Continuing commentary on Coyote and Crow with food in Chapter 4 and justice and law in Chapter 5. See previous posts Overview, Opening the Can of Worms, and Religion.

Pretty consistently, the prelaunch materials and gamebook claim to minimize opportunities for conflict between players. Except ... there is stuff that is almost guaranteed to start ( Read more... )

Continuing commentary on Coyote and Crow with religion in Chapter 5. See previous posts Overview and Opening the Can of Worms. Continue with "Argument Fuel."

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The PDF copies of Coyote and Crow have been released. The book is gorgeous, but there are some issues. The overview is generally positive. I'm going to argue about some things later on, which is likely to please some people and annoy others, so I'll start by laying out some of my relevant credentials. You can decide for yourselves whether my ( Read more... )

The PDF copies of Coyote and Crow have been released. This is my second post, following the Overview, which lists my relevant credentials and skims over broad areas of the gamebook.  Continue with Religion and Argument Fuel.

Earworm warning: I have been arguing in my head over some of this stuff, which is intense and controversial, since I started ( Read more... )

The other day, I spotted a Naf Naf restaurant in Champaign, which turned out to be a Middle Eastern grill. Yesterday Doug spotted another in Greenup of all places, so we went back to that one today. See a locator page to search for one in your area. So far they're mostly in the Midwest with a few farther east. It is absolutely worth your while ( Read more... )

We watched the first episode of "High on the Hog" tonight.  It traces the roots of soul food from Africa through America.  This episode features Benin and foods like yams (the original, not the sweet potato substitute), okra, and black-eyed peas.  It's a lot heavier than most food shows, but it has great culinary and historical detail, with black ( Read more... )

My partner Doug was exploring his new television today and I happened to glimpse a cartoon, Molly of Denali.  It took some hunting but he managed to track down some episodes for me.  This is the first nationally distributed children's show with a Native Alaskan character.  (I've only found one other at all, Kagagi: The Raven, which is out of Canada ( Read more... )

This is another of my birthday presents. The Emotional Wound Thesaurus is basically a handbook on how to break people and what happens when they are broken. However, it also illuminates some ways they could heal. It's aimed at writers, but you could just as well use it for art, music, dance, or any other liberal art that aims to convey emotion ( Read more... )

I had a copy of this book years ago, that disappeared, and the first of my birthday presents is a replacement copy.  :D  (It's after sunset, and we count in Pagan/Baha'i fashion with night before day, so it's already my birthday.)  I'm delighted to have this again, because it's a book I recommend often.

Johnson's Emotional First Aid is a guide to ( Read more... )

Today we went up to Champaign. We stopped at the wild bird store to get birdseed. We picked up some groceries.

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