How nature says "Do Not Touch"

This is a Buckmoth caterpillar, currently in season and prone to drop from oak trees. Touching it is more painful than you imagine due to its venomous spines.












(with apologies to Gary Larson)

Muse, where art thou?

Game Chef is due Monday night/Tuesday morning. So far, I haven't written or produced much.

My trend of aternating years of awesome continues, but I want to break it.

We bought rings

Hers is steel (tension-set trillian-cut cz) and mine is tungsten. From Bijou NOLA.

SCIENCE IS SEXY!

Loss

If someone stole your main computer, how doomed would you be?

A stranger would have your data; what could they do with it?

You would no longer have our data; could you get it back?

Game Chef

Gorsh has kindly reminded me that this year's Game Chef kicks off tomorrow.

The event has slipped my mind, even though Andy K shouted out an email last week or so. This year looks to have some interesting things for artists, so I'll be sure to let a few folks know.

I haven't roleplayed more than a handful of times since I've been home. I don't know where my muse is wrt game design. Probably having lunch with Maslow. Work blocks the Game Chef and Story-Games forums, and I'm not the most active member of the community. Last year, the quantity of participants turned the event into much more of a group event, with different people in different feedback groups to foster interaction; it worked swimmingly.

Right now, I'm going to take my last year's GC entry, brush off the dust, and read it. I welcome you to play it.

I'm tapping in for this year.

Left hand, meet right hand

Microsoft is incompetent. Specifically, their Xbox 360 repair division has no idea that things happen. At all.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Timeline:

• I acquire a 360 that's giving three lights on the Red Ring of Death.
• I poke at it for a few weeks and finally submit a repair request to Microsoft.
• A few days later, I receive a box to ship the console off to Mesquite, Texas.
• They get the box in a couple of days.
• They send me a new/refurb/repaired console which arrives in a few more days. (I should've taken better notes, but I'm pretty sure they sent me a refurb instead of repairing the one I sent them.)
• I happily play for two days. (Not in a row, mom.)
• Today, I get an email telling me that they never received my console and will cancel my service request.

Does this make sense in any context other than sloppy procedures on the back end?

P.S.: For those of you who find this post many moons down the road searching for "Red Ring of Death," know that the MSKB doesn't tell you the nature of such a hardware failure, but some research led me to believe that I had an AV failure of some kind, so try fiddling with your cable first.

TOMMY at NOCCA

NOCCA's doing The Who's Tommy next weekend, April 9th through the 12th. You should go.

We've got a genuine The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard pinball machine, too. Yes, actual and real physics-loving pinball.

Gmail Custom Time

If you're in the cool kids' club, you might see an invite to the new Gmail Custom Time beta.

This is way cooler than paper, and — Dare I say it? — cooler than the moon.