To be fair, I have nothing against the little machine itself; I think they’re kinda cool, though I don’t know that I really have any need to be that connected all the time. My pet peeve is with BlackBerries in terms of work, when they really turn more into ShackleBerries.
Unless you are a doctor or superhero who needs to be on-call 24/7, I see no need for these little electronic ball-n-chains. My problem with them is that they completely erase the boundary between work and private time, essentially making (potentially) people be at work all the time. I cannot count the many times my wife’s BlackBerry has gone off while we’re at home with some crap or other from work, because someone farted and they got inspired for some new project or other. Can’t it friggin’ wait until the next business day?
Complicating the issue are workaholics, people for whom the boundary between work and private time is non-existent as well. Since they don’t have a life that doesn’t revolve around work, they will gladly get to that work email that came in during their off time because otherwise what they hell are they gonna do with their weekend? And since these folks are answering their mail, then how dare the rest of employees not do the same? It all ends up creating an intimidating atmosphere, because you can then mark yourself for retaliation during business hours.
I hate the little machines in this context. I know for a fact that the only reason I have not slammed my wife’s BlackBerry against a wall on various occasions is because G-d granted me a huge amount of patience.
If you have a work BlackBerry, for all that is good and holy, learn to respect your private time, and more importantly, teach your bosses to respect your private time.
The 2008 ENnie Awards nominations were released today, and boy, and I one giddy dude! Two products on which I worked have been nominated for awards:
Best Supplement
Best d20/d20 OGL Product
- Codex Arcanis, Paradigm Concepts (2008 Origins Award Winner for Best Role Playing Game Supplement)
For Codex Arcanis, I did only minor additional material design in the form of some feats and a prestige class for the original softcover version, of which only the feats remained in the new hardcover version. Still, Codex Arcanis was my first game design credit in a published book, so it holds a special place in my heart (not to mention that I have a special fondness for Paradigm Concepts and Arcanis, because I’ve known the members of Team Paradigm for years, because Paradigm Concepts is a local Miami company, and because in Arcanis, Paradigm Concepts gave me my first taste of working in the industry, both with the design I did for Codex Arcanis (and some other tidbits that showed up in other books down the line) and with an adventure in the very first year of the Living Arcanis campaign).
For Spirit of the Season, I did the initial writing for the Chanukah section, then handed it off to Fred Hicks and Chad Underkoffler to awesomify, which they promptly did. I am incredibly proud of this book, in part because of the way my involvement in it came to be (see THIS and THIS), but really because of the amazing experience I had working on it, both on a personal level and on a professional level (as I wrote in the second post linked above).
Let me stress that in both nominations, I feel the credit really goes to Team Paradigm and Fred Hicks & Chad Underkoffler respectively; my contributions to those books was minor, and the honor really is mine to have my name listed next to theirs in the Credits page of those products. That said, I will savor the moment and feel proud and excited as well. I’ll be sure to post once the voting period begins.
The pictures from our trip to Seattle are now up on Flickr.com. Just follow the link below:
Flickr Set: Trip to Seattle
Ad just check out the new garment I acquired in Seattle:
The kilted podcaster strikes!
I came across this while reading through the forums at RPG.net. I’d never heard about it, and it is simply amazing.
Abir is an ancient Jewish martial art that is rooted in Torah so that there is no danger of avodah zara (idolatry) as there could be in the study of other Oriental martial arts which feature philosophy and practices of religions contrary to Torah (like Shinto, for example). It is based on the Aleph Bet (Hebrew alphabet) and features katas based on each of the tribes (like the Double Snake of Dan).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syHyD8aPpkA (in English)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2aGALQqmEc (in Hebrew, but features better visuals)
I am incredibly proud and excited about this finding. The image of the meek Jew has become way too prevalent in the world over the last century, and while it is certainly true we are a peaceful people at heart, we are also warriors with a strong tradition stretching back to King David and even to Abraham. It is great to see this core being ignited once again, especially when it is in a tradition that fully merges the strength of body with the strength of spirit through Torah learning.
I’m going to be research this more, because guess what my new gaming project is going to be… 
For various reasons the entire MonkeyGod catalog of products had been unavailable at RPGnow/DTRPG since the beginning of this year.
Not anymore!
All of the MonkeyGod products we were distributing are now back on sale at RPGnow/DTRPG, including such critically-acclaimed titles such as From Stone to Steel and Frost & Fur, and adventures like The Hero Snare (learn to fear kobolds), Hellstone Deep (venture to the lowest layers of hell) and ENnie-nominated Song of Storms.
And to celebrate, from July 4-7, the entire MonkeyGod Presents line is on sale at 50% off!
Enjoy.
“Seattle seduces,” my friend Patricia warned me on our very first day in the city. She was 100% right. I absolutely loved our time in Seattle and environs and to be honest, I’d rather be there than in Miami right now.
The pics have been uploaded to Flickr and once titles and tags have been added I’ll post the link here. I will also try to fill in the blog posts I was unable to do while traveling, and post an “index” as they will be backdated.
I’m going to sya this unequivocally: my wife and I have talked about this all week long, and we have made the decision to start doing our research to move to Seattle sooner rather than later. I will later go on more in depth on the reasons why, but the short version is that Seattle fits our moods and personalities quite well, and a change is needed for sure.
I find that I do not want to interact with Miami at the moment (except for the job interview I have tomorrow), sort of feel like, even though I’m here, I’m still in that travel limbo. I’m gonna use this week to catch up on my mail and other stuff and get back to work next Monday.
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