July 2008

Part of our salute to Gary Gygax:

In thinking back on D&D this week, I’ve realized that I was hooked by the concept even before I was old enough to really play the actual game.

One example of this was my collection of AD&D action figures. I remember these being well made and a ton of fun. I found a short article on the toy line and a listing with pictures.  Seeing those images brought the memories flooding back as clear as day.  I know I spent hours recreating epic adventures on my bedroom floor.  I even recall that my one issue with the entire line was finding a suitably heroic “good guy” warrior to be the main hero in the stories I created.

Now, Warduke was certainly a wonderful villain.  But when it came to the forces of good, well, there was no perfect fit. Northlord looked too much like He-Man and I felt that a sword was the most heroic weapon, not an axe.  Now, the Young Titan was pretty cool but way too Roman in style to really fit into the more medieval adventures I was creating.  Strongheart would seem like the perfect fit for my main hero and I did have this character.  But even as a kid, something about that 70’s style mustache prevented me from really identifying with the brave paladin.   [click to continue…]

Part of our salute to Gary Gygax:

My favorite article about Gary Gygax is definitely a brilliant piece entitled “Destroy All Montsters” by Paul La Farge in a magazine called The Believer.  In it, the author goes on a quest of sorts (which succeeds) to actually play a game of Dungeons & Dragons with Gygax as the DM.  Before we get to this quest (the Scenario) we first get plenty of information on the history of both D&D and Gygax (the Manual).  This section could have been dry, but it’s written in a clear and enjoyable manner.  There’s a third thread which runs throughout the piece that really spoke to me, the author’s journey of coming to grips with his own past as a D&D player. 

Since the Believer is more of a magazine for literary geeks then gaming geeks, I always thought it was a shame that more people who would appreciate it didn’t get to share in this great article.  It appeared in the “Gaming” issue of the Believer in September, 2007 and I wrote up a little review of that issue on Aggro Me.

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Something I love is all the hobbyist-built robots out there, and this one mixes three things I love! Tilted Twister is a robot that solves a scrambled Rubik’s Cube.

What I find particularly interesting about this guy is that he’s not just any type of robot, he’s a Lego Mindstorms-based robot!

Wow! Robots mixed with Lego and a Rubik’s Cube? OK, I kinda hate Rubik’s damn cube, I could never solve it… but this robot can! On average it can solve the puzzle in 6 minutes, which totally kicks my current running time of well over 13,140,000 minutes.

Part of our salute to Gary Gygax:

You know you’re a geek icon when you appear on Futurama.

Gygax appears as a “Vice Presidential Action Ranger” in the episode “Anthology of Interest I.”  I won’t ruin it for you if you haven’t seen it but I think it’s a good cameo.  Wikipedia states that “Gary Gygax’s appearance alongside Al Gore is something of an inside joke since Gore’s wife, Tipper Gore, hates Dungeons & Dragons and has been publicly critical of it.”  But I think Gygax would have made it into the show at some point anyway, as it’s obvious that at least some of the writers play D&D. 

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How much cash do you have hoarded away in your piggy bank?

I ask because I found this in my inbox today: there’s an eBay auction for one of the T.I.E. Fighter models from A New Hope that starts this Friday, August 1st! This is not just any T.I.E. Fighter, here’s a quote from the auction’s page:

“During the nail-biting assault on the Death Star in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, this is the actual filming miniature of the T.I.E. Fighter that bumps into Darth Vader’s fighter knocking him out of the trench, allowing Luke to destroy the Death Star.”

You have got to be kidding me! My hunch was right, this sucker is one of only four T.I.E. Fighter models that were made for the first Star Wars movie! I guess it’s no surprise that bids will begin at $170,000 USD.

It should also be no surprise that I’ll not be able to raise the funds to place a bid either… if only I’d got the email notification last week.

I love Portal probably as much as anyone in the world but, wow, people are really running the cake jokes into the ground.  They got the opportunity to do so today when several websites covered a sweet downloadable GLaDOS voice for the Garmin Nuvi. 

The person behind this great creation is Ryan VanMiddlesworth and you can visit his GLaGPS page, where the familiar voice is available for download.  Just be aware that this is not true text-to-speech.  You will get directions but GLaGPS will not voice street names. 

There is apparently quite the market in geeky voices for the GPS crowd.  For example, I found this page, which offers free Vader and Yoda voices for the TomTom (I can’t vouch for the safety or efficacy of the downloads).  A company called Navtones is selling TomTom voices, such as, um…Mr.T and Count Whackula.   Okay.

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