Some of AIR's recent research reports:
Can you believe it? A (woo woo) Secret Project. We'll announce soon, but right now I'm working on something Not To Be Discussed. Sort of a pain not being able to talk about it. On the other hand, if we hadn't talked so much about, err, Very Warm Heavy Metal, or In The Name Of, we wouldn't have to wear full-face masks every time we went to GenCon.
I promise, we'll spill the beans soon, and you can see what I've been up to. The art is going to be neat, too . . .
-- Steve Jackson
My brother's in cooking school in Hyde Park, NY. He loves his work, he's good at it, and it pays well - he's truly found his calling. And if things don't work out for him, at least he'll always eat well. Anyway, on his drive back to the "lovely" frozen waste of Sheboygan, WI, his car decided to behave decidedly uncarlike (hence the 'exploding car' comment above) thus stranding him in New York. Damn. I was hoping to see him this season. Our paths so rarely cross anymore.
And as different as my life may be from theirs, I can still go to the same bar and drink beer with my friends in peace (ignoring the Mötley Crüe). If only the Congress could encourage such a degree of tolerance. Maybe Sen. Exon is afraid a machinist from Vollrath would whip his ass in a game of darts. Who knows?
The more things change, the more they yadda, yadda, yadda. I feel like I'm getting old. At least I dress better than I did in 1986, which is more than I can say about the bar crowd at 10-0-2's tonight. Still, everyone's got to have a hobby, and theirs is beer. My experience in Louisiana tells me that there are worse ways to spend your free time.
So I'm a cynical bastard - sue me. I had a good time tonight talking about stereo equipment, the internet and the future of commerce, my past life as an Evil Genius and (I'm sorry) imitating Beavis & Butthead.
Geez, hey - It's Sheboygan. What do you expect, eh?
-- Bob Apthorpe
I'm back from Boston. Everything went well. Steffan ran us through a Four Musketeers adventure in FUDGE and, mon Dieu, it was a gas. We played some Robo Rally, too. The new boards in the Armed and Dangerous expansion are deadly. And Steffan's random-event cards make everything even nastier . . . I'm trying to get him to submit them to Pyramid.
Hhave a good holiday. Relax, slack off, play games.
-- Steve Jackson
As for myself, I'm in Boston, holding - no kidding - Secret Meetings about a couple of different 1996 projects. Well, one sure-thing project and one interesting potential one. No, I'm not going to tell. Yes, I just dropped the hint because I'm a bad person fnord.
But tomorrow I get to sit down and play a game with GURPS writers Ann Dupuis and Steffan O'Sullivan. But we're not going to play GURPS - we're going to play a swashbuckling scenario in FUDGE. It's only fair; Steffan wrote it, Ann's company published it, and they outnumber me . . .
-- Steve Jackson
Introducing the INWO OMNI League! The Omni League was originally developed by Jonathan Tweet, designer of On The Edge from Atlas Games, and the original Omni League is for OTE players. It was such a great idea, we wanted to do it too, and we thank Jonathan and Atlas for giving us their permission!
INWO OMNI is a set of rules for tournament and non-tournament play. An Omni League is, in the words of its creator, "a non-localized community of players, all working with a limited number of cards." The key to the league is "limited number." No one can buy a killer deck in Omni gaming . . . you have to build it, a game at a time.
In other news, no new HTMLizations of back issues of ADQ came in today. I suspect that our intrepid volunteers have been swallowed up by the holidays, finals, or a spontaneous INWO OMNI League tournament.
Either that or the Assassins got them . . .
-- Bob Apthorpe
Not wanting to miss out on the fun, I HTMLized Kids in Car Wars from ADQ 2/2.
That reminds me, I still have to finish my Christmas shopping.
-- Bob Apthorpe
PS: We realized we had erred with last week's selection of a representative
smutty newsgroup. The appropriate newsgroup is
alt.food.taco-bell. We regret this error.
With all the recent commotion about net censorship, and with the
approach of the holiday season, I was inspired to write the following
song for our department's annual holiday party skit.
(Note that some of the lines are identical to the real version. I
don't know if that poses copyright violations for posting purposes or
not.)
Kevin Hinshaw
hinshaw@cs.washington.edu
Sex nuts posting on an open wire
Sick thoughts dripping from their prose
Dirty pictures showing young girls for hire
And men dressed up in women's clothes
Everybody knows
That mountains of pornography
Have been appearing left and right
Tiny tots with their eyes all a-glow
May find the ones with sheep tonight
We know that Satan's on the Net
Along with all the creeps and perverts he could get
Enticing every child to try his luck
At finding pictures of people who fundamentally undermine
the morals of society
And so I'm offering this simple phrase
To kids from one to ninety-two;
Although it's been said many times, many ways
"Let us censor for you."
My apologies to Mel Tormé - he really deserves better than that.
Congress roasting on an open fire
Exon pining for some smut...
Sorry, Mel - I couldn't resist...
-- Bob Apthorpe
PS: We realized we had erred with last week's selection of a representative
smutty newsgroup. The appropriate newsgroup is
alt.pantyhose. We regret this error.
-- Steve Jackson
No, that's not an insult; that's our catch-phrase for
GURPS Goblins which
is scuttling its cowardly way to completion. This book has been very difficult
to edit, what with our editor periodically falling out of her chair and laughing
uncontrollably for extended periods of time.
Here's a sample:
''Casual Employment...
Goblin society has many irregular vocations for unemployed juvenile ruffians - in particular those which the employer doesn't want any visible connection with (e.g. whacking the employer's boss, stripping him naked, painting his backside with tar and throwing him into the Thames). If the delinquents perform this task well, they may be called upon again to perform another such job in the future. If they perform it badly, they might be caught, whacked, interrogated, stripped naked, painted with tar and thrown into the Thames...''
-- Bob Apthorpe
PS: We realized we had erred with yesterday's selection of a representative newsgroup.
The appropriate newsgroup is alt.lycra. We regret this error.
Steve Jackson Games Image Use Policy: You can use images found on our website for non-commercial purposes as long as you tell us first. We might put a link from our pages to your page. We will politely tell you to stop using our images if you do something we consider "yucky" (example: GURPS Proctologist, GURPS Attorney, GURPS Drug Trafficker, GURPS House of Representatives, etc.). Other than that, you're on your own.
Pretty simple, huh?
Re: the so-called Communications Decency Act
Stardot Consulting, Ltd. has been
gracious enough to provide a page to let you
send
your message to Washington, whatever your opinion of this piece
of legislation. I'm not comfortable using the Illuminator as a political
soapbox, but I'd be even less comfortable knowing that I could be jailed
for 'indecent' e-mail or for perusing alt.binaries.lingerie.
This ''busybody complex'' that has gripped America has got to go. Senator Exon, et. al. have more pressing problems to worry about than cheesecake GIFs and the use of the term ''hooters'' in my e-mail. Like extracting our forces from the Bosnian meatgrinder, balancing the Federal budget and debt reduction, tort reform, high-level nuclear waste disposal and a whole myriad of tangible social ills.
End of soapbox.
-- Bob Apthorpe
Today's Secret Toy Surprise is the Adventures of Bromwyn Bunny in Canada. Our heroine, the fair Bromwyn, had been devoured by an ''Evil Bunny-eating totem pole'' running amok in Vancouver. Luckily, she survived this mishap unscathed, but wiser for it. This is only one of her many adventures. Truly a charmed bunny.
-- Bob Apthorpe
(admitting that yes, Virginia, it has been a slow newsday. . .)
![[POSTER ART]](/inwo/assassins/ass.ad.jpg)
The first Assassins packs
arrived at our offices today and they're pretty. Well, as pretty as cards depicting
weird phenomena, strange organizations, and untimely demises can be. In celebration, we
coerced our own Jeff Koke into creating
a wonderful graphic for Assassins (at right). It's a little premature,
given that Assassins hasn't hit the retailers yet, but it will soon
(barring any technical difficulties).
Good news for Car Wars aficionados - the Autoduel Quarterly archives are beginning to fill up. We just received a pair of articles from ADQ 2/2 and we are anxiously awaiting several more.
Last, but not least: Today's Secret Toy Surprise!
On a whim, I ran a Lycos search on Earl Butts
(and, alternatively, Earl Butz, mainly because I couldn't remember how to spell
his last name). For those of you who are historically impaired, Earl was
the politically-incorrect Agriculture Secretary under Jimmy Carter. Anyway, the most popular
link I found was not suitable for the Daily Illuminator (the curious can run their own
Lycos search
themselves). Suffice to say, the part about the turnip always cracks me up.
It doesn't really matter though. Senator Exon and his ilk will ensure that whatever content does manage to be publically posted will be sufficiently watered down so as not to arouse the most sexually frustrated rural postal inspector.
So, on that Freudian note, we arrive at today's Secret Toy Surprise - The Alaska Volcano Observatory. They have a beautiful map of the volcanic activity in the Aleutian chain as well as satellite images of eruptions and ash plumes. This is also the only place I've ever seen the word "Kamchatka" oustide of the game Risk.
Bonus Points: Using the rules from Web That Smut, how many clicks does it take to get from the Alaska Volcano Observatory to (kids, hide your eyes) the Butt Page alluded to above? Mathematicians are encouraged to send us the general algorithm for finding the shortest path between these two pages...
-- Bob Apthorpe
(who gave up without linking the sites but whose Web That Smut! score was 19...)
No major upheavals in the gaming world, no disasters or windfalls of any real import, no major news, nothing.
So I dug around for some info on my old pal, Jim Exon Okay, I'm being sarcastic. I doubt Mr. Exon gives a flipping flounder about me, you, or the U. S. Constitution - he's just trying to get the rest of the Senate to stop addressing him as "The Gentleman whose name rhymes with a major oil company representing that large, flat state containing little of consequence."
Anyway, I decided to see what other pieces of jughead legislation the good Mr. Exon is attempting to promulgate. Outside of a couple bills messing with broadcast and cable TV, public broadcasting, denial of benefits to illegal aliens, regulation of the size of Mexican truck trailers entering the U.S. (a national crisis to be sure), and something about replacing striking railway workers, I found twine.
Really. Twine. I found this unusual. I usually associate twine with Kansas, along with the deepest hand-dug well, but that's another story for another day. Twine. Here's the context and you be the judge:
MEASURE: S751 SPONSOR: Exon (D-NE) BRIEF TITLE: None OFFICIAL TITLE: A bill to provide that certain games of chance conducted by a nonprofit organization not be treated as an unrelated business of such organization. QUICK REFERENCE: Duty tax on twine products INTRODUCED: 05/03/95 COSPONORS: 1 (Dems: 1 Reps: 0 Ind: 0) CURRENT COSPONSORS: Kerrey, R. (D-NE)
I (ahem) pulled the string on this over at the Library of Congress. No twine. Nothing.
A coverup? A conspiracy? What tangled ball of, uh, intrigue have we stubled upon? A simple typo, or is Mr. Exon pandering to the bingo halls and twine producers of Nebraska? And what, if any, relation does this have to the abominable Communications Decency Act? If I was a little more paranoid, I'd suspect an Illuminati was on the move, its motives hidden behind the mundane machinations of a Congress so addled and corrupt.
But I'm not that paranoid. I dug around in the Library of Congress until I found "Truth in Poultry Labeling Act of 1995", decided that I had had quite enough of Congress for one day and went home.
-- Bob Apthorpe ''Live Free Or Die''
On the other hand, Brenda Hurst, who is up in NYC supervising the Assassins shipment, says they had several inches of snow. So we shouldn't complain. (But we do anyway.)
-- Steve Jackson, waiting for spring
First, the palletized Assassins drop-ships went out today. No, this isn't some strange science-fiction invasion fleet (though if we could get one of those, who knows what mischief we could get ourselves into, heh, heh. . .) That's publishing lingo for 'a massive amount of Assassins Booster Packs have been shipped from the printers directly to the distributors and will hit your retailer "soon".' The rest of the Assassins booster packs are due to be shipped Monday and we can't wait to see them. Finally, the wait is over!
Our other headline story is that Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has announced a realignment in which they have discontinued some of their smaller product lines, including their roleplaying games. This was done in order to 'focus (their) energy and resources in the Deckmaster line and new product areas'. This has meant the loss of 30 jobs in the US and Europe, announced thus far.
WotC President and CEO Peter Adkison stated, 'We are not abandoning these products or their fans, and we are looking for new publishers for the roleplaying games.'
-- Bob Apthorpe ''Live Free Or Die''
IMO, the proposed legislation is vague, unnecessary, and lends itself to arbitrary and capricious enforcement. The government has proven itself incapable of responsibly handling a checkbook, yet somehow it feels it's capable of making complex judgements about the content of many-to-many electronic communications. This is absurd; it would be funny if it didn't put you and I at risk of imprisonment.
The following is courtesy of the Voters Telecomm Watch:
The Christian Coalition and others are lobbying for broad infringements on free speech net by passing legislation that "dumb down" Internet content to that which is acceptable to children. In addition, services like this one might become liable for what their users say and read on the Internet. Please call Congress now; for more info URL:http://www.vtw.org/ or send mail to files@vtw.org with "send alert" in the subject line. (12/6/95)
Stop the government from restricting your online speech! (12/6/95)
See you in prison,
-- Bob Apthorpe ''Live Free Or Die''
In other news, our own Jim Robinson found a new game you can play with your web browser - Web That Smut! Apparently, there's a solitaire version, but I'm not sure I want to know the details. . .
-- Bob Apthorpe
On an unrelated note, I decided to search the web for the keywords 'exploding cheese elves'. While I didn't find much on detonating mythical creatures made of dairy products, I did find the L.A. Cacophony Society. Their missive on software testing was truly enlightening...
-- Bob Apthorpe
It shouldn't be too long until GURPS Martial Arts gets back from the printers as well. Also of note is that the Assassins cards have been printed and are in the process of being cut; they are still set to be shipped by Christmas.
Things have gone pretty well for a Monday.
-- Bob Apthorpe
-- Steve Jackson
-- Steve Jackson
Wish me luck and good fortune. Especially clear weather. I'll have an interesting tale for you unless someone else around the offices has something relevant to offer Monday.
Until then, don't divide by zero. You'll just make it angry...
-- Bob Apthorpe
![[JUMP]](/Images/jump.gif){kind=small}
-- To return here, ``sjgames-ill''.