the flobots are really great. oddly enough, this up-and-coming hiphop act reminds me of no other band more than cake, especially on their lead-off single, handlebars.

once you get that song good and stuck in your head, you’ll probably be looking for some other, non-musical auditory enjoyment delivered directly through your cochlea to your brainstem. might i suggest listening to one of the newfangled internet podcasts that are available for your listening pleasure?

at the top of the list i narcissistically must place the rulezero.org podcast, featuring none other than myself, jon safety monkey grover , and paul the blogless springer. i know i’ve pimped it out before, but we’ve shortened up our format and we’ve got a few new episodes up for your listening pleasure. check out episodes 9 and 10 – you don’t even have to be obsessed with video games to like it now as much, although it still helps to like nerdy crap.

next up is the podcast that has (somewhat ironically, given the title) been hurting my podcast self-esteem since i first started listening to it. you look nice today brings the “three guys chatting about whatever” game to a whole new level. it even features interludes with john hodgman between the humorous lols from their twitterin’ principals: lonelysandwich, scottsimpson, and hotdogsladies.

lastly, and you kind of have to be a real nerd like me to like this one: the penny arcade podcast. it’s fair to say that this was one of the two biggest inspirations for my own podcasting desires (the other being the now defunct daily affirmation with kris and scott (scott and kris)). it’s a rambling look into the minds of creative folks as they sit around working.

frightening, but it’s true. many of you know the story of where this url came from, along with my instant messenger accounts, my email addresses, and yes, even my bbs logins from back in the day. i pulled the handle, quite fortunately, from my second dungeons and dragons character.

with the passing of gary gygax it seems at once mandatory and yet cliche to discuss one’s d&d characters and their introduction to the hobby – to take someone’s legacy and reduce it to their impact on your fictional character. but yet, in a real way roleplaying games were his legacy, and the man remained a gamer to his death.

my introduction to roleplaying games actually came about through an entirely different angle. one summer i came across a copy of the robotech rpg, a series i was enamored with. i picked it up and read through it, and then begged my mom to purchase it for me along with the requisite dice set – two each of d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. (in the intervening two decades i’ve managed to lose four of those dice.) with just myself and my younger brother interested in it, our games were loose interpretations of the rules at best, but i kept devouring the stats and plotting grand adventures across the cosmos. in robotech, of course, my name suited the characters best – i could really imagine myself growing up to be a veritech fighter pilot just like rick hunter – so why invent a persona for a character?

eventually i was curious about the origins of role playing games, and luckily the public library had a set of several first edition advanced dungeons & dragons books behind the counter. unfortunately, they weren’t available for checkout. in their stead i checked out the dragonlance series of novels, and when it came time to return them i would wander down to the library while my family ran errands and sit studiously reading the rulebooks. i attempted to create my own characters for the fantasy world as i understood it, a mixture of hyboria and krynn and my own imagination. of course, advanced really meant advanced, and i found myself fumbling over rules and conflating concepts between the two very different approaches to game design. the end result, however, you can see above. i’d crafted a half-elven cleric-fighter-magic user named, brilliantly, leeardathas half-elven. he was a master of magic both arcane and divine, and handy with a flail to boot. minmax much?

eventually i picked up my own copy of the 2nd edition player’s handbook and my next character had a slightly more creative name, or at least one i’m more willing to own as a domain.

i like fritos. and if you don’t follow, then you need to listen to jonathan coulton. so badly. seriously. he’s really talented!

if you’re interested in hearing more, less-talented audio, might i direct you to episode 01 (nee 00) of the rulezero podstravaganza. in it, you will hear the poetic waxings of myself, jon “safety monkey” grover, esquire, and paul the websiteless. we discuss a few things about video games and d&d 4th edition, make some dick jokes, and generally banter about like you’ve probably seen us do in real life. we’ve got one more episode already in the can, and a halfisode made with too high of a beer-to-content ratio that will hopefully show up on the commentary track for the rulezero podstravaganza premium boxed set remastered platinum extended edition.

today is a day of feeling like a slacker, because christmas break is right around the corner. tonight if you’re in the greenlake area you should come by to cheer on the contestants in the third annual greenlake race of champions. and then tomorrow i’m gonna shake off my hangover and fly to bfe western oregon, and christmas break will have officially begun.