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April 30, 2004

Ugh

Home (albeit hours late) and got nothing of note done on the personal side.

As work trips go, it was very productive, but long office hours (I like my 7.5 hour work day, and dislike it stretching to 12 as it did during this trip) meant no time at all to work on things like my gaming projects.

So now I'm more behind than before I left.

As the title says... Ugh.

Posted by ghoul at 08:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 22, 2004

More Travel Time

Not quite gone yet, but I'll be spending more time over the next seven days far from home than at it. Expect limited posting.

More info below for those who simply must know the details.

Saturday to Sunday, I'm off for a game-shop pass thru Boston, d20 gaming, and perhaps the SF book club meeting (depends if I find time to re-read the book, since I barely remember it from a dozen years ago (or so) when I last read it).

Then Monday thru next Thursday, I'll be off at company HQ in Greensboro, NC. No connectivity from the hotel, unless things have changed since my last HQ visit, which puts a cramp in most everything. Also, if memory serves, they don't have a WB affiliate on their TV, so I will have to make sure Angel gets properly taped.

But maybe it will give me time to buckle down and do that review of submitted ATP characters I keep not starting. Everything I need is on my PowerBook, which I will be bringing.

Posted by ghoul at 08:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 20, 2004

Sorta Kinda Moved

Well, the move from "www.matantisi.com/ghoul/staircase/" to "www.noneuclidianstaircase.com/staircase/" has begun. The old address no longer works and the new one is making it was way through the DNS network. Fun, fun!

Now I need to start posting more often to make this worth all worth it! Or perhaps just put up some other things at the site so there's a reason to be here.

Posted by ghoul at 08:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 16, 2004

Had To See This On Opening Day

Just back from Kill Bill vol 2.

It's a very different film from vol 1, just as the distinct chapters of vol 1 differ from each other. And, in that way, it's several different movies inside itself. An Italian suspense/horror inspired film, a Shaw Brothers martial arts film, a noir double-crossing criminals film, and an oddly quirky mother/daughter bonding film, even bits of a cute little romantic comedy. It can be all of those because QT is a very talented man, and can splice together things that don't really work together in any lesser work. He's also too bold and cocky to realize it won't possibly work, the perfect man to make it work in spite of everything.

Not nearly as much an over-the-top splatterfest as vol 1, the violence here is more direct and personal than the mass bloodlettings of the Crazy 88. I don't recall a nearly perfectly black screen accompanied by sound effects being nearly that affecting before (and I have seen it tried). Bill is every bit as creepy and charming as he needed to be, Elle is a perfect dark mirror of The Bride, and Pai Mei is as delightful an Old Master as there has ever been. You'll be glad to know these people, and just as glad that they're fictional. Plus, little BB has great taste in bedtime videos (I missed the next lines I was laughing so hard).

Some parts would have worked far better had Mirimax just let the 3 to 4 hour original edit come out, and I'll be looking forward to the re-combined DVD version I'm sure we'll see before too long, but you'll miss too much if you don't see this on the big screen.

And stay through the credits... Q&U have a final little "gift" for the patient.

Posted by ghoul at 08:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 12, 2004

Offhand Request

So, I was wondering if there might be someone out there who has all the CompuServe RPGames "Crossroads Gazette" issues I wrote reviews for?

I recently discovered that, if I have them, I don't know where they are (perhaps on floppy... but I no longer own a Mac with a floppy drive!). And that's not a good thing.

[Added barely an hour later - Looks like someone does have all these handy, so it looks like I'll have them again soon myself! Gotta love a quick response!]

Posted by ghoul at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Comments Fixed

Oops!

Somehow, I had entered a blank into my IP Ban list, and so everyone was forbidden to make comments.

I think it's fixed now, though.

(Thanks to Michael for letting me know about the problem, and sorry it took more than 24 hours to track down the cause!)

Posted by ghoul at 12:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Changes at the Staircase

First, some new links added in the right-hand column...

The Masters' Council is a GameMasters' Workshop, where both the theory and practice of GMing is to be discussed. It's fairly new, but very promising.

BoardGameGeek had to be added, what with the scary number of games I now know I own thanks to their database.

AmberCon North now has a working link again, though there's not yet much information there about the 2004 con. Soon, I promise!

Now, on the more major news front, the Non-Euclidian Staircase will be changing its home on the web soon. I've recently registered the "noneuclidianstaircase.com" domain and will be moving there over the next week or so. So be ready to change links, OK? And wish me luck... I know absolutely as little about the technical side of the web as possible.

Posted by ghoul at 09:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My Games

Okay, I must admit that this is kinda scary. Especially as it doesn't include RPGs at all, just board (and card and miniatures) games. And it may not be complete, as my memory is far from perfect, so a few obscure titles hiding in the corner of a shelf or closet may well be left out. In fact, if I really searched, I'm sure I could find a few not even on the BoardGameGeek database.

And people wonder why I have two whole rooms of my house given over to game storage.

Posted by ghoul at 08:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 08, 2004

Black Road Planning

I have submitted my games for The Black Road.

I'll be running Tall Tales of Pattern and Shadow (which was actually thought up right at the end of last year's Black Road) for the third time. It's gone quite well at AmberCon North and AmberCon US, so why stop running it?

I will also be giving a first try to My Life With Corwin, an Amber/My Life With Master crossover. My blurb for MLWC follows...

Beyond the River of the Blessed
There we sat down,
Yea, we wept,
When we remembered Avalon.

Corwin, Sorcerer King of Avalon, has many minions. His demands are many, and his whims are law. Will you serve him best or fail him in his hour of need? Will you find love before your humanity fails?

Amber meets My Life With Master in this exploration of the price of service under a mad lord.

Rules will be taught. Familiarity with "My Life With Master" (www.halfmeme.com) a plus.


I'm always very happy with an AmberCon game allows me to directly quote from the original books. The above bit of poetry is something Corwin quotes in The Guns of Avalon. I've changed the context more than a little moving it to this rather dark game, but I think it fits very well.

Posted by ghoul at 10:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack