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Lessee - the first Big Deal is the addition of the Genericsons to the GURPS Basic Set homepage. The Genericsons are what we euphemistically call those bald, near-naked, pictures of humans (man-sized targets?) that serve as the basis for character sketches on GURPS character record sheets. I received a nice email message from someone asking if we could please post these to the web. That sounded like a pretty good idea, so here they are.
Tomorrow, I'll tell you about the new GURPS worldbook pages we've added, and maybe, if you're really nice, I'll let you in on Bruce Popky's favorite Link-O-The-Month - Trophy Bass Fishing!
Until then, stock up on canned goods, batteries, and fresh water until the flood waters recede...
-- Bob Apthorpe
Oops - sorry. I got a little carried away there. As I was saying yesterday, a whole bunch of new GURPS worldbook pages have been added to the site. Zombietown USA has finally reared it's ugly, undead head, as has Witch World.
But it hasn't been all horror and fantasy. GURPS Uplift and GURPS Unnight expand our collection of space-related pages and Wild Cards does the same for our supers pages
We're about 8 books shy of having a web page for every GURPS book in print. Like I said, we're a long way from done but we've made a lot of progress lately. I hope it shows.
-- Bob Apthorpe
One significant addition is the World Of Darkness books: GURPS Vampire: The Masquerade, GURPS Werewolf: The Apocalypse and GURPS Mage: The Ascension. People have been asking me when we were going to get these installed, and the answer has been "soon, soon". They're up and online - the only book left to do is GURPS Webmaster: The Relieved but it's not quite finished yet. . .
We got a few more of the historical pages installed as well. Both GURPS Imperial Rome and GURPS Vikings have arrived. And while I'm on the subject of historical books, GURPS Places of Mystery author Phil Masters pointed out that the errata for GURPS Celtic Myth is now available; the errata has been linked to that books' home page.
That's not all - stay tuned for tomorrow's installment . . .
-- Bob Apthorpe
DELETED) Ghost In
A Can, some glow-in-the-dark Mystery Ooze!
The coincidence is amazing, considering last week's fascination with glop and yesterday's "discovery" of American Science and Surplus. So, continuing today's theme of coincidence and time warpage, we bring you Strange Magazine's interview with Steven Gibbs, a man purporting to sell a time machine. It's a fascinating tale of flux capacitors, greys, MIBs and other bits of high weirdness. Truly a must-read for the bored X-phile.
Major credit goes to Illuminator Newshound Berin Kinsman for bringing this to our attention.
-- Bob Apthorpe
While I'm normally not in the habit of giving free advertising to other
companies, I absolutely MUST share this one with you.
Illuminator Newshound Jim Robinson found the site of American Science and Surplus,
producers of one of the bestest and most entertaining catalogs ever sent to
people who order amusing catalogs without ever purchasing stuff from them.
American Science and Surplus (aka JERRYCO) sells stuff. All sorts of stuff. Everything from used automotive airbags to assorted dental tools to zillions of products that almost but don't quite make the grade like the underpowered Chinese pottery wheels to misprinted mechanical pencils. They even have ordinary normal standard 6-sided dice and plenty of them for not a whole lot (10 pair for $2).
But this is far more than a big catalog of weird and obtuse ephemera - it's also one of the best written, most entertaining catalogs you'll find outside of J. Peterman and Lindsay Publications. And, unlike the other two, it's on the web now.
Trash or treasure - you be the judge. Do it in person, though. If you're planning on attending GenCon this year (and aren't we all?), cut a few hours free to visit their Milwaukee-area store. You'll be glad you did.
-- Bob Apthorpe
I suspect it was a result of making fun of Mystery Glop last week - I may have angered the Glop Gods. Also, poisoning by Those Damned Elves can't be discounted either. Soon I will regain enough of my strength to type normally once again (I'm typing this with my tongue; I love these Apple Slobber-Friendly keyboards with ergonomic tongue support).
Anyway, I found another cool link on the topic of Mystery Glop that I just had to
share (Glop Gods and Elves be damned!). Try the
J. C. Davis Group
home page at UC-Berkeley. These people are probing the mysteries of an
amazing glop - superfluid liquid helium!
"Helium? That's not amazing (unless you breathe it and begin to talk funny in which case it's quite amusing)," you exclaim. Little you know, puny human. Outside of being really, really cold (usually much colder than Wisconsin), liquid helium exhibits this nifty property of (apparently) defying gravity and generally not playing well with the Laws of Nature.
While you're trying to figure that out, I'll be casting out "the Sick of Moltar" and finding more Weird Science Terms like "Time Reversal Invariance" and "rotons".
-- Bob Apthorpe
It's chock-full of interesting web goo, er, glop including art, humor, Doom, language, goth glop and more.
When you get tired of that, check out some of the new GURPS pages we've installed, including:
Here at SJ Games, we're adding new glop all the time . . .-- Bob Apthorpe
I need four to six people who are willing to work the booth at DragonCon. "What's in it for me?" you ask? Well, for every hour you work the booth, you get $10.00 worth of product (retail). Best of all, if you send me advance notice of what you want, I might be able to bring it with me so that you can simply take it away after your shift.
"What else are you offering?" you ask? OK. That's not all! I will be bringing special surprises for all who work for me, and will be giving bonuses to those who work early shifts!
I do have a few requirements, and they are detailed here.
So send me e-mail at claudia@io.com! I need help!
Schedules: Right now, the DragonCon schedule is pretty loose. Once I get some people to help me, I will tighten it up. Right now, though, I am trying just to find out who is interested.
You have to show up fifteen minutes before your scheduled time to make time for shift changes.
Dress Code: All booth representatives are required to dress neatly and cleanly in a professional manner. T shirts will not be allowed unless they are clean and neat, ripped or torn jeans will not be allowed, nor will sweat clothes. This doesn't mean that you can't wear jeans, just be clean and neat. Feel free to clock me upside the head if I don't meet my own dress code.
Alertness: All workers are expected to be able to answer questions about the products as well as sell them. In order to do this, you have to be alert. Cokes, coffee, coffee beans and other caffeine related items will be made available, even if we have to sneak them in *psst--don't tell*. Thus, if any worker does not seem to be able to carry his/her load, he/she will be asked to leave and get some sleep. If you are asked to leave, please do not take offense. Your health is more important than the booth.
Money: All people who work the booth will be required to handle money. Receipt books will be issued, and you will have to use them. All transactions are to be cash, check, or credit card. You will receive instructions before working the booth on how to cash out.
Compensation: You know you want it. Each worker will receive $10.00 in product for each hour served. If you send me a wish list, I will be more than happy to bring the product you desire with me so you can work for it. You may pick up your product after the show, before tear down.
There is nothing wrong with working more than your scheduled shift. Heck, if you want to, you can work the entire convention with us. I don't mind. :)
Now it's your turn. If you have a particular schedule you want to work, or you have a particular game you want to run at the booth (this is still working) then I need to know. If you prefer morning shifts or evening shifts, I need to know.
I will do everything possible to make this a great con for you. As new perks get added to the list, I will be telling you all about them.
Please get in touch with me as soon as convenient at any of the above numbers, or e-mail me at claudia@io.com.
Thanks again!
Claudia T. Smith
Sales Manager
Convention Liasion
Steve Jackson Games
Simple - it shows up in Diet Dr. Pepper and I have no idea why.
So, research is in order. First we tried to find out how bad this stuff is for you, given that it's related to the toxic antifreeze component ethylene glycol. What better place to look than the polyethylene glycol Material Safety Data Sheet (good to know if a railcar of this goop overturns in your backyard).
Well, at least we know it's not toxic and not very flammable. On a uncofortable note, I also found some things that people do with polyethylene glycol that I'd have preferred not to have known.
Well, after vainly searching for the official (read: sanitized, high-budget corporate) Dr. Pepper home page, I settled for 12 fl oz, an unofficial (read: low-buget, amusing, honest) Dr. Pepper page that answered the burning question:
Does Dr. Pepper have antifreeze in it?A relief to us all, the answer is no. Our researchers are at this very moment conducting experiments to determine the feasibility of using Diet Dr. Pepper as both a beverage and a Safety Freeze.
Stay tuned for more Science,
-- Bob Apthorpe
One word:
For those of you too cheap and/or too creative for the prepackaged stuff, here are some recipes for mystery Floam-like glop.
Tune in next year for another important tax tip.
-- Bob (searching for relevance) Apthorpe
Like golf.
Yup, nothing like meandering about the links, whacking at the underbrush with a blunt implement. And we here at the Illuminator have found the perfect place for underbrush whacking: the Greenbrier.
The Greenbrier is a Mobil Five-Star, AAA Five-Diamond, award-winning resort in White Sulphur Springs, WV. Nestled on 6500-acres in an upland valley of the Allegheny Mountains, The Greenbrier offers more than 50 activities, including three, 18-hole championship golf courses, a gallery of fine shops and a host of traditional amenities which have distinguished this resort for more than 200 years.
And, if you get tired of that, you can check out their big bunker. Not this big bunker, this big bunker.
That's right, in case of nuclear attack, the golfing members of the Senate and House of Representative, their staff (and ostensibly, their caddies) would be secreted away to the big bunker beneath the Greenbrier to guide this proud nation through the difficult times expected after the aforementioned nuclear apocalypse.
But now, through the miracle of The Fall of The Evil Empire, the veil of secrecy has been lifted at long last and the Greenbrier bunker is now open to us, the unwashed electorate. So hurry and make your reservations before Disney buys the place out and turns it into a Cold War theme park. Now that would be an Atomic Horror . . .
-- Bob Apthorpe
(who can't get the "It's a Small World" music out of his head . . .)
There was a lot to play. A lot of original design work is going on in Sweden. NeoGames, which started with NeoBunnies (radioactive carrots and mutated rabbits!!) has gone professional, with several different releases. But they're not the only one. I got to play Trenchraiders, a neat little miniatures game about WWI trench combat. I watched a couple of games of Apokalypse, a fast-moving end-of-the-world miniatures game. This one has a lot of attitude, and special "miniatures" for pools of blood . . . It wouldn't surprise me to see American releases of some of these, someday.
-- Steve Jackson
If you find any broken scripts, please let me know so I can fix them.
Thanks for your patience in this time of crisis,
-- Bob Apthorpe
ABMD Army Ballistic Missile Division
ABMDA Advanced Ballistic Missile Defense Agency
ABNCP Airborne Command Post
ABRES Advanced Ballistic RE-entry System
ABRV Advanced Ballistic Reentry Vehicle program
abs Absolute
ABS Agile Beam System
ABS Airborne Sensor
ABS HUM Absolute Humidity
abstract syntax: The unambiguous definition of the data structures used by
an application in communication
ABU Analog Backup
ABW Air Base Wing
ABW Apparent Band Width
Ac Actinium
AC Aircraft
ac Alternating Current
AC Alternating Current
AC Armament Computer
ACA Accounts Control Area
ACA Automatic Circuit Assurance
ACADA Advanced Chemical Agent Detector and Alarm
LTR,
-- Bb pthrp
"Arrow Tech is proud to present a broad selection of software products for the ammunition professional. If you design, evaluate or even use ammunition, from 5.56mm small arms up to 16 inch cannon projectiles, you will find Arrow Tech software products can make your work easier and more productive."
They even have an evaluation version of their software (very nifty)! But remember, Projectile Data Files NOT available for Export!
Nobody better tell David Pulver about this...
Hey - that reminds me - the playtest newsgroup for
GURPS
Ultra-Tech 2 has been created. It's
called io.games.sjg.gurps.ultratech2
(IO members only...)
-- Bob Apthorpe
I thought I would be leaving today (it's late Wednesday as I write this). Alas, not so. I got on the plane, it started down the runway, the left engine went bad . . . They couldn't fix it in time for me to make my connection, so I went back home. American Airlines was very professional about the whole thing; I give them big points for that. So I'll take off again Thursday afternoon. I've got a five-hour layover in London on the way there - maybe I can get on the tube and go someplace interesting.
All in all, it ought to be fun. I'll be playing INWO and demonstrating Dino Hunt , and finding out how they do things in Sweden.
-- Steve Jackson
-- Bob Apthorpe
"Gamers give their favorite rulebooks a real workout," Managing Editor Scott Haring said. "This new binding means that the book will stay open on the table, no matter what page you open it to, without having to break the spine."
While the process is an added expense, it's something that our customers told us they wanted. "We've heard from our fans about this for some time, and when we got a chance to give them what they wanted, we took it," Steve Jackson said.
The first book to feature the new lie-flat binding was GURPS Martial Arts, 2nd Edition, released in January, 1996. The new printing of the Car Wars Compendium, 2nd Edition, released in February, also had the new binding. "They were perfect examples of books that would really benefit from this process -- full of rules that gamers would refer to over and over again," Haring said.
The May release of the new printing of the GURPS Basic Set, 3rd Edition, Revised will be the next book to feature lie-flat binding and another natural for the process. This new printing will also feature a new cover and all-new interior art and graphics. Future books to get the lie-flat treatment include GURPS Compendium I and II and GURPS Vehicles, 2nd Edition.
-- Scott Haring
Have fun!
-- Bob Apthorpe
The first comes to us from Michael Shaffer who brings us news of a GURPS UnderNet IRC channel:
http://www2.undernet.org:8080/~cs93jtl/Undernet.html
where they let you know about what the undernet is about and why they
think it is better than EFNet. In general, channel operators on the
Undernet are more cooperative and helpful than on EFNet, and don't
tolerate really obnoxious behavior. The name of the channel is
#GURPS.
The "#" means it is a public channel for anyone to get onto.
The web page has a list of servers for people in various countries (mostly North America and Europe). If you want any more info you can contact me or Mr. Wilson at our email addresses. We will be very happy (i.e. slobberingly grateful) to answer any other questions you have, assuming we know the answers.
Michael Shaffer
mshaffer@bluefin.net
irc nickname = pookey
Our second addition is the experimental online Basic Set rule server. This is an alpha test, so don't be surprised if it's a little buggy.
And in the spirit of April Fools' Day, Ken & Jo Walton have graciously shared their list of French Skills with us. We'll let them explain the story behind this ...
Have fun!
-- Bob Apthorpe