THIS JUST IN:
Two days ago, Gary Gygax died. I could not really say enough about that. Dungeons & Dragons has been important to me, for ridicule and for real, for more than half my life. That, naturally, only scratches the surface, since the conventions he set in place are still basically the framework of virtually every RPG and RPG-inspired game. Which basically means Gary Gygax's influence has been involved with 90% of the things I have spent my leisure time doing since I was about 6 years old.
I did get the chance to meet him at the last Milwaukee Gen-Con in 2002, and can most certainly report that he was just as affable as most reports say. He was not wearing a name badge, likely on purpose to be anonymous while he sat with some friends of his at their booth, and we only even knew who he was since a friend of mine had worked with him in the late 80s. "Not a lot of people recognizing you, huh?" "You take the nametag off, and you become just any other old man at the con!"
Yesterday, my cat Baseplate Cavalcade turned 20. I also cannot really say enough about that. But in a very different way. I called my parents to check how he was doing, and my mom said that he had, for the first time in ages, popped up out of nowhere while she was eating a tuna sandwich and refused to leave her alone until she gave some to him. It is only fair, really. She did not even make him a tuna cake, so he had to take it by force.
My new theory is that my cat is determined to witness every one of my academic graduations, and I have thus extended his lifespan for at least five more years thanks to my recent decision to pursue a Ph.D. Good luck, B.C.; I am sure you will not need it. For so long as human hatred exists, you shall feed from it, and continue to maintain your increasingly unnatural lifespan, lich-like as it may be. Thank you again, Gary Gygax.
I did get the chance to meet him at the last Milwaukee Gen-Con in 2002, and can most certainly report that he was just as affable as most reports say. He was not wearing a name badge, likely on purpose to be anonymous while he sat with some friends of his at their booth, and we only even knew who he was since a friend of mine had worked with him in the late 80s. "Not a lot of people recognizing you, huh?" "You take the nametag off, and you become just any other old man at the con!"
Yesterday, my cat Baseplate Cavalcade turned 20. I also cannot really say enough about that. But in a very different way. I called my parents to check how he was doing, and my mom said that he had, for the first time in ages, popped up out of nowhere while she was eating a tuna sandwich and refused to leave her alone until she gave some to him. It is only fair, really. She did not even make him a tuna cake, so he had to take it by force.
My new theory is that my cat is determined to witness every one of my academic graduations, and I have thus extended his lifespan for at least five more years thanks to my recent decision to pursue a Ph.D. Good luck, B.C.; I am sure you will not need it. For so long as human hatred exists, you shall feed from it, and continue to maintain your increasingly unnatural lifespan, lich-like as it may be. Thank you again, Gary Gygax.