Personal Matters, Several Books, and My Usual Plethora of Mini-Reviews

Here we go, another week has come to pass. The upcoming week is going to be hectic for me for several reasons.

First I have to deal with inventory on both Thursday and Friday night. That’s going to mean 12 hour days both days. I should have booked the time off months ago. I guess it’s not a big deal though, it’ll end up being an extra day on my paycheck.

Then Saturday morning I drive to Edmonton for the Edmonton Comic and Entertainment expo. I won’t be spending much in the way of money while I’m there, but I do hope my niece and nephew will enjoy the day. I’m taking both with me, and this should be the first time they have ever had a chance to experience such an event, even if just for a single day.

Then Sunday I will be going to see my favorite comedian, Gabriel Iglesias, AKA Fluffy. I saw him about two years ago when he first came to Calgary so I’m really looking forward to seeing him again, and seeing some new material!

That’s just the first half.

Now I have learned that I will be running the Kung Fu studio probably for at least the next nine months, as my Sifu and friend will be heading to China for that length of time. My son will be helping, but this is rather daunting to say the very least.

I just hope that everything will run smooth and by the numbers while he’s gone. The downside is no one will be getting a belt test during that time, and I don’t know how the students are going to take that.

Probably going to lose a few, that’s my guess.

Anyhow, it’s daunting and I never wanted my own studio, but no matter what, I’m in charge. Gotta do my very best!

The harvesting book is almost finished. I have given myself a deadline of the end of the month, and it is doable.

Good news is that issue 51 of Wisdom from the Wastelands is coming out by the beginning of October! The book (and it is a book, it’s no longer a short E-zine) is the first and we’re aiming to have an issue out every month. We wanted to have this back in April / May but things were too hectic.

This one is all about animal and plant genotypes, what originally started out as options for the never to be written or published Advanced Mutant Future (at least from me!), and it was too large for an issue of Wisdom from the Wastelands, but with the new format, it’s perfect!

What is this issue? It takes all the basic animal and plants and has stat modifiers, natural attacks, ‘mutations’ and so forth, and a few rules that allow ML’s and players to choose a type of animal or plant for their character and actually have an idea what can be played and done with that creature.

I’m quite certain that the next issue will be my nanotech undead, but don’t quote me on that. I’m guessing it will be issue 53. Issue 52 should be from my co-author Derek Holland and no I have not a clue what it is going to be about!

This week on D-Infinity live the guys talked about controversial topics in RPG’s, and it just so happens that Michael Varhola had been dealing with controversy due to a series of 4 articles he wrote on H. P. Lovecraft.

To be honest, several of the comments were pretty damn rude and unpleasant. They’re dickheads, immature pricks who cannot handle different opinions or another take on the author.

Christ on a crutch, get a god-damned life you pathetic losers!

Onto more pleasant things… I posted another pair of new critters on Monday, having gotten back to my usual schedule. I posted the Cerberdragon and the Lost Dweller. Two more have been written up and are ready for posting tomorrow morning.

This week I finished off three books. Book 3 of the Wayward Pines trilogy called ‘The last Town’. The Television show really did deviate a great deal from the trilogy, especially the ending of the novel. I really hope that Mr. Crouch ends up writing more.

Also over the past few months I have been going through ‘Dangerous Women’, an anthology of short stories from various authors about the fairer sex, who can be incredibly deadly. Most of the stories I enjoyed, there was one I couldn’t finish due to content, and a couple that were just dull, but for the most part I enjoyed the stories.

Finally I finished a novel called Rogue by Michael Z Williamson. It’s a story of a Special Forces operative who is responsible for the deaths of billions during the war against Earth. He has retired and would have long ago taken his own life if it wasn’t for a daughter. He is called back to hunt down one of his former comrades at arms who has taken to a life of assassination. Overall, not a bad book. The one thing that bugged the hell out of me is I discovered after I was about halfway through the novel it was the sixth in a series of 7.

Oops.

I had a chance to sit down and watch a DVD this weekend, a little horror movie called ‘Extinction’ starring Matthew Fox. It’s a movie about the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, in which the undead seem to have disappeared after a long and extended winter. It turns out they haven’t. I found it light on action, little gore, and a lot of drama. It wasn’t a bad movie, it wasn’t the greatest, but it was worth my time to watch.

Expect the creatures to be written up and posted on the site in the future.  

Oh my fellow author Derek Holland wrote a little blog about fear and horror in RPGs and how they could be used to make a game more intense. Well, as it turns out someone has written a supplement covering just that… it’s called Horrific Fears. Check it out if such a thing would be of interest to you in your Pathfinder game!

Finally Chapter 36 of Buck Who? Was posted on Friday. I hope to have 35 up as usual this week, but with having to pull overtime...

And that’s it folks. As always, please follow me on Twitter and give my personal author Facebook page a like!

Only 13 Weeks until ‘The Force Awakens!’