Well, I was planning on saying something pithy about the upcoming 4th of July weekend, but I really don't do 'pithy' well. I'm reasonably good at 'wry' and 'kinda dumb,' but not 'pithy.'

Anyway, I'd just like to take this moment to wish everyone a fun 4th of July and to remind everyone to please be safe. Firecrackers do not belong in any orifice, no matter how fun and/or amusing it may seem at the time. As someone who once shot himself in the nostril with a bottle rocket, I speak from experience.

NOTE: I was ten and it more or less bounced off and exploded harmlessly about 20-feet away. Many people were amused by the incident, but dared not say anything because my mother would have murdered them.

So yes, please be safe.

Have a great 4th!

Cheers,
-Jason

I was talking to my buddy Ron today and as is typical for men of our advanced ages, we waxed nostalgic about a variety of things from our youths, from music to games to fads, back to games, a quick segue into movies, and then back to games for the finale.

Yes, we like our games.

However, as we talked, a thought occurred to me. No, not the one about tying a rope to a monkey and then giving the monkey a brick so you could make a ‘monkey-brick flail.’ The thought was ‘whatever happened to Mary Lou Retton?’

Note: If you gave the monkey two bricks, you could then have a ‘dual-wielding monkey-brick flail.’ I do realize that this would be impractical. You would probably need to put little handles on the bricks so the monkey wouldn’t drop them.

Some of the younger readers might not remember Mary Lou Retton. She won the individual Gold Medal in the ’84 Summer Olympics in gymnastics, the first non-Eastern European to do so. She was, to put it mildly, ‘America’s Sweetheart’ and was all-over the place for about a year after the Olympics. She then slipped off the national stage (not literally) and became an answer in the Trivial Pursuit Sports category.

Anyway, whatever happened to her? According to Wikipedia, she got married, had four kids, and seems to have a pretty normal life. I must say, I was a little disappointed. In all honesty, that’s just too normal. She was a Gold Medal winning Olympic athlete and the first woman to grace a Wheaties box, something amazing and totally improbable should have happened.

I prefer to think that after the Olympics, she was whisked away by a race of cute, slightly nerdy aliens who needed her to lead them in battle against another, tyrannical alien race who’s name probably contained a lot of ‘x’s and ‘z’s. Though confused and bewildered at first, she rallied and used her unmatched gymnastic ability and gratuitously placed uneven bars and pommel horses to lead them to victory and teach them a lesson about friendship and proper nutrition. Though offered the position of ‘Queen of the Universe,’ she turned it down to come back to Earth and just be a normal girl (who happens to be able to backflip at speeds that would make Superman dizzy).

Actually, that might have happened. If ‘80s movies taught me anything, it’s that pacifistic alien cultures always need an Earthling to come save their bacon.

Cheers,
-Jason

Some students at Georgia Tech and the Savannah College of Art and Design have made something really special.

Watch it here:
http://technology.todaysbigthing.com/2009/06/17

This is really something. It could have fascinating applications in medicine, science, and all sorts of fields. Or, granted, it could also be used to kill tons and tons of zombies.

One day, my kids'll be whining about 3D games being boring and I'll say something to the effect of 'In my day, we had Atari 2600s! We had tanks made out of 17 pixels and we were happy to have 'em!'

Technology is a wonderful thing :)

Cheers,
-Jason

First, he got a room at an inn, then went out and bought new clothes. Then he treated himself to a really nice dinner. Then he had bought a dagger, because it looked cool. All these purchases, of course, required that he travel about the city, which he did by carriage. He also went to a play, which was okay, and then he went to a topless bar, which was fantastic. In fact, he went to several topless bars, all of which were marvelous in their own right.
One week later, Art had about five dollars left. With the realization that his funds were almost gone, Art decided to find a job. He’d learned, in his brief time in the city, that there was one general rule to the layout. The nicest things were in the western part of the city, near the palace. The neighborhoods grew steadily worse as you moved east, until you got to the Alley, which was a section of the city that even hardened criminals didn’t like to enter at night. Being fairly optimistic, Art started looking in the best, most expensive districts of the city. He quickly learned two things. The first was that he had almost no saleable skills, other than lock picking and being a target for pickpockets. The other was that the best shops generally only wanted to hire either well-endowed, seventeen-year-old lingerie models or tall, muscular young men with chiseled good looks and washboard stomachs.
He then decided to move down a bit in the economic bracket and tried the shops several miles away from the palace. Though requirements were less stringent, he still couldn’t get a job. Art moved further away from the palace, with the same results.
Art was now on his last dollar and was seriously considering picking a few pockets in order to avoid the starving. Remembering what Merv had suggested, Art went to the area around the Engineer’s Cube, which abounded with craftsmen and specialty shops. He was confused when he first saw the Cube, as it seemed to be a square building several hundred feet wide and long, but only about forty feet tall, making it more of a Slice than a Cube. He then found a little plaque in front of the building that revealed that most of it was below ground and that it really was a Cube and yes, it didn’t look like a Cube, but it was, take their word for it.
Initially elated to find a number of locksmith shops, Art’s hopes were quickly dashed when they started asking questions like what his qualifications were, whom had he worked for, and most importantly, whether he thought they were dumb enough to hire some kid off the street with no experience or qualifications. He did qualify for apprentice positions, but that required signing his life away for the next fourteen-odd years for room and board and a lot of backbreaking work.
Thinking that reverse psychology might actually work, Art then tried the area around the Wizard’s Tower, which was a really big black obelisk that didn’t seem to have any windows or even an entrance. However, there was a little plaque in front of it which explained that unlike the Engineer’s Cube, which was mostly underground (so they said) the Tower was actually pan-dimensional and could easily house the entire population of the city, so stick that in your Cube and smoke it.
This was Art’s first real indication that the Wizards and Engineers hated each other, aside from the ‘No Pointy Hats’ signs around the Cube and the ‘Slide Rules are for Dorks’ T-shirts that were popular around the Tower. He also discovered that there were no locksmiths near the Tower, but there were a lot of shops that sold things like gnat livers and slug eyebrows. He tried to get a job in a few of those shops, but discovered that they also liked their salespeople attractive, especially when clad in black and wearing pointy hats.
Art’s dream of becoming financially solvent without resorting to theft was rapidly disappearing along with the last of his money. Then, while heading toward his lodgings, weary after a day of rejections, he noticed a little shop called ‘Upenwald’s Locks.’ Shrugging, he went inside.
“Good evening, sir, how can I help you?” asked the Goblyn behind the counter. Art was unfazed, as he’d seen a number of Goblyns about the city and had even passed a Pyxy, one of the little, winged people from the west, who despite their murderous reputation, was rather cute in her pink Pyxy armor. It was even cute when she noticed Art’s stare and threatened to ‘skewer his eyeballs’ with her little pink spear.
“Uh, actually, I’m looking for work.”
“Really? Do you have any experience with locksmithing?”
“Not as such, no.”
“Then, seeing as we lack the time and facilities to train you, I’m afraid we really can’t help you. Good day.”
Art stood there, staring at the little green man.
“Now, now, no need to get upset. I’m sure you’ll find employment elsewhere.”
Art swallowed hard. “Look, here’s the deal. I’ve been all over this city trying to find work. I don’t have any qualifications or anything, but I was a member of the Advern Thieves Guild for a while and can open any lock in the city. Will that help?”
“Hmmm . . . ” the Goblyn stroked his immaculately trimmed mustache. “I’ll tell you what, young man. I’ll fetch my best lock. If you can pick it, you’ve got a job. Fair enough?”
Art pulled out the set of picks Byrn had given him and unrolled them with a flourish. “Let’s go.”
The Goblyn smiled and jumped off his stool, disappearing in the back room for a while. Art’s smile faded when they Goblyn emerged. He was carrying an immense, custom-made lock that looked like it was designed to fit on a very wealthy man’s safe. Nevertheless, Art set to work on it. The lock had no less than four sets of pins and wafers, which were staggered around the keyhole in an ingenious arrangement that seemed to defy gravity.
Art worked for half an hour, before managing to spring the first set of pins. The next set took another hour. The third set took only ten minutes, but had a safety device that reset all the other pins. Art said several bad words when that happened, but kept going. After two hours of work, Art rose from the bench.
“Giving up?” asked the Goblyn.
“Nope, just stretching my legs.” Art walked briskly around the shop for a few minutes, and then settled back down.
Another hour passed, in which the lock reset itself twice, prompting Art to use several words he’d learned from Gorb. Art took another break to get a glass of water, then got back to work.
After almost three hours of lock picking, intermixed with occasional bouts of swearing, the Goblyn reached out and plucked the pick from Art’s hand. “I think you’ve had a fair chance.”
“But-“ Art sputtered. “I can do it! It just won’t give!”
“What do you mean?”
“Every time I get a set open, they somehow spring back! It’s like its magic or something!”
“And yet, you can’t open it, can you?”
Art sagged. “Right, I can’t pick this lock.” He accepted his pick back and rolled his tools back up. “Thanks for the chance. Sorry about wasting your time.”
“Hold on a moment.” The Goblyn tapped the lock. “Aren’t you curious as to why you couldn’t pick it?”
“Well, yes.”
“Simple. You were mostly right, it is a magical lock. No regular set of lock picks could open this.”
“Then why let me try?”
“Well,” the Goblyn said dryly. “I was hoping you’d give up after twenty-minutes and go away.”
“Oh.”
“Lock the door on your way out, please,” the Goblyn said, as he began closing up.
“Sure.”
“And I expect you back first thing tomorrow.” He smiled at Art’s confused expression. “I don’t actually need anyone, but we’ll work something out.”

The title of today's blog has nothing to do with the actual blog, it's more a public service announcement.

Why I felt I needed to make such a public service announcement is a mystery, even to me.

So, another long, yet curiously fast, week is over. I accomplished a lot, but don't really remember much of it. I'm pretty sure I called my boss a 'fiend from hell' at one point, but I'm also pretty sure he took it as a compliment.

On the home front, issue #6 is rapidly coming to a close. I believe we only have five or six more pages to go and the first 6 issue arc will be done. This, of course, means one thing:

Graphic Novel.

Yes, we will be producing a graphic novel of the first six issues. We're not sure exactly when that will be available, but rest assured it will come out.

Also, the San Diego Comic-Con is coming up!

Leigh and I will be there and ideally, Leigh will also be accepting the '09 Russ Manning Award. Stay tuned for more info as it becomes available.

Have a safe and fun weekend!

Cheers,
-Jason