Ah my first blog of 2015.

Will it be special? Will it be groundbreaking in any manner?

Not at all.

Just more of the same, me talking about my various projects and potential projects that may or may not come to fruition.

So what did the first few days of 2015 hold for me? Illness! Well, essentially a carryover from my Christmas week illness.

Now it’s pure congestion and a painful cough, but otherwise I feel pretty good. Go figure.

I worked on a short story for a ‘niece’ of mine I say that because I’m not an actual uncle to her, but I am an honorary uncle. I’ll finish it this coming week and then begin work on the story for her brother.

My article on monk items for Labyrinth Lord is coming along nicely and should be finished fairly soon.

Once that is done then I have to get down to some serious work on the new and updated version of ‘Wisdom from the Wastelands’.

I hinted that changes were coming in my previous blogs but never came out and said what was going to take place.

Michael Varhola is changing the format. We’re going to 20 page issues and it’s coming out once per month. This means there will be a lot more to love.

And a lot more work for me to do.

Currently my editor has 5 issues on harvesting useful material from dead (or living) mutants, which I wrote when I was in the Philippines. I have been trying to figure out what else to write, so this is what I have come up with.

My seemingly never to be published mutations books are going to be used for this. I’m going to take all the rules that I came up with and publish them as one issue. That way I can simply start to post the mutations on Bookforge (if I can ever access it!).

I’m going to write up some simple rules covering skills. I had that idea many years ago and started a basic system, but dropped it. Time to go back and finish it.

I will also publish the rules covering animals and plants that I had wrote up for the core book that never will see the light of day.

Between those as well as equipment and so forth, I have plenty of material to write.

First and foremost though I need to finish my current monk item project, the two short stories and then get down to work on this stuff.

This week did not see as much reading or watching TV and movies. I just did not feel like it when it came right down to it.

Ah, who am I kidding… I spent most of the time playing ‘Alien: Isolation’. I’m little more than halfway through the game so I won’t put up a brief review until I’m finished. Maybe next week, maybe a couple of weeks from now.

Those of you who know me and follow my blogs and Facebook posts will know that I am a massive fan of the franchise, so this game is a real treat. I can say this without hesitation. It’s as scary as hell!

If you want white-knuckle, lets never give you a moment to breath kind of tension, then pick this up for whatever console system you prefer and play it.

I did pick up one RPG book for myself over the holiday season. It is called ‘Van Graaf’s Journal of Dragons’. It’s published through Mongoose publishing (they have some pretty good stuff, always have since 3^rd and 3.5 edition.

This book is for Pathfinder and details dragons, their territory, lairs, hoards, feats, life cycle and so forth. There are some new ideas in the book and even though dragons have been done to death over the decades, it’s still a pretty cool book!

By the way, since it’s a New Year many of you have made resolutions. I never make resolutions. I don’t resolve to never make a resolution. It’s just not my style. I just continue to live as I always have, day to day and do my best to enjoy life as much as possible.

Life can throw some pretty unpleasant curveballs at you, so the best thing to do is just deal with it as best you can.

And besides, most people never stick with resolutions, and I know I’m one of those who probably would fail so I don’t bother.

Another personal observation. I follow quite a few famous people on Facebook. One thing that I have noticed and I do wonder if it bugs the celebrities as much as it bugs me.

Why do fans always feel that they should put ‘quotes’ from the actor or actress’s timeline? That, or why the hell when someone makes a post, they have to put ‘first, second’?

At least if you have the urge to post a quote from an actor’s movie, try to get it right!  I have seen it happen several times where someone puts up a quote and gets it wrong.

It makes the person look like a twit!

One last observation.

I have seen a few people posting about getting horrible reviews. I’ve tried to read a couple of these reviews.

Trolls.

Pure and simple - people with small minds and smaller lives trying to bolster their pathetic lives by causing pain and misery.

Okay, it’s really simple. If you want anyone to take a review of yours seriously, trollish or not, follow a few simple rules.

Use proper punctuation. Even better, use actual paragraphs. Don’t take a 1000 word ‘review’ and make it one single paragraph.

Never use LOL in your review. It shows your maturity level and proves to other readers that you’re not writing  a serious review.

Also, the real kicker, know the difference between your, you’re, their, there, and so forth.

And never say ‘Twilight’ is well written.

Some people’s kids. Quite literally.

And on that note, I’m done for the week.

Happy New Year, stay warm, stay safe and stay happy!

Peace.