

Tags: Doh!

Please excuse the ugly, barely-legible nav bar up there - the software I use to do this website, Rapidweaver, has been updated to version 3.6, which isn't quite ready for prime time. Hopefully they'll get things sorted shortly.

Tags: Doh!

Finally got around to building Ren and me a new table. It's steel with a gray hammertone powder coat and cherry plywood top. The legs are removable. Turned out pretty nice. Toot. (That's the sound of me tooting my own horn.)

Tags: Furniture

I can't help it... sometimes I just gotta goof around. So I thought maybe it might be fun to share some of the silly stuff I make. Check out adoodadaday. (Edit: I took down that blog. Just wasn't able to update it properly. Sorry about that.)

Tags: Doh!