I rented TESB over the weekend. I had plans to, anyway, to make sure the kids found out Darth Vader was Luke's father by watching the movie, but it was also a good way to give the kids something to think about other than Bear's death. They really enjoyed it, my 8 year old daughter especially. As Darth Vader asked Luke to join him to rule the galaxy, she was yelling, "No! Say no! Say no!" And when Darth Vader said he was Luke's father, she just sat there for a minute, then said, "He's lying."

R.I.P. Bear, my good friend.

My 7 year old son recently reached a nice reading goal at school, and I rewarded him by renting Star Wars for him. I have never seen such gratitude from my son, who leaped onto me while thanking me profusely. Now, those that know me know that I am absolutely no fan of George Lucas. In fact, I could be characterized at times as actively hostile. However, I refrained from poisoning my son's opinion, and let him and his sister watch it. It's really been great to see them enjoying it. They know of Anakin Skywalker and know that he's Luke's father, and they know that Darth Vader killed Anakin...but they don't KNOW. I'm going to get ESB very soon so that none of their friends spoil it for them. My son is currently in his room, playing the Star Wars theme on his stereo too loudly and singing along with it (dunh dunh dunh duuuuuunh duuunh, dunh dunh dunh DUUUUUUUNH duuunh...) and laying in the floor playing with my old old Star Wars figures...from when I was just about his age... Anyway, it's not that I can't enjoy playing with Star Wars figures, too.

I went to see Iron Man last night with Mik and a few other comic book nerds I know. It was AWESOME!! Mik beat me and already has his own review up.

Looking at Comic Book adaptations, before this movie my favorite was Spider-Man 2, followed by X2, and then a less specific mixture of Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman Begins and Blade. I have to say that Iron Man trumped them all, hands down. Make sure you read The Ultimates and stay through the credits!

Yes folks, I have taken definite steps in my plans to run GURPS: Pokemon for my children.

The d6 Generation is a fairly new gaming podcast. I haven't got to hear much yet, but they appear to have started strong and I can't wait to give the whole series a listen.

I picked up the recently released Mutants and Death Ray Guns from Ganesha Games. It's a real beer and pretzels Gamma World-style post-apocalypse game. Plus, it includes rules for something I have absolutely no figures for-- mutant plants. So, I had to whip some up.

...I'm just very, very tired. My wife and I had our third child, Silas, on March 12.

Nope, here it is, just about the closest 3x board you could do in hexes, I bet. 15 squares wide, and 13 squares to score a TD from the LOS.

For those times when you have an odd number of coaches, I've always thought it would be great to have a three team version of Blood Bowl, so everybody could play. Recently, I've put a little more work into this idea.

Finished the troll star player Ripper Bolgrot.

Finished two Blood Bowl ogres.

cos I am!

Here's some stuff I've painted recently, and some I will be posting on TMP for sale.

Color Match 1.0 is a very interesting utility which will match various paint colors. Using the full line search, for example, you can find the nearest matches to Games Workshop paint colors in the Delta Ceramcoat line. It really needs to include support for the Decoart Americana line.

I couldn't find the dimensions online, so I measured mine. The ruler is 2" x 14". Range bands are at 5", 9", and 13". The "hole" for the throwers head is .5" in from the start (making the first band
4.5").

I started a team, the Nauseous Norsemen. It's pretty cool, and uses version 4 of the Living Rulebook.

In a real blast from the past, Mik and I played a game of Blood Bowl last night. His Chaos beat my Humans 1-0. It was a great game. I really had forgotten what a fun, great game Blood Bowl is. We're starting up a league.

You may be aware of FUMBBL-- I finally got around to registering for it and plan on playing some games there. What you may not be aware of-- in fact, you definitely aren't aware of it unless you're one of about ten or so people who have very great memories-- is that I was one of the first people to play Blood Bowl online. I started getting guys from the old Blood Bowl mailing list to play via IRC. This is probably 10 or so years ago. I made irc.icx.net-- long gone, but there are still references to it hanging around-- and wrote a chat bot called NuffleBot to roll dice for us. There were no graphics, I had my board out next to the computer with both teams on it, like old school chess, and would relay the changes to my opponent. "#12 from E4 to J1" or whatever. Ah, the good ol' days!! Talk about just like old times...Mik caught me in an Illegal Procedure, and I forgot to use my Apothecary!

Did I tell you about taking 3rd place in the '95 UK Games Day? I'm in two issues of White Dwarf... Didja see my stunty Gutter Runner? Huh? Didja huh?

Update: Here you go, old school. That looks like almost 15 years old...man, I'm old.

Yes, they do.

TGN has an Elfball review up. One of these days, I'm going to actually play this game...