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 Two
weeks ago, I put up the design I'd just created for a new Fluxx
T-shirt. One
week ago, along with instructions for placing pre-orders,
I put up a drawing of what that shirt might look like. When Scott
(of Pegasus Publishing,
the merchandising company that's releasing the new shirt) saw
last week's posting, he got so excited that he stayed up practically
all night Thursday, immediately printing up a dozen or so sample
shirts and mailing them out on Friday to his key distributors,
to get them excited about the new release. He sent us one as
well, of course, so this week, I'm pleased to be modeling the
shirt that was merely a sketch last week! We expect to receive
the real shipment in another week or so, which hopefully means
we'll put them in the out-going mail on or before May 30th. And
thanks to all of you who placed pre-orders! It was very useful
knowing how many to get *before* placing the order...
On Friday night we went to Renee's Master's
Thesis
Lecture/Performance thing with various other Toasters.
That story is told in a little more detail in the GinohnNews,
so I'll just say that, unlike Battlefield
Earth, it was actually very entertaining!
On Saturday night, we went to the Last Dance at Northwestern
High School, and it was a real hoot. As I mentioned in a recent
Thought Residue,
my old high school building will soon be torn down, so this Last
Dance was a big party intended to bid that school building a
fond farewell, and celebrate 50 years of memories in the process.
I've been to several high
school reunions in the last dozen+ years, and this was by
far the best of the bunch. It made such a difference to be gathering
at the actual place we were reminiscing about, instead of in
some dumb hotel ballroom somewhere. I mean, there we were, standing
in line together in the very same cafeteria we'd stood in line
together in all those years ago, except this time, instead of
that scary lasagna we had cake and finger sandwiches. This just
beats the pants off of a buffet in one of those uptight places
where you have to wear a suit.
It was sad to think they were tearing the place down... it
looked almost exactly like I remembered, and I wondered why it
was deemed worthy only of demolition. Sure, it's 50 years old,
but the house I'm living in now is 63 and it's still doing fine.
But I suppose it's a good thing our county can afford to improve
our educational facilities. As part of the event we not only
got free range of the halls of the old building, but even got
to tour the new one, which of course seemed lavish and deluxe
when compared to that which it's replacing.
Naturally, there were reunions with old classmates, including
my sister Kathi, as well as friends of my older brothers (more
than once I was mistaken for Rash);
but considering how well attended the event was, I actually found
very few of my old classmates. The place was packed; I heard
they'd sold over 1500 tickets. The alumni had stickers on their
nametags, color-coded for the decade they'd been students, and
this helped a lot as we searched the sea of faces for that occasional,
greatly-changed but still-familiar face of someone you once knew.
But it didn't even matter that I hardly knew anyone there...
we all still had something in common. Even though we were of
many different generations, we had all been teenagers in this
beloved old building (beloved of course to anyone who would attend
such an event) and we all felt good about it. Everywhere you
looked, you could see the teenagers inside the middle-agers as
we clustered together in those same places in the hallways where
knots of students always formed.
Of course, as the name suggests, it was a dance, with great
live music (by the Fabulous Bel Airs), and Kristin and Alison
had a great time shaking it there... but for me the highlight
was simply roaming those old hallways one last time. It provided
a wonderful sense of closure. It was also fun remembering how
big a part of my life gaming was, even back then. I found the
spot in the cafeteria where we always played Spades... and the
place in the library where we played Nuclear
War... and the spot on the floor in the hall outside the
auditorium, where we played Cosmic
Wimpout during breaks in the South Pacific rehearsals, just
down the hall from the locker I'd been rooting about in when
I first heard that Reagan had been shot. So many memories...
Other than all that, we've just been pounding away as always
on the huge list of things we need to do. Origins prep is now
the big thing on our minds... we're running a whole slew of tournaments,
we're releasing the beta-test version of my new game Chrononauts,
and we're promoting the release of Icehouse
with a full color close-up photo of pyramids on the back cover
of the on-site program book.
This last item is currently the most urgent on the list. The
final art for this ad is due in the printer's hands on May 29th,
and I still don't have the perfect photo. It's not for lack of
trying... I've conducted 5 separate photo sessions with pyramids
(not counting test sessions done with the digital camera) and
as of my last batch of prints I still don't have something I'm
completely happy with. With each new roll I shoot, I learn a
little more about how best to take pictures of these little pyramids...
I shot the first couple of rolls outdoors, with natural light,
then I decided to move indoors and use lamps, so that I could
vary the lighting and use the best setup I could arrange. Then
I got smart and built a quick-and-dirty light table to arrange
the pieces on, and then I realized I should have been using a
blue filter, and then, just when I thought I'd have the perfect
picture finished in time to publish here, I had the ultimate
disappointment: I went back to the photolab to pick up my pictures...
and they weren't there. They're Missing In Action. Hopefully
they'll turn up tomorrow... I really don't want to shoot a 6th
roll. Anyway, tune in next week, by then I've simply got to have
the final image in hand.
Finally of course, there's the whole Product-Backed Investments
thing... I'm happy to say we've been getting lots of nibbles
and plenty of email and we're generally feeling pretty good about
the whole thing. As always, stay tuned!
 Have
a great week!
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