Content warning: Contains the word "gonads" - repeated over and over - and a drug reference. If you are a child, or simply childish, you will laugh hysterically. If you are upset by such things, you know what not to do.
Of course, the subtitles also have one really naughty word and one awful misspelling, neither of which I would want my six-year-old repeating if I had one. So use your own judgment, if you have any.
And now, without further ado . . . Weeeeee!
-- Steve Jackson
The pilot had a hard call to make. He no doubt realized that if the man's claims were true, there would be screams from both the left ("You're profiling!") and the right ("How dare you interfere with the Secret Service!") But if it was a ruse . . . his passengers, and perhaps thousands of people on the ground, could die. The pilot made the correct, hard decision . . . and now, sure enough, people all the way up to the President are second-guessing him.
Rather than go through with the threatened federal "inquiry" into the pilot's motives, the President should phone that pilot and thank him for doing his job. He protected his passengers, and perhaps thousands of other lives. He could have knuckled under to an armed man claiming to be a Secret Service agent. He could have delayed the flight, perhaps for hours, to check. But he did the right thing.
It's too bad the Secret Service agent was embarrassed . . . and it's a shame he missed his flight . . . but our government is telling us that we'll all have to get used to occasional inconveniences in the name of security. That goes for federal employees, too . . . even the ones with guns.
The Secret Service, of all people, should know that when your job is protection, you take the responsibility to safeguard your charge - be it a President or a plane - regardless of whom you might offend at the time. And sometimes you make the wrong call, but in times like this, nobody should ever be punished for playing it safe. Our leaders should quit their yap about "profiling" and remind themselves that security that doesn't err on the side of caution is no security at all.
Post-Christmas crowds seemed small, which was perhaps not good . . . but good-mannered, which was nice. The only real bit of Grinchism I encountered was at the "Famous Christmas Store," to which I doubt I will ever return. The "pink" light bulbs I bought there are just as pink as can be when not lit up . . . light them up, though, and they're orange . . . but the Famous Christmas Store doesn't consider this a problem. All sales are final. Ahh, well, I'll mark them down as one of the "We have your money, go away now" breed of retailer, and give my business to someone else.
Orchids, on the other hand, to my local Loew's. Just before Christmas they had started a sale . . . and their method of pricing had confused a lot of customers. They didn't sit around complaining that the customers were dumb. They admitted the problem and changed a few hundred shelf tags. That's the kind of company that will survive a contracting economy.
I hear you asking "What about those manuscripts, Steve?" The stack is down to exactly 4 inches. I just finished reading Phil Masters' first draft of his Ottoman Empire supplement, which will fit both GURPS Castle Falkenstein and the original Castle Falkenstein. Very nice manuscript; we will probably be announcing that one pretty soon.
-- Steve Jackson
I don't know what the holidays mean to you, but what they mean to me this year is a chance to finish off my stack of manuscripts. You may recall that a couple of months ago I reported that it was more than a foot tall? Well, it's shrunk. And since I'm dealing with things on a first-in first-out basis, there's no longer anything screamingly urgent there.
But it's all important, both to the writers whose work it is and to the people who want to see the finished book. And I'm going to get that stack down to zero before the new year.
And this is going to make me HAPPY! I mean, world peace would be nice. Love, Kahlua, and a prosperous 2002 are all to be hoped for. But we take things one step at a time, and my Christmas present to myself is this stack is going to vanish!
So Merry Christmas to YOU, too . . .
-- Steve Jackson
Would it surprise you to hear that this is in the Compaq FAQ, along with a polite answer?
Good for them.
As with all new features in Warehouse 23, we're very interested in what our customers do and don't like about it, what features they'd like to see added, and, especially, if anything doesn't work properly.
We hope to be able to expand PayPal acceptance to international orders once we get all the kinks worked out. If a lot of people use the service, we'll add PayPal to other SJ Games online offerings, like the auction and the ezines.
-- Michelle
If you're like most people, you often think, "Pumpkins aren't airborne enough." If you're like these guys, you fix that by building trebuchets and other siege engines to get the job done. Then you compound the problem by writing poetry about it.
-- Suggested by Paul May
"Go to your local bookstore, in the travel section, and look for the book titled National Geographic Guide to America's Outdoors: Great Lakes (ISBN 0-7922-7754-6). On page 237 there is a picture of a couple camping at Wyalusing State Park in Wisconsin. Look carefully at the book the ruggedly handsome gentleman is reading -- that's GURPS Ogre! Gamers go camping? Yes, Virginia, gamers do go camping. And yes, the so-called "ruggedly handsome gentleman," the back of whose head you see, is me.
"This was from back in Oct. of 2000, when we spent a week camping up
there. I waited until the book was out to let you know because I was not
sure that the GURPS Ogre book would be recognizable in the final
photograph. But it looks to me to be open to pages 108-109, with the Nuclear Damage Table visible . . ."
Wargames West was our second largest distributor; the two companies were both around their twenty-year mark, and had been working together for almost all that time. This is a significant loss to us both business-wise and personally.
Although most retailers have accounts with more than one distributor, Wargames West was the preferred supplier for many stores. We will be working with other distributors to help them take up the slack and keep the games coming. But we'll miss Wargames.
This second closing of a major distributor in as many months does not bode well for the existing distribution system. Your local store may need all the help it can get; go buy something. Drag your friends to buy something. You know the drill.
-- Steve Jackson
So you've had an argument with a girlfriend?No. You haven't. He has. Put the brakes on that breakup, because you don't know how good you've got it.
-- Suggested by Anthony Salter
And remember, Warehouse 23 now has gift certificates too . . .
This has been an ad. Obligatory SJ Games status note: Unreasonably cold yesterday. Unreasonably warm today. Raining both days and roof leaking both days. Eeeuuuuw.
-- Steve Jackson
GURPS Deadlands Dime Novel 2 - Wanted: Undead or Alive
Sean Bailey was a mean ol' cuss . . . and that was before a ghost rock mine caved in on him. Now he's out to get even with the people who killed him off. It's up to bounty hunter Caleb Harling and his friends to stop him before he turns Bailey's End into a ghost town.
"Wanted: Undead or Alive!" is the second in our series of fiction set in the world of Deadlands. There’s also GURPS game information, so GMs can run their own adventures in and around Bailey's End.
32 pages. Stock #6782, ISBN 1-55634-567-4. $8.95.
Ogre Scenario Book 1
Lots of Ogre adventure, at a bargain price. This book includes seven complete scenarios, requiring only the original maps from Ogre/G.E.V.. In "Hammer & Anvil," an Ogre stumbles into a trap . . . now, can the trap survive what it's caught? In "Run For The Border," an Ogre tries to defect to the other side. In "Black Knight," a demented Ogre holds a pass against both forces. Plus four others!
16 pages. Stock #3204, ISBN 1-55634-607-7. $5.95.
In Nomine Anime
It's a new take on In Nomine . . . but it works. This book showcases how perfectly the world of angels and demons fits the "anime" style of art and fiction. Just shout "Gabriel's Flame of Vengeance!" and fry those evildoers . . . or serve the Demon Prince of Technology by building a giant mecha and piloting it against Heaven! Includes discussions of character types, hints for in-genre roleplaying, and complete campaign backgrounds.
32 pages. Stock #3325, ISBN 1-55634-596-8. $9.95.
Lightstrike: The Art of John Zeleznik
John Zeleznik has one of the most vivid artistic visions in science-fiction and fantasy art today. Fans know his work from Shadowrun and Rifts, as well as GURPS Robots, GURPS Reign of Steel, GURPS Vehicles, GURPS Atomic Horror, GURPS Ogre, and many others. Cartouche Press is proud to bring Lightstrike: The Art of John Zeleznik to lovers of cool art everywhere.
Hardcover, 64 pages, full color. Stock #60-1002, ISBN 1-55634-560-7. $26.95.
The Art of John Van Fleet
This Cartouche Press book showcases a graphic talent second to none: John Van Fleet. In this 64-page full-color book, you'll find some of his best work, including covers and pages for Batman, Star Wars, and White Wolf's Vampire . . . and a 13-page authorized graphic novelette for The Matrix, never before printed!
Hardcover, 64 pages, full color. Stock #60-1003, ISBN 1-55634-559-3. $29.95.
The web page includes a FAQ, a bug report / feature request system, and online registration.
We did have a bit of a discussion here about my wording on the back cover: "We regret that there is no version of this program for any OS other than Windows . . ." It was pointed out to me that this was a negative, and one shouldn't market with negatives.
Okay. True.
But I really am sorry that we're not able to offer this for anything but Windows. It's ironic, since my own computer, and most of those at the office, are Macs. But that's the way it goes. (No disrespect to the programmers, who did an excellent job. We inherited this program from the original publisher, and the original publisher asked for a Windows application, and that's what they got.)
The best we can do is share what we know about emulators, and appreciate what we've got. And we do appreciate it. Not only will this program make things easier for GMs . . . it will make it a LOT easier for our authors and our editors to create characters for new books. Every little bit helps.
-- Steve Jackson
We set our GURPS WWII release date for December 7 to commemorate Pearl Harbor Day. Drop by your friendly local game store and see what you think of it . . .
The U.S. Army TACOM National Automotive Center, in partnership with the International Armoring Corporation and Integrated Concepts & Research, introduces the SmarTruck, a warrior-worthy vehicle packed with all the spy goodies and optional weapons the on-the-go armorer could want. Would-be international kidnappers will be almost as surprised by the grenade launchers as citizens will be to discover the Army has a national automotive center. Go here to see some specs or, if .pdfs are too slow, see the news story from Wired.
-- Suggested by Karl
Subject: thanks for retroactive permission to eat cards
INWO is the favorite game of several of my friends and I. A couple years ago, we decided, because we thought it wasn't fair that the person with the best cards consistently could make the best decks, and since we were lending cards all the time anyway, we decided to communalize all our INWOcards, to make a big pile of them that everyone who played with us could use. Now, I saw one problem with that. Back then I played almost exclusively discordian decks (and had started to do so before reading the Principia Discordia and becoming a discordian myself, strangely enough), and so hated the Deprogrammers with a passion. I hated them so much, in fact, that I traded for all I could find, just to take them out of circulation. But, now that my cards were becoming communal, anyone could use them against me. So, I started, well, eating the cards, chewing on them anyway. I was stopped, and some of my large collection was saved to haunt me. Anyway, those friends weren't particularly happy with my eating the cards, and have ragged me about it on and off since. So, you can imagine my joy when, perusing the Munchkin (another great game) FAQ, I saw: "Q. I hate the Kneepads of Allure. I think they unbalance the game. What should I do? A. There are several possibilities. -Steal the Kneepads cards out of all your friends' games and EAT them. If they catch you, lie."
Now I can tell my friends nyah nyah nyah, Steve Jackson says specifically that it's ok to eat cards you don't like. In fact, I can even tell them that I travelled forward in time to read the FAQ and so knew that it was permissible to eat evil SJ Games cards before I even ate those naughty Deprogrammers, or else why would I have eaten them instead of gotten rid of them in a more normal fashion? That should cover the lying about it when caught part... So, yeah, thanks again. --David Garlock
-- Steve Jackson
I hadn't done that for a while. Back in the day, when we were shipping maybe one assembled product a month, everybody sat down together and did assembly runs. But it's been years since I did a real assembly shift. And let me tell you, it's no walk in the park. The next time you play a game, spare a thought for the people who work at the publisher and don't play games all day . . . not that any of us do . . . but sit all day and put components in a box, and put components in a box, and put components in a box, and put components in a box, and move the stack of boxes to another table, and then do it again.
-- Steve Jackson
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