The Dance Is Complete…

But I feel the party has just gotten started. I just finished A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin tonight. I could go on and on about this book, but I believe I summed it up best and most eloquently when I closed the cover on the book after finishing it. Two words:

Holy. Fuck.

Let me repeat that with the proper emphasis:

Holy! Fuck!

First things first: I will not be spoiling anything about this book in this post. I sincerely want you all to enjoy the book as much as I did, and spoiling any part of this would be detrimental to that enjoyment. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a book as much as I’ve enjoyed this one, from the prologue to the epilogue, and every point of view character.

For those of you who may have been living under a rock these last 15 years, A Dance of Dragons is the fifth book in George R.R. Martin’s wildly popular A Song of Ice and Fire series, a fantasy epic set in the fantastical medieval world of Westeros, where seasons stretch on for years at a time, and life can be nasty, brutish, and short even for those of status. While the world is grim and gritty, it carries enough trappings of higher fantasy to appeal to readers of that genre, though it bears more resemblance to Tolkien’s Middle Earth than to a Saturday night game of Dungeons and Dragons.

The story is certainly an epic one, but the part that is the most enchanting, at least for this reader, is the characters. Incredibly well written, deeply personal, and deeply flawed, the characters are the greatest thing about this series. From the underdog of common birth that you root for to the good and honorable knight to the wicked noble that you love to hate to the savage brute of a man you’re waiting to see given his just desserts, Martin’s got all of his bases covered. Any writer could learn a thing or ten about writing characters from this series.

Anyway, A Dance With Dragons takes us into a world that has been shattered by a savage war, both in the series’s primary setting of Westeros as well as the eastern lands across the Narrow Sea. Many noble houses lie spent or wiped out of existence completely as the butcher’s work is finished on the battlefield’s and the dirty politics are played by those of status. The season’s are changing, and no one can deny that “Winter is Coming” along with all the worries that brings. Food stores are lean everywhere, and still the fighting goes on for control of the land. And even darker things may be coming with the winter snows, things of myth and legend that the world of man man is completely unprepared for, and may never be if they cannot put aside their differences and their treacheries.

Guys, seriously, give this book a read. If you weren’t a big fan of the fourth book A Feast For Crows I can promise you that this one will redeem the series for you. The fourth one dragged quite a bit for me, but this one picked up and moved from the beginning to the end and had me turning pages to keep reading instead of seeing how many more pages I had to slog through to get to the end of the current chapter (as I was wont to do with some of the POV characters in Crows). If you were turned off by the incredibly long wait between A Feast For Crows and this one, find it within your hearts to forgive Martin and give him your money for this one. I promise you won’t be disappointed with this one. True to form, it answers some questions completely, answers scores of others partially, and raises an entire host of new ones. I have no idea how Martin’s going to finish up this story in just two more books, but I will look forward to reading them in giddy anticipation.

NOOOOOO! – Or “Why the Star Wars Saga Hasn’t Been Ruined”

The internet was lit aflame yesterday as supposed leaks from pre-release editions of the Star Wars Saga Blu Ray discs were popping up online. For posterity, here are the two videos that are causing the huge firestorm:

 

This brought out the usual cries whenever George Lucas decides he wants to change something from the original theatrical releases.

“OHNOES GEORGE LUCAS WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME!?! YOU’RE RAPING MY CHILDHOOD! FUCK YOU!” and so on and so forth, ad nauseum.

I used to be kind of like those of you who are doing this. Let’s set the wayback machine for 2004 when the DVD releases of the Original Trilogy were being released along with the first Battlefront. I had my copy reserved months in advance and was there to pick it up as soon as I was out of class for the day and able to. I got home, popped them in my DVD player and started watching… and I was pissed at some of the changes – namely the addition of Hayden Christensen in many of the Darth Vader scenes. They bugged me for a while, but you know what I found out? I eventually stopped caring about them so much and was able to enjoy the movies for what they were.

Since that day and that “Eureka” moment, I have become a completely unapologetic Star Wars fan. From the prequels to the Clone Wars animated series, to the changes in the DVDs, I don’t care anymore. This attitude rapidly spilled over into a lot of different areas of my life. And you know what? My life is suddenly a hell of a lot less stressful because of it. Those of you who are foaming at the mouth, screaming and spitting, and calling for the pitchforks and torches for a march towards Skywalker Ranch are really missing the point of the entire thing.

Star Wars isn’t about the little things like whether or not the Ewoks blink or if Vader screams “Noooo” while tossing the Emperor down the reactor shaft. It’s supposed to be one thing: FUN.

So, seriously stop and ask yourself: are these changes taking the “fun” out of the Star Wars Saga? Will they be this huge a deal 10 years from now? 5 years? A year? A week after the Blu Ray release? If the answer to any of these questions is “no,” then do yourself and everyone else around you a favor and take a step back, take a deep breath, and look at it from a different angle. Because if you can’t find the “fun,” I’m sorry, but you’re doing it wrong. You really are.

This isn’t to say that you can’t be disappointed and upset at some of these changes, but the knee jerk reaction of “Fuck you, Lucas!” isn’t doing anyone any favors, least of all you. But if you’re able to rationalize this disappointment, and not let it get in the way of your fun, then by all means, be disappointed about it, I fully understand it (I’m still not a fan of some things Lucas has put into his movies). Just don’t fill your mouth with toothpaste and grab a gardening implement over it.

On the Darth Vader scene:

“You’re standing on the command deck of the second Death Star, watching a son that you didn’t even know you had until six months ago being boiled alive by Force lightning shot from the hands of the man who you’re rapidly beginning to realize took your entire life away from you with his lies and his manipulations. Faced with these past traumas and scars long buried but never really healed re-opening, you let the pure love for you that is flowing from your son into you and in a righteous rage, howl your fury at your now former master, grabbing him and flinging him to his doom, at the same time damning you to a much slower, much more agonizing death… all for your child.”

Kind of puts it in a different light, eh? In fact, when looked at it this way, I feel the added dialogue really adds something to the scene as Vader is finally able to externalize the fight that has been going on inside his head for the past 20+ years and turn it into heroic action and self-sacrifice.

I know that I will own these releases and they will be the ones that my future children will be watching. They will, of course, be well versed in the things that were changed from the original theatrical releases because dad will have seen them all first hand, but I highly, highly doubt that for one second, these changes will put the ki-bosh on the sense of wonder and the magic that happens when someone is first exposed to Star Wars. And that… as we’ve so famously heard time and again, remake after special edition, is the real trick now, isn’t it? And you know what? He’s not messing with that.

Just What In The Hell I’ve Ben Doing

See what I did there? Eh? Eh? I thought about editing it, but then I decided to see if anyone would get the joke. And then I made the fatal mistake of pointing out the joke thereby ruining its fun factor like I was explaining a magic trick to a small child.

I’ve been terrible about keeping up with this thing, and it’s largely because I’m lazy, but also a combination of me not having/not making the time to bang out a few hundred words here on a regular basis as well as me not knowing what to write about. But behold! This is about to change thanks to the inesteemable, the ineffable, but mostly the incorrigible Chuck Wendig, who’s blog post yesterday had to do with the subject of writing and most especially, blogging. Or rather, it was a blog post about bloggers who have blogged about blogging about… you know what? Forget it, my head hurts.

Anyway,  the post was more than a little bit galvanizing, and it brought my thoughts to my own blogging habits and how I can easily change them just by manning up and actually writing something every few days. Why should I what the rest of you are going to find interesting? If I were to post just what I thought you wanted to read from me, it wouldn’t be worth reading because… are you ready for this? I wouldn’t care about what I was writing as much. 

Anywho, here’s a link to the blog post in question for you to peruse at your leisure. Please just remember to use tabbed browsing, or at the very least, don’t forget to hit that big back arrow when you’re done. I still have more to say here and if you leave I’ll never get out of this little box. There’s only so much air and I forgot my drill outside.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/06/15/official-guide-blogging-about-blogging/

And so, instead of thanking him on his site in the comments section where he might see it, I decided to thank him here where he’ll probably never see it. You may ask yourselves, “Why would he do that? That doesn’t make a lot of sense.” And you would be right. It doesn’t make sense! But it’s the principle of the thing I’m operating on right now dammit, and you can’t take that away from me!

So, a quick little catch up from the last time I posted which was… *looks* You know what? Let’s just forget I looked at the calendar function on this thing.  Well, I’m still what some of you would term “gainfully employed” at our local Sam’s Club, but big change is on the immediate horizon there. Tonight I clock in for my LAST overnight shift. That’s right! Monday morning I start bright and early at seven in the morning working in the produce department. It’s a small paycut, but it’ll be worth it to get my days and nights switched back around. I don’t know how some of you guys do it as a career. I may be a bit of a night owl, but I was not meant to be nocturnal. This means a few things. The first is that I’ll be able to actually share my bed with my wife more than two nights a week (don’t think I hear those snickers, Adie). Second is that I’ll finally feel like doing something when I get home from work instead of wanting to drop straight to bed for eight hours or longer. This also means that my evenings will be more productive, because instead of having just gotten up and dreading the work shift I’m inexorably moving towards like it was some kind of black hole, I’ll actually be able to get some work accomplished. And did I mention that I actually get to see more of my wife? Yeah… that’s kind of key.

Aside from that, I’ve been watching a lot of TV through Netflix, trying to get caught up on some of the wonderful shows I’ve missed, but I tend to have the attention of a prairie dog most of the time (do they have a short attention span? It kind of seems like they do. Just watch them for a while the next time you’re at a zoo and they have them there. They never really look at you for very long, and they don’t seem to look you in the eye. What are they hiding? I know I don’t trust those furry little… and I seem to have gotten well off track) and so I find myself flipping between shows before I finish one out (or get caught up as the case my be). I’m still not through the reincarnation of Battlestar Galactica, which is one I’ve been working on for some time now. But I’m into Season 3 of Stargate SG-1 (with Atlantis and Universe queued up next). I’m also slowly working my way through some of these package channel originals from Starz such as Dexter and The Tudors. And last but not least, the wife and I have started watching the current airings of Doctor Who. That one’s going more slowly since we only watch it together and as of now, we work complete opposite shifts (see my major point in the previous paragraph). There’s plenty more in our Instant Queue and I have managed to squeeze in a few full series here and there (the latest being Avatar: The Last Airbender), but those are few and far between. So few and far between that I think that’s been the only one.

I’ve also been in the process of writing a lot of game material, both for my home game (of which a much delayed “Story So Far” post should be appearing on my sister blog “Paging Through The Core Rulebook” soon. Apologies) as well as several one shots that I’m getting ready to take with me to GenCon for pickup gaming. Oh yeah, we’re going to GenCon. It’s the first time for both of us. I’ll tackle that more in a later post, but I’ll leave you with the horrifying image that comes with the thought that we’ll be popping our GenCon cherries on our honeymoon.

Got that image burned firmly into your mind? Good.

Moving along.

We’ve also decided that in an effort to push ourselves to write more game material, we are going to take a page from the sadly now faded City of Doors podcast and have ourselves something similar to their Big Game Buildoff they were just starting. However, instead of designing a system, we’re just going to design a setting for an existing system. The blog for that is up, we just need to get a schedule for that and then you should be able to track our progress and most importantly, vote on which one you think is better. (And you don’t want to read a whole lot of sad and depressed posts of a self-loathing nature, do you? *sad puppy eyes*) Ahem…

That’s really been about it. I’m sure I’ll be able to elaborate more on a score of other things later, but that’s pretty much been my life in a nutshell since we last talked. A lot of campaign material, some TV, more than a lot of work, and too much sleep.

Now that I’ve safely relocated the spiders that had built their own empire, developed their own religion, and survived through not one but two civil wars in this corner of the internet… huh, around 1250 words. That wasn’t so painful.

Until next time, gentle reader (and don’t worry, I’ll be trying out a variety of pet names for you over the next few posts until I find something suitable comedic and slightly uncomfortable for us both. Feel free to give me ideas!).

Reflections and Realizations

Last week I threw my back out again. This makes three times in the past 7 years. Luckily, this time wasn’t as bad as the first, and I was only out of work for three days, plus the weekend. The doctor prescribed me an anti-inflammatory to help with any swelling and a muscle relaxant to stop the muscles from seizing and spasming, and by Monday, things were still tender, but I was at least able to move my back around and dress myself.

As I spent these last two nights back at work, I’ve been doing some thinking. Serious thinking. And I think it’s time for me to make a change instead of simply waiting for change to come along. I’ve been telling myself for the last year and seven and a half months that I was going to look for another job, and even managed to turn in a few applications and had one interview. But I never went out to make change. I’ve always just sort of moved along with the current of the river of life, settling for what was in front of me and if I happened to be able to move down a different branch of the river, I would see about making the swim. But what I need to be doing is moving against the current. I need to make my own opportunities. Most of all, I need to stop settling.

Part of this realization came from thinking about my health, and my body. Sure, the back injury was fixed relatively quickly with medication and stretches. Next time, I probably won’t get off so lucky. Next time, it may be surgery. And I don’t want that.

The other main part of this realization came from simply being at home. I spent the days recuperating on the couch or on the bed, either catching up on my reading, playing the X-Box, or tooling around the internet. In the evenings, I was able to spend some time with my wife, instead of rushing to get dinner when she got home from work and the running out the door myself in less than an hour. And at night, I was actually able to share a bed with my wife more than two nights in a row, something that I haven’t been able to do in almost two years. It made me realize just how unhappy I was with my current work situation.

So… that raises the all-important question: What am I going to do?

The short answer is: I don’t know. I know I’m probably going to be stuck working the night shift for a while longer merely for the steady paycheck and the health insurance. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be actively looking again. And that doesn’t mean that I can’t take other steps to improve my general outlook and attitude outside of work. I think I could deal with a soul crushing job (not that my work is nearly that bad) if I were happier with what I was accomplishing outside of it.

That leads me to the one thing I do know. I want to spend more time writing. Ultimately, that is the direction that I want to see myself go, either part-time as a freelancer, or full-time if I ever get the opportunity. I’ve been telling myself that I need to start taking my writing more seriously, and I do for a couple of days, and then I start telling myself that I’m simply not inspired at the moment or I’m not feeling creative or there’s something on TV or there’s a website I need to check out or I’ll take care of it tomorrow. Or, or, or. It always winds up being something else taking precedence.

I know I have some talent for the written word. I’ve had numerous people, teachers and otherwise tell me so over the years. But the truth is, I never really applied myself fully to my writing. Even in the creative writing course I took in high school, I found myself working on my assignments the night before they were do. And don’t get me wrong, I did really well in the class, but I’m stuck here wondering how much better I could have done after that point if I had applied myself even a little bit more.

Whatever comes of it, I have a strong feeling that applying myself to the projects I have on the table and to my writing is a strong first step in the right direction, wherever I end up. I know I have the love and support of my wife, and now not just one, but two families whatever direction I go. And I’m shooting for up.

So… what does that mean for you, the reader? Well, first off, it means you’ll start seeing more posts here, and on this site’s sister blog. And now that I’ve broken the ice by hitting publish on this very personal post, you’ll probably be seeing some more of that.

For those of you who are still with me at the end of this post, thanks for sticking with me. It may not seem like much to you, but it sure feels better to me getting some of these things out of my head and onto the computer screen.

It’s A Big Galaxy Out There

Yesterday, I found myself doing something that I hadn’t done in a long time, and I mean a long time, and something that I had sort of convinced myself I was probably never going to do again.

I spent over 10 hours playing a video game. One, single, video game.

We’ve owned a copy of Mass Effect for some time now, and its one that I had always meant to pop in and play, but I just never made myself the time for it. Well, yesterday Nateal was out of town for a few hours and I had nothing better to really do with my time. I told myself I’d pop it in for a few hours and then get to work planning my first session for my new Star Wars game.

I can’t tell you at exactly what point it happened, but its claws sunk into me… hard. And they wouldn’t let go. I sat there in rapt attention, watching the story of the game unfold, marveling at the sheer size of the universe that I was given to explore from the get-go, and even, yes, finding some inspiration for what I think will be a couple of killer encounters in the Star Wars game.

And the best part about this whole experience, at least in my opinion, is that when I finally shut the console off after a day full of exploring the galaxy and finishing a good few of the staggering number of side quests and went to bed that night, I didn’t feel that I had wasted the entire day. I felt fulfilled, and I felt good. I had a head swimming with ideas and couldn’t wait to get back into the game.

That feeling, is something that I have not truly experienced like that in years.

A Great Big Album Review

I’ve been meaning to write on this blog a lot more, and kept promising myself that I was going to get to it a bit later. Well, I have to come to terms that with the fact that “a bit later” isn’t going to come any time soon. And so, I have to start doing it now.

Anywho, a couple of weeks ago while on their website, I noticed that Great Big Sea had released a new album. After a quick search on the Zune Marketplace, I had it on my mp3 player and ready to listen to. And I haven’t stopped listening to it.

A little bit of background on the group. Great Big Sea hail from “the tropical island of Newfoundland” as they are fond of calling it. A five member group, Safe Upon the Shore is their 10th album, and it is a heck of an album for that number.

The album starts out with several “pop” pieces that the group has become known for over the years, starting with “Long Life” and then going into “Nothing But a Song.” Then they dip back into the traditional folk music with Yankee Sailor, a beautiful, heart rending piece that really showcases Alan Doyle’s voice. The song chronicles the story of a young man losing his true love to a sailor from across the seas that can offer her so much more. Stylistically, this is similar to Doyle’s composition “Boston and St. Johns”, very slow and melodic with rich lyrics and a compelling story.

The title track, “Safe Upon the Shore” comes a few tracks later, and is one that beautifully showcases Sean McCann’s voice. There are no instruments backing this sad story of a young lady who begs the sea to return her lover to her, and the terrible truth that he has died after his ship was wrecked.

The album also includes a couple of covers of more familiar songs. “Have a Cuppa Tea,” ably performed by all three of the vocalists some of you may remember from The Kinks. The second one is a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Gallows Pole” in which McCann proves that he is a freakin’ rock star, belting out the final verse and chorus. I can’t wait until some footage of them performing this one live surfaces.

These are the real stand-out tracks in my opinion, but nothing that made the album fills me with the desire to hit the skip button on my player, as has been proven time and again with my many playthroughs of the album.

If you want to get you hands on a copy of this album, you can find it for download on the Zune Network as well as iTunes. You can also order it directly from their website (http://www.greatbigsea.com/store/) or find it on Amazon (http://amzn.to/bODKld). You can also hear samples of the songs on the Amazon link. Both places have the album available as MP3 download, and you can also purchase the physical album from the bands website.

Anyone who enjoys Celtic Rock and Folk Rock needs to have some Great Big Sea in their collection, and they could certainly do worse than this album as their starting point. Check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

And, in my linking the Amazon site, I found that Gaelic Storm, another one of my recent favorite bands has just released a new album. So, as soon as I get my mitts on that (minutes now thanks to a quick search on Zune), and get a chance to sink my teeth into it, you can expect a review on that one as well.

Doing It All Over Again

I finally had a night off during the week this last Monday for coming in on my normal day off, and so Nateal and I decided to go and catch a movie. After looking at the local listings, we decided on finally catching Hot Tub Time Machine. While we both had a good time, I think I enjoyed the movie a little bit more, but I really like Craig Robinson and Clark Duke, no matter the role.

The plot, as simple as it is, involves Adam (played by John Cusack), his nephew Jacob (Clark Duke), and his old friends Nick (Craig Robinson) and Lou (the inimitable Rob Cordry) travelling to a ski resort they frequented when they were younger after a suicide attempt by Lou brings them all to the hospital where the doctor recommends they keep an eye on them. When they get to the resort town, they find it a shadow of its former self, much the same as their own lives. They eventually climb into the hot tub out in the back of their room and find themselves mysteriously transported back to 1985, ruining the hot tub in the process. The hot tub mechanic (played brilliantly by Chevy Chase), gives them the cryptic message that they need to tread carefully lest they change their place in the future.

Over the course of the movie, Adam, Nick, and Lou find themselves in the same situations they were in over two decades before, and find themselves facing the choice of doing nothing and keeping their miserable lots in life, or taking charge of their own lives and choosing to live their life all over again, at the risk of changing everything, which of course, raises the question: what would you do were you in the same situation? Would you simply do everything over again, or would you try to live differently?

At it’s core, the theme of the movie was fairly simple, and there wasn’t anything new and groundbreaking in the way it was presented, but some strong performances by several of the actors and some great supporting scenes (including a terrific walk-on by Tom Lennon) kept it fresh and kept me laughing through the whole thing.

In short, if you haven’t seen this movie yet (and I know those of you who are the most likely to see it, have probably already seen it), it’s definitely worth checking out if you like a sometimes stupid, time-travel comedy. I’d give it a 4/5 and then I’d go back and give it the same rating again.

It’s Finally Happened

After weeks of the fates constantly conspiring against me, it’s finally happened. I’ve managed to write, record, edit, and send off the first of a (hopefully) recurring segment, Threat Assessment, on d20 Radio’s The Power Source.

In all seriousness though, it was a week or so of not having microphone input, to figuring out that I could use the microphone that came with the Rock Band! game but having a cold that was stealing my voice, to getting my voice back only to have software issues that was finally resolved through a re-install of Audacity… Hoo boy.

Anyway, if anyone is interested, they can hear the inaugural segment at the back end of Episode #26. You can’t miss it, it’s the only one in that episode.

Just wanted to toot my own horn a little bit and give some love to the show that host Jared Glenn obviously puts a lot of time and love into creating every week. Thanks for the chance to be a part of the show, man.

Here’s a link to show’s website if anyone is interested.

The Power Source

May The 4th Be With You

For those of you who may be unaware, today is a very important day in the realms of science fiction. Over the past few years, May 4th has become known as International Star Wars Day among the Star Wars Fan Community due to the pun on the date (as evidenced in the title of this post).

In honor of this day, I thought I would take the time to speak briefly about the importance that the Star Wars Saga has played in my life.

One of my earliest, really vivid memories involves Star Wars: A New Hope playing on television when I was young. My dad called me over to watch it with him. I was captivated with the idea of the movie, and even though I didn’t know it at the time, I as hooked. Over the years, I found out about the other two films in the original trilogy, was able to see the remastered “Special Edition” films as they first came out, and saw the story come full circle with the Prequels.

Star Wars was also my earliest entrance into the realms of both Collectible Card Games and Tabletop Roleplaying Games. I played the Decipher Card Game for a number of years, having a great time with the game.

Even though I eventually fell out of that one, one that has stuck with me through the years was the roleplaying experience. I either bought, or received as a gift, the box set of the Star Wars 2nd Edition Roleplaying Game from West End Games.

I played this game for years with my brother a a couple of really good friends after school everyday, tearing around the galaxy and wiping out Imperial Garrisons. Eventually however, I started moving into Dungeons and Dragons and wound up with another group playing that almost exclusively. It wasn’t until after 3rd Edition came out however, that I picked up the Revised Core Rules for Star Wars, which utilized the same core mechanic of the 3rd Edition of Dungeons and Dragons and played that for a while, before having my players rework themselves for the old d6 edition of the game.

But then, everything changed. I was able to start playing Star Wars Saga Edition almost immediately as it came out, and fell in love with the system. I played and ran it for a little while, though not nearly as much as I would have liked until I found d20 Radio and more specifically the Order 66 Podcast which really kicked me in the butt back into the game. I haven’t looked back since.

Star Wars has been one of the few things that has been present in literally every stage of my life, and has always been a constant source of inspiration. And as often as I poke fun at lots of the things in the movies and the novels and comics, it really is, in my opinion, the greatest thing to happen to the science fiction genre in the last 30+ years. Here’s hoping it sticks around, inspiring younger and younger generations to continue to look beyond the stars to a galaxy far, far away…

Podcasts

A long time back on my other blog, I put up a post detailing some of the podcasts I usually have on my mp3 player at work to help get me through the evening. Since then, I’ve discovered numerous other ones that I’ve really started to enjoy, and since I haven’t posted to this blog as much as I have wanted to so far (I’m working on that, really I am), I decided to compile another list of what I’m listening to.

The Order 66 Podcast

url:www.d20radio.com

This is the flagship show of the d20 Radio Network, a constantly growing community of gaming and general nerd related podcasts. GM Chris, GM Dave, and oftentimes, the lovely Twi’lek Goodness talk our little ears off about “the power, the passion, and the glory of Star Wars Saga Edition Roleplaying” to borrow the line from GM Chris. The show has wonderful production value, and has attracted no small amount of attention from the general public, becoming the “Ennie Award Winning Order 66 Podcast” at last year’s Gencon taking the silver medal in the Best Podcast category, and has had RPG giants like Rodney Thompson (the lead developer of the Star Wars Saga line) and most, if not all of his freelancers, including Gary Astleford, Sterling Hershey, Patrick Stutzman, and Jonathon Stevens to name a few. Also a friend of the show and multiple time guest is a man you may know from television, movies, and video games; especially if you’re tastes run similar to mine. This is a man they’ve lovingly nicknamed Vader’s SecretDoomsDown. The one, the only, Sam Witwer. They’re just about to hit their 100th episode, so be sure to give these guys a listen… or more accurately, never listen to them (and you’ll just have to check out the show to figure out what I mean).

Game On!
url: www.d20radio.com

This is a show about general gaming from host Brian Casey. The other original host, Andy Wellburn is unfortunately not able to appear on every show anymore due to scheduling conflicts, but the illustrious “Kat” from the d20 Radio Forums does a wonderful job of filling in as Brian’s co-host whenever she can. They talk about every kind of game under the sun: board games, card games (collectible and otherwise), to RPGs and other games. If you play it, they probably know at least a little something about it.

Radio Free Hommlett
url: www.d20radio.com

Radio Free Hommlett was the first sister podcast to Order 66, and thus, the first podcast to help start the incredible steamroller that is now the d20 Radio Network. They are a Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Podcast and are heavily devoted to the crunchier side of the game, giving you indepth reviews of classes, paragon paths, and even powers. Hosted by DMs Tim, Kate, Jackson, and David, this foursome gives you all the tools necessary to keep your characters optimized and filling their roles as they should be.

The Power Source

url: www.d20radio.com

The Power Source, or more appropriately, The Powah! Source as dubbed by Order 66 host Twi’lek Goodness, is hosted by Jared Glenn and co-hosted by a strange and motley crew (including former Dungeons and Dragons developer Dave Noonan a couple of times). Jared brings you the latest news (and his opinions on these items) for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. Even though they are predominantly a 4th Edition podcast, most of what they discuss in certain aspects of the show can be easily translated into any number of other games, and every month, takes a campaign theme and runs it through the gauntlet, giving you ideas to run an game, from theme to PC creation to villain creation to, finally, a full campaign arc from each of the hosts to get your gears turning.

City of Doors

url: www.d20radio.com

City of Doors is hosted by Bryan and Jason and sponsored by Reaper Miniatures (whom Bryan works for) and is a fantastic show full of ideas to make your game (whatever game that might be) the best it can possibly be. There isn’t much more to be said for the show other than “why aren’t you listening to them right now?”

The Roll For Initiative Podcast

www.d20radio.com

DMs Vincent and Jason (and recently, DM Nick) put you in their wayback machine and take you back to the late seventies for this podcast. That’s right. It’s all about 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. While Jason and I don’t usually (and by that, I mean almost never) seem to see eye to eye in our views on newer editions of the game, it’s still a wonderful resource, and firm evidence that I should not listen to a podcast devoted to a game that I’m not currently running, because now I want to crack open my old books and get something on the table (which I plan on doing this weekend). Check it out whether your an old school grognard who remembers the days of old, of if you’re a wet behind ears gamer who cut his teeth on 3.x or 4th Edition and pay some respect to your game’s roots. Heck, even if you don’t play Dungeons and Dragons, drop by and give some respect to the grand daddy of roleplaying games.

Comedy Death Ray Radio

url: Comedy Death Ray Radio

Join host Scott Auckerman every week as he spends an hour with some of the giants of modern day comedy. There’s something for everyone in these shows, and I’ve found myself forced to turn off my forklift at work at times listening to this show because I was laughing so hard. This show records every Friday, and can actually be heard live at 12 noon PST on Indy 103.1

Escape Pod/Podcastle/Pseudopod

urls: Escape Pod
Pod Castle
Pseudopod

These three casts are all related, and comprise the first paying market in audio fiction with the publishing of Escape Pod back in 2005 by Steven Eely. They each specialize in a type of fiction, which can be gleaned from their names: Escape Pod doing the Science Fiction thing, Pod Castle dealing with Fantasy, while Pseudopod completes the speculative fiction trifecta with Horror, and they publish on a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License. I’ve been slowly but surely working through the backlogs of the shows (no mean feat, Podcastle has the lowest number of shows at 97, with Escape Pod over 230 at this point. So far I haven’t run across a story that I haven’t enjoyed, so give them a listen if you like speculative fiction at all.

So there’s a good number of the Podcasts that keep me sane at work. It’s by no means all of them, but the majority of them. Look them up if any of them sound interesting to you and prepare to enjoy some wonderful shows as you do. That’s about all for now. I’ll be back later with more musings.