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Below are the most recent 18 friends' journal entries.
| Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 |
drivingblind
|
9:42a |
Poblano Corn Chowder
Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there. This is an alternative version (though not much changed) of a recipe I found by “Mudflower” over on Recipezaar. I change a few methods here and there to make the preparation easier, and often make a one and a half times sized recipe, which just fills our ten quart pot (so you’ll want a reasonably large one even when making the regular amount). The soup that results is really damn good — spicy, for sure, but with a lot of flavor surrounding that heat, lots of nicely developed corn flavor.
You can look at the original recipe if you like at the link above, but I’m going to supply my take on it here, embellished by the experience of making it several times. Takes between 1 and 2 hours to get to the result, depending on how slow you are (I tend to be a bit slow). Enjoy!
Read the rest of this entry » |
| Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 |
drivingblind
|
1:39p |
Some Last Minute Gift Ideas
Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there. I tend to leave my Tuesdays and Thursdays blank on Deadly Fredly; it doesn’t look like I have it in me to post daily, at least not yet. Need to get those creaky-tired muscles operational again, and need to leave time for stuff that isn’t blogging. You know, the stuff that gets me paid. As such you’ll see me occasionally fill these days with really short posts-of-the-moment, while the Monday/Wednesday/Friday stuff gets some greater length and forethought.
Today I push two things at you that deserve your money, and which may well work as excellent, cheap, last minute gifts.
I’ll likely return to these subjects again in later posts, but for now, I’m focusing solely on putting them out there and getting your eyeballs on ‘em.
Jennifer Rodgers’ Etsy Store: Jennifer is one of my favorite people and a very talented artist. When it turned out that we wanted to go for color in the Dresden Files RPG instead of our original notions of a black and white book, Jennifer’s the first artist I thought of, and with good reason: she has an incredible eye for color, and her art trends towards the twisted, supernatural, and dark. All good things in my book, and she did not disappoint with the DF work. Her Etsy store features gift cards and the occasional print or other art object. Anyway: Give her your dollars, stat, via her store!
Josh Roby’s Rooksbridge: Josh has designed some great games that bang around in the “indie” scene — Full Light, Full Steam and Sons of Liberty to name two. But so what? He has clearly missed, and now hopefully found, his calling as a fiction writer. Rooksbridge is his venture into this, publishing a series of interlinked but free-standing short stories set in a fantasy world that’s a lot of dirt and politics and a little bit of magic. Sort of like an episodic fantasy TV show in text form. Really solid stuff. I’m still reading through the stories, but I was taken with the free-in-PDF story Dirty Work and I think you will be, too. (I’m less taken with the audio versions of the fiction so far but there’s a lot that goes into whether or not that presentation will click for an individual. For my taset I’d rather Josh focus on the text alone.) The rest of the Rooksbridge stories can be bought cheaply, which makes them perfect stocking stuffers in an age when stockings can be virtual and your friends and family are scattered all over creation. Take a few minutes to become part of the Rooksbridge audience — if not as a holiday present to you or family and friends, then as a present to Josh for the work he’s doing here. It’s worth noting (and perhaps legally mandated) that I mention that I got my hands on the Rooksbridge stories for free via Josh, but there’s no way in hell I’d be talking about them if they hadn’t punched my buttons. |
jenniferrodgers
|
11:58a |
Not a Word
Hey, internet, I'm pretty busy today. So here's a photo.  Photo by Rae Winters. Taken, after being inspired by a video-game, Saturday night after the street fair. Hundreds of photos were taken. There will be more posted later. For now, I've got lots of sketching to do and e-mails to write. Will catch up with comments and such tomorrow. :) |
| Monday, December 14th, 2009 |
drivingblind
|
6:24p |
THWR Episode 6
Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there. [1h 2m 5s] Fred and Chris catch up on the last three months, including the impending release of the Dresden Files RPG at Origins 2010 and Chris’s impotent rage about not getting to order Jeni’s Ice Creams for delivery. Then on to talk about how they won’t be picking up on last episode’s cliffhanger and instead focusing talking about VSCA’s approach to publishing with Diaspora (the good and the bad) and Games Workshop’s surprising attitude towards its fans.
MP3 download: http://media.libsyn.com/media/thatshowweroll/Thats_How_We_Roll_S2E6_-_Catchin.mp3
Episode Post: http://thatshowweroll.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=560092 |
evilhat
|
2:31p |
|
jenniferrodgers
|
10:50a |
Delightfully Frozen on 2nd Saturday
This past weekend, Rae Winters and I set up at a small street fair in Collingswood, NJ. It was part of the town's monthly "2nd Saturday" event. Although it wasn't terribly successful due to bitter cold, it was a lovely day and we can't wait to give it another shot during the warmer seasons.  Considering the cold weather, the highlight of the day was being located next to a cafe with a HOT CHOCOLATE BAR. I had gingerbread hot chocolate and it was amazing. We loved the town's atmosphere and can't wait to visit again. We were told that the 2nd Saturdays are wildly successful and fun in the spring and summer! Oh yes! We will be back! I won't lie though. We didn't last very long. If I didn't see you and you came out to say hello, I apologize. We packed up and left once fingers and toes lost all feeling. Not kidding! A big thank you to those of you we did see though! The company was very welcome! Afterward, we got gigantic burritos, played some Wii Silent Hill, watched Drag Me to Hell and ended up doing an unplanned experimental photo shoot. I don't know why, but we always do our best work together when it's late and we're exhausted. Bathrooms are usually involved. It makes no sense. I'll post some of those when I have them! :) Now, THAT was an excellent weekend. What have you been up to? ________________________________________ _ As always, my cards and mirrors shown in the photos are available at my Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/JenniferRodgersArtA selection of Rae's photo prints and cards are available on Etsy as well: http://www.etsy.com/shop/RaeWinters |
drivingblind
|
8:23a |
No Silent Fan
Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there. I’m a loud guy. This is mostly true in person, but completely true online. I talk about what I like a lot, and at volume. This blog is a part of that, but so’s Twitter and elsewhere. I do my best not to push my way into faces that aren’t looking to hear me run my yap, but those who do will find themselves hit with a big wall of text.
Looking at this from a completely mercenary perspective, being loud in this fashion is very much about establishing a presence and a “brand of me”. In the Internet Age, silence is equivalent to invisibility. You might be out there producing great things and doing interesting stuff, but if you aren’t talking about it, and if other people aren’t talking about it, it may as well not be happening. Audience is king.
But beyond the whole “I’m loud so I’m seen” thing, I’m also loud in service of the things I like and love. I’m loud so those things are seen, too.
Read the rest of this entry » |
| Friday, December 11th, 2009 |
drivingblind
|
9:13a |
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| Thursday, December 10th, 2009 |
jenniferrodgers
|
12:16p |
2nd Saturday in Collingswood
For those of you local to New Jersey: This weekend, I'll be participating in a 2nd Saturday event in Collingswood, NJ: http://www.secondsaturdaycollingswood.info/Christmas in a Classic Town - A night of holiday art, hot cocoa, carolers and cheer. Our classic town sparkles this time of year and is well known for that hometown holiday feel. We pair it with arts and music to make it even more special.  I'll be bringing my holiday cards and a few other wares and I'll definitely be there from 2pm to 5pm. Possibly later if that cocoa and carols business is as nice as it sounds. :) If you're in the area and this sounds like fun, please be sure to stop by and see me. I don't have location information yet, but I doubt I'll be too hard to find. |
| Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 |
jenniferrodgers
|
3:02p |
Untold Card art
Here are a few small card art pieces I did recently:  Steampunk gadgetry and such. These were created for the Untold RPG card game by Wandering Men Studios. Art © Wandering Men Studios. _______________________ In other news, I am very cranky because my beautiful Wacom tablet has finally died on me. Working without it is like trying to draw with my elbow. Technology breaks my heart. See you later, LJ. |
drivingblind
|
9:31a |
Chili
Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there. This is my Gamer Chili recipe — a modified version of one that Rob Donoghue (there he is again!) threw at me earlier this decade. It got the “Gamer Chili” moniker for being very easy to throw together the morning before a game, and with a big enough crock pot (I usually do a double batch, but my slow-cooker is pretty high capacity), it can easily feed a table of 6-8 hungry gamers. I may have posted it somewhere before, but it’s always good to get out there.
Read the rest of this entry » |
| Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 |
jenniferrodgers
|
11:36a |
Steampunk Game- Character Art
Woops, I missed posting something yesterday, so I'll post 2 pieces that go together today. Character art created for an independent Steampunk video-game:  These are part of a series of character illustrations I did to represent some of the playable cultures we had planned. They were created separately, but are meant to be grouped together in a variety of ways for poster art. They were done at the end. I have so much art from this job that I could show you, but it'll require a lot of sorting first. Note: This artwork is owned by the developers and I am posting this as an example of my work with permission. No funny business please. Thanks! _______________ Speaking of Steampunk, my Steamvites were featured in the "Steampunk Christmas" Gift Guide on the blog, Lotus's Workshop. Lots of other gift guides there too with links to unique and pretty things. I'm trying to support independent artists with my holiday shopping as much as I can manage this year and Etsy is always the first place I look. :) Sock Dreams and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab are in close second though. How about you? |
| Monday, December 7th, 2009 |
drivingblind
|
3:52p |
Farscape Sale
Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there. Farscape probably wins my award for the best science fiction series I’ve seen in the last couple decades. It doesn’t win this because its special effects are particular greater than any other show out there (sometimes they’re decidedly average), or because its actors are unusually talented (though they have some hefty chops). It’s because the stories and environment the show presented were so full freakin’ throttle. Farscape rarely bothered to slow down and explain itself. The premise flew up your nose at light speed, genuinely alien aliens landed on your face, and it never, ever turned a soft edge towards you on impact when it could smack you with something hard. As a GM, Farscape taught me how to go for the pain and for the fun at the same time, and how to get everyone’s pulse racing right out the gate and never let up. If you hear Rob talk about how I run a game, Farscape is how. If you leave the other side of a Don’t Rest Your Head game panting and frantic and exhausted and satisfied, it’s because I wrote that game to feel like I GM it, and I GM games so they feel like Farscape did.
Anyway.
The entire flippin’ series is on sale at Amazon right now for less than $60, which is about 40% of the regular price. You should maybe really urgently buy it, or get it for someone this Christmas. |
merovingian
|
12:00p |
You know, it's pages like this that make me glad that I listened to that friendly camel who told me about the Internet back in 1890. Current Mood: vabtose |
drivingblind
|
10:43a |
Obligation.PDF
Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there. There are a lot of good things I could say (and have said) about Diaspora. I liked it enough that I offered to run the publication of it for VSCA, the current publisher, if they wanted to transition off of Lulu (which at least as of a couple weeks ago looks like it might have been a good idea), taking a modest percentage for Evil Hat & getting the title out to more sales venues. It’s Fate, and it excites me, so I’m happy to make that sort of offer.
That’s not to say the game is without its warts. The text does fall into self-congratulation here and there, and designers’ notes are swirled together with main text instead of offset in some way. That reads fine for me, but I know some readers encounter such things as turbulence. But the reason I decided to back off of the publication pursuit was that VSCA isn’t offering a PDF of Diaspora and won’t be for a while, while Evil Hat is strongly, even passionately, committed to offering PDF with its products. VSCA also had a few well-founded reasons of their own to decline, so this wasn’t the sole dealkiller; all amicably handled.
Some background here: Diaspora was a very deliberately designed artifact as books go. Brad has talked about this on his blog (see the prior link). It was designed to be a book, which means there’s a philosophical disconnect for VSCA to provide a PDF of the book’s interior as the PDF product. If they’re going to offer a PDF, they’re going to create a deliberately-designed-as-a-PDF PDF. I get that philosophy, and I respect it, even though I know that it puts a vast wedge between delivering the print product and delivering the PDF (if indeed the PDF would be delivered at all). But it really lives in a different headspace from where I do, whether we’re talking about the synergy between a print and a PDF product, a stand-alone PDF product, or the service relationship between publisher and customer. I’ll expand on this.
Read the rest of this entry » |
| Friday, December 4th, 2009 |
jenniferrodgers
|
11:16a |
Holiday Card "Retrospective"
I've been keeping incredibly busy with my Etsy card shop lately and that got me thinking about how this all started. I never thought I'd be devoting so much time to greeting cards of all things, but it's been lots of fun. Since we're getting close to the winter holiday season, I'll focus on that. Besides, that's where it begins. In the winter of 2003, I was unsure how to handle the usual gifting rituals as a poor art graduate. I thought designing a unique holiday card with a fun self-portrait on it would be more special than giving store-bought cards or nothing at all. So I went about illustrating a cartoony version of myself in front of a Christmas tree with some bunnies and fun goth details. It was very appropriate for me at the time. I printed these out at home and hand-folded every one. Writing personal messages inside and sending them to family, friends and the occasional business contacts. It was so successful I knew I had to carry on the tradition and do one the next year and the year after that and so on... Eventually, I was unable to keep up with sending them to everybody or even creating a new card every year, but I'm glad I did it. It was fun and it helped me to realize how much I like designing these cards. At some point, we realized people liked them so much they might even want to buy them and our convention adventures began. With all that said... I present my complete Holiday Card series. ( You are going to see various skill levels shifting from my immediate post-college days to now. I am both very embarrassed and proud to show you how much I've changed since then. :) There are 4 cards total so far. ) And this is the last in the series. (Unless I revisit it one day.) I love the movement in this one. And I like how it sort of manages to mix themes from all of the others into one image. And that's it! Thank you for looking at my holiday card series! Hope you enjoyed seeing these as much I enjoyed showing you. (Even the embarrassing bits!) |
esmerel
|
7:09a |
|
drivingblind
|
9:47a |
Starblazer
Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there. So back in late October, I jumped in on a thread on RPG.net comparing Starblazer Adventures and Diaspora. I got more than a little colorful with my praise of Diaspora, but before I got there I felt I had to give some background as to why I found myself personally favoring Diaspora over Starblazer Adventures. Now, at least one person has gotten ridiculously exercised over that (and come on: it’s RPG.net, people), and I’ve seen it characterized as anything from “damning with faint praise” to the old RPG.net standby of criticizing the critic instead of the critique, calling my post “unprofessional”. Whee! The internet — it’s made for hating!
But the internet’s also made for missing the freakin’ point. I was unburdening myself there so anyone reading it could (if they chose to) understand the intense bias I bring to any evaluation of those two products side by side. I was saying as best and clearly and honestly as I could that I can’t make a fair comparison. The thread was specifically about comparisons, after all — I did what I could do make them, but it was a tainted effort from the start, and I said as much. At the end of the day, I got to see the sausage made with Starblazer Adventures, and that is never a pretty thing. Diaspora on the other hand may as well have sprung fully-formed from the forehead of Brad Murray & crew. Here’s what I’m saying: because I got to see the sausage get made, I can’t look at it with the same perspective that I’d bring to any other game book out there (like Diaspora, among hundreds of others). It’s not even a case of trying to compare apples to oranges. It’s a case of comparing apples to the life and times of an orange farmer (i.e., “ooh! yummy apple!” to “holy crap that orange was brought about through a lot of hard brutal work and praying to the gods that an extra cold winter won’t come along and destroy the entire crop!”).
And as for the “unprofessional” thing, well, it was my sense of professionalism that’s why I sat on saying anything about Starblazer for a year and a half. I won’t — and shouldn’t — apologize for the full disclosure nature of the post, either; full disclosure and maximum transparency are key elements of who I am on the ‘net, and at the end of the day I couldn’t have gotten into that conversation in the first place without laying everything in my head on the table. At this point in my life I’m just wired that way. It’s why I disclose as much information as I do about Evil Hat, why the Dresden Files RPG website talks at great length about why the project has taken so damned long, and so on. If that kind of transparency doesn’t fit into your vision of what a professional is, then I’m not one, and I wouldn’t want to be.
Back to Starblazer Adventures. Another way the point’s been missed regarding Starblazer is thinking that for some reason I don’t like the game. But I do, and I even said so in that post:
“I like SBA a lot — but in large part due to my history with it, I don’t *love* it.”
But so what if I don’t love it? There are very few games that I love, and I’ll tell you right now that none of them are ones I’ve worked on. I like a great many more than I love, I can assure you. I don’t love a lot of the stuff that’s done with the Storyteller system from White Wolf, but I like the hell out of a lot of it. Changeling: The Lost rightly rocked my socks, and so on. (In case the point’s being missed there, I’m saying that something I “like, but don’t love” still has the power to rock my socks. Therefore sock-rocking is not of limits for Starblazer either!)
Still, I can see why my efforts to be clear and open about my biases might come off as damning Starblazer Adventures with faint praise. So here’s a short list of a few reasons why Starblazer Adventures is gunning for your socks with a plasma blaster set to fully-automatic rocking.
Read the rest of this entry » |
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griffxx's Friends Page
sleepy
