19th Level

The Netflix show Stranger Things  takes place in autumn of 1983. The main protagonists are around twelve years old. As I watched it, the odd realization dawned on me that in autumn of 1983, I was twelve years old. I watched many of the episodes with my 14-year old daughter. I amused her when I had an epiphany that I actually owned one of the shirts that Mike wore. It was one of the most accurate depictions of the 1980's I've seen on television. There were some anachronisms here and there, but it was for the most part spot-on. Mike and his friends were a lot like me and my friends - not social outcasts but definitely not the cool kids. We played Dungeons & Dragons - and like Mike and company, mixed Advanced Dungeons & Dragons concepts (like Demogorgon) in our D&D games. Though I held out upgrading my 1981 version of the D&D Expert Set for several more years. As a short cut we'd often travel through wooded areas behind houses. I lived in an incredibly...

One of the advantages of being in grad school part time, from a gaming perspective, is it is awfully good at keeping me laser-focused on whatever game we are currently playing. Of course it does so by keeping me so busy that there's little time for anything else. For those keeping track at home, I'm enrolled at Brandeis University for my Master's Degree in Strategic Analytics. I'm learning all about data science, data mining, big data, predictive analytics, etc.  Right now I'm between semesters, with the next semester starting up next week (and running for ten weeks). With Port Henry having at least a skeleton (with a lot more mapping than required, but maps are a hobby) I've had a little bit of time to do a bit more noodling around in reading and thinking gaming thoughts. Reading I've done a little variety in my reading. As my previous class ended, I reread the audiobooks of The Passage and The Twelve  by Justin Cronin, in preparation for t...

Including audiobooks and comic books, I read a lot more than I watch television and movies so I don't catch a lot of new shows. I was a fan of "Jericho" a few years back, a show about a small Kansas town trying to endure in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange and the collapse of the United States government.  When I first heard of "Revolution" I thought of "Jericho" and decided to check it out. The premise of "Revolution" is that 15 years ago some event removed power from the entire globe. We're not talking all power plants failed or an EMP fried lots of devices, nothing electronic works. To be honest, this is something I have a hard time buying into - sometimes willing suspension of disbelief is hard. As someone who majored in Computer Science and Engineering I had to take a lot of Electrical Engineering classes and this selective suspension of the laws of physics is awfully hard to swallow. After all if you really suspended electri...

My wife and I have been watching "A Game of Thrones" on HBO. We both enjoy it a great deal but we've noticed certain tropes seem to be repeated over and over again. With that in mind we've developed the "A Game of Thrones" drinking game. (For entertainment purposes only). Feel free to send me additional suggestions. This contains spoilers for all of season 1 and the first 3 episodes of season 2. Drink when the following occurs: A character says the word "bastard" (one extra drink for every syllable over two in the word - i.e. ("baaaastard") Cersei Lannister tears up a piece of paper. Cersei Lannister comments that "Ned Stark had a piece of paper". A character gets naked with one fluid motion (bonus drink if said character is male or if you predicted it would happen when character first appeared). You get two characters mixed up. (Bonus drink if you have no idea who the character is but it is clear you should) N...