2008 is no more. Partially I'm glad to see it go, and partially I'm not quite ready for '09. But here it is. The year started off wonderfully for me but it ended on a sour note for several reasons. As glad as I am that the pain points are past, I don't regret anything, really. Everything that happened needed to happen to kick me into something else. It wouldn't be the first time.

So here's a few positive and memorable things from my 2008:

• I turned 31, and now I'm almost 32. I like my age—I feel more experienced and knowledgeable than most twentysomethings, but I still feel young. I like this wacky 30s bracket.
• My wife and I rescued a stray cat, raised her kitten, found the kitten a home, and found the mother cat a shelter (though the mother turned out to have cat leukemia, and that was very sad to hear). It's been many months now, and I kinda miss them. Stupid cats.

• Saw my first novel, The Darkwood Mask, published. And that was awesome. A big giant check mark on my List of Things I Wanted To Do In My Life. Oh, and speaking of which, much thanks to Andy Gray for including my book on his Top 10 books of 2008. Andy runs the Beezer Review, wherein he reads, seriously, a ton of novels and reviews each and every one. Props to BeezerMN!

• My wife and I went on some fun trips: Pennsylvania's Amish country, Salem, MA, Cape Cod, GenCon, Vermont, etc.

• Saw Rush again, live. Always great, that.

• Made some new friends/acquaintances online, like Californian jack-of-all-trades Joe Rixman.
• Joined Facebook, at first grudgingly but eventually happily. It's not as big a time-suck as I'd feared it would be, and has proven itself a good way to keep up with friends. It's absolutely no replacement for face-to-face time, or just hanging out with friends, but in today's digital world it serves its purpose just fine. And I like the photo-sharing functionality.
• Learned a hell of a lot about the nature of people, organizations, corporations, and the publishing industry. I hope to go forward with a good deal less wool over my eyes.

So...looking forward.

In 2009 I aim to write, if not complete, a new novel of my own. There, I've said that out loud. Err, online. Really, every author of a shared-world book longs to do his or her own thing eventually. Stay tuned on this site (or join my Facebook page) to stay abreast of such literary tidings. I'm not going to bother with new year's resolutions beyond the perpetual and vague desire to do better: increase good health and fitness, be a better husband, and...well, anything else I can think of and find time for.

Have a good year, folks!

So there's a book that just came out, an adventure module called Wyvern Mountain that might just be worth snagging. See, I haven't seen it yet, but it was written by Mike Ferguson, a guy I came to know first by co-writing the "DCC world" boxed set a few years back. But I've had the fortune of bumping into him many times since (once in person, but mostly virtually speaking), and even of getting him as a player in my play-by-post D&D game. Aside from being a nice guy, I've come to learn through his old weblog and his new site that he puts more thought into game design and gaming at large than most colleagues in the industry. So I already know Wyvern is worth looking into!

ALSO....for anyone out there still holding a candle for version 3.5 of the D&D game (and if you are, more power to you!), you should consider grabbing some last-minute items from Goodman Games before the 31st—by the new gaming license for 4th Edition, GG won't be able to sell them anymore. They're all half off now.

Better still: you can get most PDFs of any of these books from the online store at $2 each! Monster-sized boxed sets like Castle Whiterock or the DCC world gazetteer box are only $5. That's a crazy amount of good stuff for a few bucks.

Really, now's the time. Once Dec 31st hits, this vast collection is gone forever. Forever is...scary, and more than a little sad. I worked on a handful of those, and I'll always be fond of them.

Things have been too crazy at home lately to organize my thoughts about this Christmas season, which I usually have much to say about. So this is a bit late from me. Sadly, I must point those of you who are new to this website to last year's Christmas posts and and their festive discussions. So here are some things to think about:

• Alternative Christmas Carols - Including a big mix of 14 unusual holiday songs, which features Skeletor (the first skull-headed person who would have created Christmas presents that explode when you open them, long before Jack Skellington ever came around...). So what sort of music are we talking about? Why, musicians such as Mike Oldfield, Flyleaf, Jars of Clay, me w/ Harry Conick Jr., Joshua Wentz, Danny Elfman, Love Spirals Downward, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and more! Don't miss "Blitzen the Red-Nosed Reindeer"; he's a lot more interesting than Rudolph, I promise you.

• More Excessive Holiday Cheer! - A second round of crazy holiday music you won't hear playing in the malls, including music from the Muppets, Faith and the Muse, Philip Glass, the Medieavel Baebes, Shadow Gallery, and more. You won't want to miss "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fish-Men" or "The Closing of the Year."

Alternatively, you can just subscribe to Downcast, and snag episodes the from (12/12/07 and 12/19/07). Other great stuff on that podcast, too. Just copy this URL into your podcasting software: http://www.sidedown.org/downcast/downcast.xml

• Also consider Josh's latest winter EP, Now Is the Winter Of Our Disconnect. All of this music I'm talking about is free. Just go and grab it!

Have a happy and healthy Christmas.

For me, 2008 had a great deal of promise. My first novel came out in March, and I had already signed a contract for a second novel. I handed in the first draft (98k) by June, and it was slated for publication one year later. Then in July, I was informed the book would not be published after all, nor the rest of the series it was to be part of—a corporate decision followed by a scripted, copy-and-pasted rejection for any future work with that publisher. One thing I learned from this experience: publishers, editors, and sometimes even authors...they aren't required to be fans of the material they're producing. They might even dislike it; if they do like it, then great, but that's just incidental. Even outside the publishing industry, I have observed that the people who produce something aren't required to care about it themselves—quality, consistancy, these are for suckers who actually believe in what they're doing. But if you're just doing it because it's your job, then why go the extra mile? And if you're someone who does care about quality, and you're vocal about it....watch out. I've felt the sting of such audacity.

Now, in December, after surviving a few rounds of lay-offs—a direct consequence of our lowsy economy and a string of poor decisions—the company I worked for finally added me to the list. Which wasn't unexpected, really. Myself, and a whole number of really good people—the dedicated, the ones who ensured true quality, the ones who cared more than anyone else—are gone. I was around long enough to see the CEO's copy-and-paste "encouragement" email to those who made the cut. Laughable drivel. And so the pattern I observed above is thus repeated. Out of the need to eliminate X number of dollars from the company's payroll, many good people have been displaced just in time for Christmas. I've never seen such an example of a company truly shooting itself in the foot. But there you are.

Of course, this is happening all around. We hear it on the news every day. The unemployment numbers are tremendous. I'm not very nervous just now. My wife and I will be all right. But what may take a hit are the savings we've have been trying to grow for buying a house—and just general future planning. But we'll weather it. And while I'm eager to see 2008 expire, December is still one of my favorite months, so I'm in no hurry.

I hope everyone who reads this is doing okay, or better. I still hold to what I said at Thanksgiving: there's a lot to be thankful for and I haven't forgotten it.

Hey, you know what would be good Christmas gift for the gamers you love? Why, Hero's Handbook: Dragonborn, of course (published by Goodman Games), which I may have had something to do with...

Such as:

On RPGNow, you can buy it today as a pdf document for $13 or later this month it should be out in book form. Support the economy by supporting your favorite brick-and-mortar gaming store and order a copy from them!

And for a bit of news related to my day job but also this season in general. Early last week, there was a big fire above our office down near Wall Street (you know, that place all those economists have been yapping about for months) in Lower Manhattan. Smoke and water damage from that fire reached into our office and has rendered the place an inoperable mess—and, from the smell of the place, I'd say a biohazard, too.

This resulted in a lot of scrambling and rearrangement. For some employees, such as myself, it also means working from home for an estimated 8 weeks. This might seem fun, but working from home has pros and cons.

• No commute time (average of 2.5 hours total each day).
• Getting to sleep in a bit more.
• Reading less (a direct consequence of no train time).
• Slower Internet connection and therefore slower connection to my company's network. Which is a real pain. The workload increases because work pace is in slow motion.
• Less getting out of the house. Cabin fever. Marisa is also out on short-term medical leave, so we'll be sharing our tiny apartment at all times. Even the best marriage has spouses grating on each other when in close proximity for long periods of time. But 2+ weeks isn't too bad.
• A general feeling of disconnectedness. When you have no face to face time with your co-workers, it's just weird. Work, and people, just becomes a series of multitasking windows on the screen. My job already involves a vast amount of e-mails, documents, and sharing screens. Now it'll be even moreso. Then again, in another week I'll be taking a 2-day business trip to California which is the ultimate in face to face.

November flew by. And now we're into December. I love this time of year, but I admit I wasn't ready for it yet. There is still so much to do.

Have a good Thanksgiving, folks. There's a lot of crap going on in the world, even in our glorious U.S. of A., a lot to protest, complain over, and even sympathize for. But there's also good things, quite a lot more than we give credit to on a daily basis. Remember those things, and those who provided them. At the absolute minimum, give thanks for those things. However few they are.

And go watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles, the ultimate Thanksgiving movie. If you have seen it already, go see it again (better yet, buy a copy). If you haven't ever seen it, what's wrong with you?

A series of fortuitous† events recently got me thinking about old computer RPG games. Now, I'm a longtime gamer, but I actually didn't grow up with any console games except Atari, back in the mid-80s. I never owned Nintendo, or Sega Genesis, and certainly not a Play Station or X-Box. At best, I had friends who did, and would sometimes get to watch or play their games. However, I did always have computer games, usually ones made only for Macintosh. Then, later, some of the IBM games came out for Macintosh, so I'd get those eventually.

These were the stepping stones in my computer gaming evolution:

• Cap'N Magneto - A space man, Captain Magneto, has crash landed on the planet Rigel IV, and he needs to rebuild his ship and wrest the Crown of Control (some sort of mind-controlling device) from the Menturg, an intergalactic criminal, then escape the planet. Silly game, but boy was it fun. It even had annoying/endearing "commercials," asking you to donate money to the company who made it.

• Dark Castle / Beyond Dark Castle - Still my favorite games of all time, even in black and white, and they do hold up to the test of time. In both games, Prince Duncan must work his way through the castle to challenge the Black Knight.

• Déjà Vu (1985) - A "point and click" MacVenture game, wherein the game character is a hard-boiled former boxer turned private eye named Ace who's been framed for murder and needs to clear his name before getting caught by the police or the framers. And he—you—have amnesia, so you've to put your own story together at the same time. Very original stuff.

• Uninvited (1986) - Another "point and click" MacVenture game, wherein the game character is a guy who has to make his way through a haunted house to find his missing kid brother. Such a creepy vibe. I never did beat this game, but it's been very memorable. I think it helped get me into suspense/horror as a genre.

• Shadowgate (1987) - Another "point and click" MacVenture game, wherein the game character is the "last of a great line of hero-kings" who must find and defeat the evil Warlock. Goblins, trolls, gargoyles, wraiths, sphinxes...this game had it all. And such a cool cover!

• Citadel (1987) - Another D&D-style dungeon adventure game. Difficult to win, but very unique interface and inspiring storyline.

• Déjà Vu II (1988) - Another "point and click" MacVenture game, wherein Ace has ended up in Las Vegas, where a mobster named Tony Malone is scapegoating him, requiring Ace to come up with a hundred grand...or else. No amnesia this time, but flashbacks do recount some past events.

• Quarterstaff (1988) - Very D&D-esque "point and click" game but with more complexity than those listed above. This one involved hit points and something more akin to a character sheet. In this game, you start off as Titus, a former blacksmith sent by the Druid Council to explore some tunnels from which a subterranean colony once vanished. Along the way you can convince other characters to join the party (notably Bruno, a barbarian type, and Eolene, an archer gal). Cool sound effects, and also very, very hard. Never did win. But the dungeon did have a gelatinous cube, and that was cool. And there was even a part where a poor decision turns you into a grue. The game came with a poster, a parchmenty-like map, and a wooden coin.

• Dungeon of Doom - I think this was one free software (freeware), and I can't recall how I got it. Basically, it was a cartoony dungeon crawl adventure game, wherein you could play a knight (good with armor), a fighter (good with weapons), a sage (good with scrolls), a wizard (good with wands), an alchemist (good with potions), a jeweler (good with rings), or....some guy named Jones.

• The Pool of Radiance "Gold Box" Series (1988-1993) - Officially Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game produced by SSI and licensed for the Forgotten Realms. I actually didn't own Pool of Radiance, the first installment of the series. I never actually had Pool of Radiance, but I played the rest of them in this series and loved all of them. You built your own party, tailored how they looked, and set off on the quest at hand. Describing these games would be an enormous post in itself, probably not something I'm up to. But they were really influential on me and, I know, to a lot of other people out there. They paved the way for other roleplaying computer games to come; they are to current MMOs (Everquest, World of Warcraft, etc.) what Gary Gygax is to pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons.

Anyway, I recently came across a podcast called the Online Gamers Anthology. Most of it relates to MMOs, which I'm not a particularly big fan of (with the exception of Lord of the Rings Online), but three episodes in particular stand out, and if you've got some idle time, I recommend you listen to them. I've heard a few podcasts, but the quality of these—and the enthusiasm of its host—beats out many of them.

• Episode 14 - A look back at D&D (part 1) and an excellent interview with Tracy Hickman.
• Episode 15 - A look back at D&D (part 2).
• Episode 16 - Discussion of the Gold Box games; namely, Pool of Radiance.

† 'fortuitous - This word means "happening or produced by chance." Which few people seem to realize; most use it incorrectly to mean "lucky," which is a shame, because it's a neat word with a unique meaning. This lazy assumption, that the word is merely a synonym for "fortunate," has actually resulted in its becoming an alternate definition in the dictionary. Well, I suppose that's how a language evolves, but that doesn't mean I always have to like it.

My mom just sent me this photo of my parents' house right now, in upstate New York.

Snow = awesome. Of course, many U.S. states already have a great deal of it, and it's not always a boon to them. We are at the crossroads between autumn and winter. It's getting colder, and around the New York City area the trees are almost bare, and the summer folk are complaining even louder. I love this time of year, and I wish it wasn't as busy as it is.

But it certainly is. I hope to have more to offer in days to come.

Halloween has come and gone. But as the cultural door swings shut on all things ghoulish, why not have one at least one final dose in the spirit of the haunting season? If you're game, check out my review of Boo Berry® cereal. Yes, people, I actually put some cereal on my scanner, cut up a box, and reviewed a cereal that turns milk blue. Am I trying to recapture my childhood? No, because I never had stuff like that growing up; so there isn't a hint of nostalgia there. Although my adult self fully appreciates the notion of a horror-themed cereal and I've certainly always heard of these cereals.

The holiday itself was pretty good, although the actual trick-or-treat festivities were minimal in my part of NYC. Still, that didn't stop Marisa and I from dressing up, carving pumpkins, and doing our thing. Over the weekend we celebrated our anniversary by going upstate NY to the Headless Horseman Hayrides, which was actually the most elaborate hayride-and-haunted-house locale I've ever seen. A big cornfield hayride, with an actual headless horseman, a twisted fairy tales theme, and a great deal of theatrical gore. Fun. But afterwards when we went to a semi-fancy restaurant, being fun house snobs, we talked about how it could all have been better. Then we stayed in a creepy bed and breakfast which seemed to fit the season.

Here are some photos to go along with the above:

In other news.... Most of you probably haven't heard of it, but I picked up this year's volume of Spectrum, which just came out. Spectrum is an annual book of the "best in contemporary fantasy art."

Generally this is a book containing very awesome artwork of varying media from a ton of different artists. Most of it's cool, some of it's silly, and a smaller portion of it really isn't all that. But why did I actually purchase this year's? Because of page 84, of course:

Really, Michael Komarck's painting for The Darkwood Mask ought to be over on that other page, big sized.

So what does November hold? A lot of work at the day job, some behind-the-scenes (for now) writing gigs, and some famililal surgeries coming up. Oh, and hey, Election Day is today, isn't it? I already voted, and that's all I'm going to say about that here. People can maybe start getting back to normal, and this country can hopefully begin to find itself again.

I have curated a podcast of Halloween-ish songs over at Sidedown: Hallowcast 3. You can subscribe to the podcast—Downcast—by inputting this URL in your iTunes (http://www.sidedown.org/downcast/downcast.xml), or you can just play this particular episode right there on that page. It's a 45 minute mix of creepy and fun horror-themed music, and it's free. So check it out, will you?

8 days to Halloweenn now, and I haven't seen as many scary movies as I'd hoped to yet; there just hasn't been time for it. But here's a few I did catch:

• 30 Days of Night - I really enjoyed this one, and it partially fulfills my craving for more zombie movies, even though it's not a zombie movie. Not only is it a slightly different take on vampires, but the location was intriguing. Vampires in the freezing cold in the far distant north? What's not to like?!

• Rosemary's Baby - Never had seen this before. Pretty freaky, impressive for 1968.

• Rose Red - I'd seen this before when it first aired on TV years ago. It's so full of awesome visuals and sets, and even has a decent plotline and some good characters. But like most haunted house or ghost movies, it suffers from a convolution of ambiguous and arbitrary ghost powers which sort of degenerates into an illogical conclusion. I still enjoy watching it, though.

Pretty soon I want to Netflix The Real Ghostbusters. I miss those cartoons.

Seen anything interesting this month?