19th Level

Taking a break from geeky topics to reflect on the Sandy Hook School killings. Feel free to move on to more pleasant topics in my blog such as Cthulhu, Stephen King, Dungeons & Dragons, and the like. Reflecting on the massacre in Connecticut... I'm a proud Massachusetts boy now and always consider myself to be "from" Brooklyn. But the fact is I spent most of my childhood in Connecticut, maybe half an hour or so from Sandy Hook. I'm married to a school teacher. My brother's wife is a teacher. My mother is one. And I find myself writing the words "massacre in Connecticut". I know there's talk as to how we shouldn't politicize the issue. But all I can think of are nearly thirty dead people, the majority of them children. Children! I read of a teacher who saved her entire class with her own life. My own wife Patty tells me that she thinks as a teacher that'd be instinctive. I don't want to read about another massacre of kids. I don...

1960: It was his first real kiss, too, and Bobby never forgot the feel of her lips pressing on his his - dry and smooth and warmed by the sun. It was the kiss by which all the others of his life would be judged and found wanting. 1999: "Sometimes a little of the magic sticks around," Bobby said. "That's what I think. We came because we still hear some of the right voices. Do you hear them? The voices?" Hearts in Atlantis can be considered his writing on his own generation, the one that came of age in the 1960s. Being born in 1971 I have to confess to not having any personal connection to the 1960s. But, one of King's greatest strengths is in his characters - they are real people with real wants and needs. I think that is what makes his addition of the supernatural to his stories so effective - even in the face of the supernatural we are still dealing with real people. Hearts in Atlantis  is a collection of novellas and short stories. I'll b...

I'd done some soliciting recently for a Call of Cthulhu game. A little less than two weeks ago we kicked off our first session. I believe it went pretty well, especially considering some brand new faces at the virtual gaming table. I'll confess to having mixed feelings about gaming on the internet. There is something really nice about having people around a physical table, the sound of rolling dice, the shared meals. That said I would have a difficult time pulling that off at this stage of my life. And there are some definite advantages to gaming online. The pool of players is greatly expanded - at our most recent game we had players from the American South and Southwest with my brother and I here in Massachusetts. It's allowed me to stay in touch with players who have moved away, whether they continue gaming with me or not. The past few months have been abysmal as far as keeping to a regular schedule on this blog. Life happens. My wife is working again which is absol...

Today is Thanksgiving here in the United States. Our Canadian neighbors celebrated it a month ago. Here in the United States the general story is the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth and the Wampanoag tribe had a feast of thanksgiving. Being the history geek that I am I've done some reading on what the European settlement of America was like. As a gamer, I'd often thought of doing a game along those lines and did run a brief one about a fantasy version of a Viking settlement in a fantasy analogue of Manhattan. My own research has revealed an awful lot of myths about the European settlement of the Americas. The biggest one in my opinion is that the Americas were an untamed wilderness. The Native American method of using the land was definitely different  from the European one but they most definitely made large changes to the land - one of the better known things they did was perform controlled forest burnings. Where does such an idea originate? Here I'm not particul...

I've already done a review of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu game. But given I've been a bit AWOL in my blog of late and part of the reason has been prep for a Cthulhu game it seemed reasonable to do a review of one of the older versions of the game. For me, this was my first exposure to Call of Cthulhu. I received it as a Christmas gift from my parents back when I was in high school in the mid- to late-80s. (Now that I think of it I also once received a complete Edgar Allan Poe collection from my wife - I get some creepy gifts.) This was not my Chaosium RPG now that I think on it - I know I had Ringworld and had also played Elfquest by this point. ( Elfquest is another property I'll need to discuss at some point - as I recall it was rather big back in the 80s.) I really don't know how it was my parents came across this version of Call of Cthulhu  - it is my understanding that the 3rd edition was the Games Workshop version and was a UK-based release (though I am ...

I'm the father of two daughters, one aged seven and the other aged ten. They've both enjoyed a fair amount of traditional fantasy and science fiction tales - Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars, etc. However both of them have also indulged in a fair amount of what I'd considered to be "girl-centric" literature and videos. As a caveat, I'm far from being an expert on women's issues and am not a wiz in the social sciences. With that caveat in mind, I have nevertheless tried, together with my wife, to make certain the girls have good female role models. I want them to be able to enjoy stories where a girl or woman protagonist is the hero - where she is not waiting for her prince to rescue her, nor just a "dude with boobs", nor some ultra-sexed object. Another desire is the stories actually be entertaining. Preferably without sparkly vampires. Both girls started off with Dora the Explorer . I can still recite the theme song to Dora with ease. I s...

In the summer time my gaming group had played some Dungeon Crawl Classics. The game was great fun but my attempts at using it to add new people to the group didn't pan out - with real life issues we actually seem to have lost a member. With the group being rather small I'm attempting to switch its gears toward something which handles smaller groups better. I've mentioned previously one of my more successful campaigns has been with Call of Cthulhu and being an investigative game where firepower is of less importance that seems a natural match for where we are presently. That said I'd still love the opportunity to add a few people to the virtual table (we play remotely using various communication tools). If you'd like to join us give me a shout - you can find links to my email on this blog and you can also reach me via Google+ or the comments. Let me tell you a little about this campaign and the group in general. As far as the campaign goes it is set in the ear...