He's gonna be your Frankenstein
Couple of thoughts about this past weekend...
There may not be a big market for it, but I'd be interested in a Traffic Police Bounty Hunter game that allowed you to enforce the traffic laws. With a shotgun. Any PS2/XBox designers out there?
Apparently this has been a really awful year for a lot of the regulars at Arcana - illness, job losses, deaths in the families, and the like. I hope things turn out better for everyone before next year's convention rolls around!
Speaking of Arcana, attendance was up this year - P showing up yesterday pushed the attendance to 40, which Eric observed was 110% of the 2005 attendance. I think not having the convention opposite the MCBA Fallcon helped (certainly cajones had an easier time making it) and some people who had tried it in previous years but missed last year returned to the fold. Unfortunately, I won't be back for 2007, since I expect to be in Virginia, but hopefully I can rope in a couple of friends to help stage an Arcana East. I know there are quite a few of my friends who enjoy HPL and other dark fantasy, and I feel confident that we can get 40, 50, maybe a hundred people together for an east coast version of the Twin Cities' longest-running convention. Even if the Minn-Con Board declines to authorize my borrowing the name. ;)
P and I had dinner with materia_indigo last night at Al Vento instead of joining the Arcana crowd at the Tavern on Grand. Al Vento is an acquired taste, and I mean that in the Bill James sense of "...all the entrees cost $20 and taste like the oregano was left out." Don't get me wrong, the Caesar salad was okay, as was the squash ravioli and the bruschetta (if you like bruschetta, which I personally don't, that much) and P says the tiramisu was the best she'd ever had, but my tastes in Italian food run more to the traditional Neapolitan/Sicilian style dished up at Buca and the late lamented Cafe di Napoli, so it wasn't my kind of place. stuckintraffik, you and the missus might want to give the place a try, since it's in your neighborhood and IIRC your tastes run to that sort of thing.
I've started Tim Powers' Declare, which I picked up at the Arcana auction. The Le Carre influence is as strong in this one as the Deighton influence was in Charles Stross' The Atrocity Archives. So far so good.
Staying up late Friday and Saturday night (to say nothing of the Cipro) really took it out of me, and I retired early after perusing more Arcana winnings: Charles Addams' The Groaning Board and Nightcrawlers. Plenty of stuff I hadn't seen before, including some grimly amusing pieces featuring the "Friendly Loan Company".
I could really use an icon to indicate happiness or pleasure...I think it says a few things about me that I don't have one, and that bothers me. I'll have to talk to P about this.
UPDATE 10/3/06 Spelling errors and title flubs fixed as well as an unclear reference in the restaurant review.
There may not be a big market for it, but I'd be interested in a Traffic Police Bounty Hunter game that allowed you to enforce the traffic laws. With a shotgun. Any PS2/XBox designers out there?
Apparently this has been a really awful year for a lot of the regulars at Arcana - illness, job losses, deaths in the families, and the like. I hope things turn out better for everyone before next year's convention rolls around!
Speaking of Arcana, attendance was up this year - P showing up yesterday pushed the attendance to 40, which Eric observed was 110% of the 2005 attendance. I think not having the convention opposite the MCBA Fallcon helped (certainly cajones had an easier time making it) and some people who had tried it in previous years but missed last year returned to the fold. Unfortunately, I won't be back for 2007, since I expect to be in Virginia, but hopefully I can rope in a couple of friends to help stage an Arcana East. I know there are quite a few of my friends who enjoy HPL and other dark fantasy, and I feel confident that we can get 40, 50, maybe a hundred people together for an east coast version of the Twin Cities' longest-running convention. Even if the Minn-Con Board declines to authorize my borrowing the name. ;)
P and I had dinner with materia_indigo last night at Al Vento instead of joining the Arcana crowd at the Tavern on Grand. Al Vento is an acquired taste, and I mean that in the Bill James sense of "...all the entrees cost $20 and taste like the oregano was left out." Don't get me wrong, the Caesar salad was okay, as was the squash ravioli and the bruschetta (if you like bruschetta, which I personally don't, that much) and P says the tiramisu was the best she'd ever had, but my tastes in Italian food run more to the traditional Neapolitan/Sicilian style dished up at Buca and the late lamented Cafe di Napoli, so it wasn't my kind of place. stuckintraffik, you and the missus might want to give the place a try, since it's in your neighborhood and IIRC your tastes run to that sort of thing.
I've started Tim Powers' Declare, which I picked up at the Arcana auction. The Le Carre influence is as strong in this one as the Deighton influence was in Charles Stross' The Atrocity Archives. So far so good.
Staying up late Friday and Saturday night (to say nothing of the Cipro) really took it out of me, and I retired early after perusing more Arcana winnings: Charles Addams' The Groaning Board and Nightcrawlers. Plenty of stuff I hadn't seen before, including some grimly amusing pieces featuring the "Friendly Loan Company".
I could really use an icon to indicate happiness or pleasure...I think it says a few things about me that I don't have one, and that bothers me. I'll have to talk to P about this.
UPDATE 10/3/06 Spelling errors and title flubs fixed as well as an unclear reference in the restaurant review.