By the third day of Gen Con, the fatigue is really starting to show for some folks. But for most, it's a happy sort of fatigue, a daze offset by the combined momentum and energy of tens of thousands of other people still meeting, gaming, exploring, and having fun.
We’ve got plenty of more coverage from today, but let’s go to the big topic first: without further ado (a phrase I have heard many times in the past few hours), I’ll give you your 2006 ENnie winners.
I know, I know...it's been nearly a week since I said that I would write about my trip to Wizard World Chicago on here. So enough of this waiting around shit...
Well, Day One of Gen Con Indy draws to a close, and what a day it was! We’ve got plenty of pictures (more of which will be added quite soon--don't worry we've got plenty more from today) to share with those of you who couldn’t quite make it (captions to come later), and a nice recap of the day’s events.
"When great thinkers think about problems, they start to see patterns. They look at the problem of people sending each other word-processor files, and then they look at the problem of people sending each other spreadsheets, and they realize that there's a general pattern: sending files. That's one level of abstraction already. Then they go up one more level: people send files, but web browsers also 'send' requests for web pages. And when you think about it, calling a method on an object is like sending a message to an object! It's the same thing again! Those are all sending operations, so our clever thinker invents a new, higher, broader abstraction called messaging, but now it's getting really vague and nobody really knows what they're talking about any more. Blah.
To those not in the know, Onigiri is a rice ball with some sort of goodie bundled up inside (in this case, Tuna Mayo) and then wrapped with a thin sheet of dried seaweed. The packages are cleverly designed so that the seaweed is kept separated from the rice until the red tab at the top is properly pulled down, allowing the seaweed to wrap around the rice ball in a crispy and delicious combination that you couldn’t dream of for less than 105 yen.
Pudding Parfait. We all know what pudding is, but do we all know what parfait is? According to wikipedia, there is American Parfait and French Parfait. This being Japan, it’s fair to say that it could have come from either one. But wait! Wikipedia has the answer there too! They say that Japanese parfait is essentially an ice cream sundae. Regardless, this one is just the right mix of sweet n’ smooth, with bits of cookies and cream mixed in, dollops of whipped cream on the top and chocolate swirled throughout, they definitely got it right on this one.
So what if it all goes to my thighs? I NEED IT! ...I can’t be sure but this doesn’t seem so seasonal, so it’s probably available year-round. Those of you who aren’t gonna be able to make your trip out to Japan until autumn or winter probably aren’t gonna be hurting if this one was high on your list of "must trys"
This claims to be Heidi of the Alps, but I’m pretty sure that’s Paul Bunyon over there on the left. I don’t really know what Heidi or Paul would have to do with selling drinkable yogurt, but nevertheless, there they are.
My gods, I have no idea where to begin.
Yes ... effective more-or-less immediately, Guardians Of Order has ceased operations.
First, an apology. I am terribly sorry that George Martin broke the news about our situation. That is certainly not how I wanted the information to be released, and I had thought that my frank conversation with him about A Game of Thrones-specific issues was in confidence. This is the second time now that someone other than me releases very important news about Guardians Of Order, which leaves me frantically trying to patch the holes. The polite and proper thing for me -- as President of the company -- to do would be to contact all of our creditors (which includes some great freelancers and industry associates) FIRST and explain the situation to them. I was working on that process when my efforts were derailed by one simple website post. So I am very sorry that someone else took it upon himself to release this information. It's not how I was proceeding to handle things.
But yes, the end result is the same. GoO is no longer.
This was a very sad decision that I had to make, but it wasn't really a difficult one when I took a long, hard look at the facts. The company simply accumulated too much debt, with little hope of paying it off within the next decade, and my recent plans to get the company back in shape didn't materialise. When I kept my emotions in check and simply analysed the facts of the company's financial forecast, the only course of action was very clear. There were a combination of factors that contributed to the ultimate inability of the company to maintain fiscal health (which I have outlined several times in other posts over the years) -- the extreme softening of the RPG sales market, the drastic shift in USD/CDN exchange rates, etc -- but external circumstances are not entirely to blame. Simply put, I did not have the business acumen to run the company profitably when the going got tough. I'm going to steal a John Nephew analogy for a brief explanation.
I've been driving down the gaming industry highway in my GoOmobile since 1997, with a coffee in the cup holder and a muffin on the passenger's seat. For many years of driving, the highway was a straight path with very little traffic on it. Consequently, if I swerved a little as I ate my breakfast while driving, it wasn't a big deal ... the situations on the road were very forgiving and it was easy to keep on driving. Unfortunately, when the road started getting very crowded around 2003 and started making many twists and turns, I didn't have the foresight to put down the coffee and muffin, place both hands firmly on the wheel, and pay very close attention to the road. I just kept on driving like before, assuming everything was the same. Ultimately, the GoOmobile swerved into the path of an incredibly powerful semi-truck called "Exchange Rate Fluxuation," causing a terrible wreck and writing off the vehicle.
I'm not making light of the situation, but I thought that John's analogy was a perfect fit. Running the company when things were peachy was easy, but I faltered when the going got tough. For my lack of knowledge and experience, I sincerely apologise to our many thousands of consumers and fans, our creditors and freelancers, and to my many friends who put their faith in my dream. I failed, and I'm sorry I couldn't do better.
So where does that leave things now? I don't have all the answers yet -- I was trying to line them up before making this announcement -- but here's what I can say at this time:
- BESM Third Edition is finished and ready for press. Another company will be publishing it and providing future support. It's the most elegant version of BESM and the Tri-Stat System that I have put together and am very proud of it. If you pre-ordered the book from us, more information will follow.
- Advanced d20 Magic is back from press and will be hitting stores in August. Customers who pre-ordered directly from us will be receiving their orders.
- We are still attempting to place the A Game of Thrones RPG with another company. Of course, this requires GRRM's approval and we are still working out details. AGOT is a fantastic game, and we will do our best to see it continued.
- All outstanding orders will be fulfilled. If we are unable to ship you the order for some reason, you will have the option of having a refund sent to you. We are no longer taking any orders directly from our web store.
- Our products will remain for sale as both print books and PDFs as long as the stores will carry them. We are arranging for our products to be transferred to another company. I have no information regarding their future publication.
- Our Tri-Stat/brand licenses remain in effect for as long as indicated in the contracts, and licensees may still publish products under the terms of such licenses. Obviously, the Magnum Opus imprint will cease to operate.
- Our creditors (which includes freelancers and friendly investors) will be contacted directly in the coming weeks. There is still much to do on this end, and I ask for your patience while we get things in order and communicate with you.
Some people have inquired about my personal future, so I'll be brief. I am leaving the gaming industry. I need to concentrate on recovering financially from the collapse of the company and on rebuilding the strength of my family, which unfortunately suffered over the past couple of years. I am now working as a real estate sales representative in Guelph, and find the work a refreshing change of pace. My health is great, my family is very understanding, and I look forward to what the future will hold.
There are so many people to whom I am grateful for all their help, advice, and support over our 9-year run. Please forgive me if I forget anyone:
- my wonderful wife, Karen, for ... well ... everything
- my parents for always giving me their best wishes and telling me how proud they are of my accomplishments
- Adam Jury, who stuck with the company and with me until the end
- Jesse Scoble, for sharing so very many awesome experiences under the guise of "work"
- Jeff Mackintosh, for accepting that job offer initiated in the Columbus bar
- David Pulver, for putting BESM 2e on the map
- Ryan Dancey, for always being just a phone call away; sweet, dude
- John Zinser, for showing and mentoring me in the Hard Way
- Cindy Rice, for befriending this little guy in New York many years ago
- John and Michelle Nephew, for keen insight, support, and friendship
- Alex Fennel, for working with this fellow foreigner for several years
- Joe Saul, for always shooting straight and giving me the US perspective
- Erick Wujcik, for giving me the opportunity to carry the torch, even if I couldn't follow through
- Derek, who offered to help an old friend in need
- Andy, Todd, Jules, Lindsey, Ken, John, and Lowell for lending a helping hand
- Steve, for helping make deals happen
- The Hero Games crew, for making advertising a lot of fun
- Marcelo Figueroa, for his eternal offers of assistance; and of course
- our customers, fans, and supporters -- without whom running Guardians Of Order would have been impossible. You have my sincerest gratitude.
Hello and goodbye, as always.
Mark C. MacKinnon
President, Guardians Of Order, Inc.
Guelph, Ontario
July 31st, 2006
Okay, following up on 'The 'bad' gamers', a couple of posts back, I've got my own opinion. For those pointing to 'catpissmen', I left those out on purpose. Don't worry, we'll get to them later.
It's my opinion, based on my own experience, that people stick around in gaming and as gamers for a number of reasons that are not actually tied to playing RPGs. Some of these are neither good nor bad for the hobby - people that collect and read RPGs, people that just like tinkering with stuff, people with kids that just don't have time, and so on. I have no problem with these people; they've got a hobby that's strapped to mine at the hip. I also believe that we do have a few outright cranks; not so many as people like to say we do, but some.
Gun-slinging females, some sporting fake beards, have conducted four stickups in Jasper County in the past 11 weeks in what investigators are calling an unusual, baffling crime spree.
The robberies started May 5 when a white woman wearing sunglasses, a cowboy hat and fake facial hair held up the Conoco gas station in the Brookshire Brothers' parking lot in Jasper, detectives said.
Jasper Police Detective Gerald Hall said the woman took $3,500 after she raised her shirt and flashed a handgun stuffed in the waistline of her pants.
'She was trying to look like a man,' Hall said.
It's literary legend, how Jack Kerouac wrote his breakthrough novel On the Road in a three-week frenzy of creativity in spring 1951, typing the story without paragraphs or page breaks onto a 119-foot scroll of nearly translucent paper.[via Boing Boing]
In fact, the Lowell native revised the book many times before it was published six years later, and while the scroll came to symbolize the spontaneity of the Beat Generation, the early, unedited version of the novel never reached the public.
Now, in time to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the novel's publication, the version of On the Road that Kerouac wrote on the scroll will be published next year in book form for the first time, said John Sampas of Lowell, the executor of the writer's literary estate and the brother of his third wife, Stella. It will include some sections that had been cut from the novel because of references to sex or drugs.
I regret to announce that Guardians of Order, the Canadian games company that issued the GAME OF THRONES role-playing game last fall, is closing its doors and going out of business.
Although the GoO website remains open and there is some fan activity on the message boards there, it would appear that orders are no longer being fulfilled and emails to Guardians itself are going unaswered. The company's office has been vacated, and the company phone has been disconnected, When I finally reached GoO's owner and president Mark MacKinnon last week, he confirmed what many had come to suspect -- that he is shutting down operations. MacKinnon is presently attempting to place some of GoO's games with other companies.
I am not privy to all of the details of how and why Guardians is going under, but I do know the company's finances were very badly affected by the decline in the value of the American dollar against the Canadian dollar. Most of GoO's sales were in the United States, so a weaker dollar meant less money coming in. The massive and gorgeous GAME OF THRONES role-playing book, four years in the making, was finally released last November (for details, see the news stories in my archives) and appears to have sold quite well, but its success proved too little and too late to save Guardians of Order.
I am presently attempting to work out some sort of settlement with Guardians that would allow the RPG to continue with another company, but at this writing the future of the game (if any) remains unresolved.
Ironically, this announcement comes just as the GAME OF THRONES RPG has been nominated for four 'ENie' awards as one of the best games of 2005. The game has been nominated in the categories of Best Production Values, Best d20/ OGL Product, Best Product, and Best Game. If you're a fan of the game and would like to cast a ballot, voting is open until July 30 at http://www.enworld.org/ennies/voting.php
Comment by Meister Cockstrike — July 29, 2006 @ 1:00 am
Oh yeah, "cjh". Cute, even better.
"Hey, this one guy’s blog post reminds me of X. I really hate X. All participants of X are pretentious whiny gasbags. F***ing makes me sick, that X. X folks are always putting us down, the way they say "we don’t get it". X totally pisses me off"
(psssst: This Blog is Not X, Doesn’t Say X, has NOTHING to do with X, so nice f***ing tangent that has nothing to do with f***ing anything)
I am tired of the preening. I am tired of the self-aggrandizing attacks against those who "Don’t get it."
Nice, gasbag. Keep banging that drum about X. When you come to your senses after you’re done jerking off, might want to read this journal post again, and how like he says nothing that you’re implying. No "don’t get it's", no "you’re deluding yourselves", none of that s***.
Way to build a strawman out of his own baggage.
BTW, this is the same guy who keeps jamming up craft threads on RPGNet, saying "I’m a *great* GM. I don’t need advice or rules to help me run my games, and therefore nobody else should either". Whatever.
There’s nothing to read over there; If I want to watch people see s***, then go off on that sh** because it "reminds them of X, and I f***ing hate X", I’ll go to f****ing Stormfront and read the real retards do it with style.
Fantasy novelist David Gemmell, best known for stories such as Legend and Waylander, has died at the age of 57.
Gemmell had heart bypass surgery two weeks ago and appeared to be making a good recovery, according to his publisher Transworld.
Then what on earth makes you think that roleplaying games will ever be as popular as they were in the 80's?!?
Let's get this out on the table: D&D was a fad in the mid-eighties. Nothing more, nothing less. Like any other fad a handful of social misfits continued to hold it near and dear to their hearts long after the rest of the world stopped caring. You and I are those rejects. And our beloved hobby will almost assuredly never reach the heights it did back in the day. Just get over it, please! Don't attempt to position RPGs in the mainstream. They were already there and the mainstream world moved on.
We’re making something good, you dig? It’s like the fucking Beats (with less serious drug problems) or Parisian Bohemians circa 1890. We’re making something new, something that changes the way people see. We’re making art and the art is good.
While Dubuffet's term is quite specific, the English term "Outsider Art" is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or Naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as Outsider Artists have little or no contact with the institutions of the mainstream art world and they often employ unique materials or fabrication techniques. Much Outsider Art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds. Since 2000 the EUWARD, the European Award for painting and graphic arts by mentally handicapped artists, is providing this art with an international forum.
Outsider Art has emerged as a successful art marketing category (an annual Outsider Art Fair has taken place in New York since 1992); thus the term is sometimes misapplied as a catch-all marketing label for art created by people outside the "art world" mainstream, regardless of their circumstances or the content of their work.
Geek activism has not taken off yet, but it should. With the gamers recognizing the need for a louder voice, EFF gaining momentum and Linux taking on the mainstream on the one hand and recent severe losses in privacy, freedom of speech and intellectual property rights on the other, now seems to be the best time to rally around the cause.
Geeks are not known to be political or highly vocal (outside of our own circles)- this must change if we want things to improve. So here is my list of things people of all shapes, sizes and sides of the debate need to know. Some of these are obvious, others may not be meant for you. But hopefully, some of these will inspire you to do the right thing and others will help you frame the next discussion, debate or argument you have on these topics.
- Reclaim the term ‘hacker’. If you tinker with electronics, you are a hacker. If you use things in more ways than intended by the manufacturer, you are a hacker. If you build things out of strange, unexpected parts, you are a hacker. Reclaim the term.
- Violating a license agreement is not theft.
- All corporations are not on your side.
- Keep in touch with everyone you can vote for and make sure you know where they stand on the issues you care about.
- More importantly, make sure they know where you stand on the issues you care about.
- Everything will enter the public domain some day- even Mickey Mouse.
An anatomically correct gargoyle outside a suburban West Palm Beach strip club has been a moving target of intrigue for county officials who've been snapping photos, debating the creature's artistic merits and commenting on its proportionality.
"Harold," a 1,200-pound, 7-foot-tall statue made of hardened clay, is a fanged, winged creature with a long tail.
T's Lounge owner Gary Odle has moved his 7-foot statue, called Harold, to different spots to allay county concerns.
But they're not the anatomical features getting all the attention and causing T's Lounge owner Gary Odle to move the gargoyle again and again around his property to allay the concerns of county oglers.
