Merry Needfest, Happy Christmas, Joyous Yule, and Happy 2020!

Merry 2020

For those who celebrate holidays at this time of year, I hope you've all had a relaxing break from work filled with good times with friends and family, creative recharging, and fun shenanigans in general, and that 2020 brings your dreams to fruition! :D

We gave my 8-month-old niece some large dice for Christmas, which she took to right away!:

My niece, The Notorious RKG

 Whither grodog?

It's been a busy month+ since Thanksgiving, filled with travel and travail, fun family time and busy holiday gatherings, as well as getting over a cold one of our sons gave me (which lasted for a few weeks).  Work was exacerbated by bad planning (by other groups within Ruckus) and the bad timing of some security vulnerabilities being announced that kept me busy up through and including Christmas Eve, with some follow-up the two days following too, but things have thankfully slowed down since then.  

We've all also remained healthy between the holidays, and the boys have enjoyed a fun break thus far.  We took all of our local extended family to see The Rise of Skywalker on Saturday as our Christmas gifts (we switched over to "experiences" vs. gifts several years ago, usually doing fun Broadway shows like Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, Finding Neverland, etc.). 

So, other than whining, what have I been up to?:

• I wrote a 3000 word article on creating and defining factions for campaign play in Greyhawk, for the new Oerth Journal #31, which should debut later today---a fine Needfest issue that wraps up the Folks, Feuds, and Factions themes for 2019:
  

  

  OJ#31 Preview

• Played several games of Dominion with my father-in-law, which is always fun---he played it online for quite a year or two, so he's a very-skilled opponent!
• I've been reading, quite a bit of late:
• Castle Xyntillan by Gabor Lux; I've written a two-part review:  part 1, part 2
• A Private War by Tim Eccles---a campaign/gazetteer for Warhammer Fantasy RPG 1st edition
• Berlin - The Wicked City for Call of Cthulhu
• _How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative_ by Allen Raymond
• Jeff Noon's _Automated Alice_
•  Emily St. John Mandel's _Station Eleven_
• I also received several new books as Christmas gift books, too (details below)
• Watched several shows and movies too:
• Atomic Blonde; new to me, and very enjoyable!
• The new Star Wars film, The Rise of Skywalker.  This prompted Henry (our youngest son) to want to rewatch the rest of the films in order, so he and I watched The Phantom Menace soon thereafter, and we've all started watching The Mandalorian together over dinner (we're four episodes in thus far), which is interesting:  I knew almost nothing about the culture/background of the Mandalorians in the Expanded Universe of Star Wars before seeing the show, so it's cool learning about them as the show progresses
• I shared Highlander for the first time with our son Henry a couple of nights ago---he loved it! :D    We may start in on the TV series sometime, but the rest of the films are off the table---with the announced reboot (two links there!) perhaps excepted if/when it's released, IF it's not terrible like all of the others
• Henry and I also rewatched Ready Player One, which precipitated an interesting discussion about books vs. movies and books-from-movies and movies-from-books, and which were better---generally, but not always, whichever was created first, with some like Ready Player One being equally good but very different takes on the same story

Christmas Loot

Heather, the boys, and the extended family gave me a few gaming-related books, but mostly fiction this year:

• _Hot Lead: How to Paint a Better Miniature_ - a 3 DVD set that's been on my wishlist for several years; I'm planning some painting time over the holidays too, so it's well-timed =)
• The recent _King in Yellow_ edition published by Arc Dream/Pagan Publishing, with gorgeous artwork throughout and annotations by Ken Hite
• _The Dracula Dossier_ for the Night's Black Agents RPG, also written by Ken Hite
• _The Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny_ by Daisy Dunn
• _Daughter of Apostacy_ by Damian Murphy, from my sister Alison
• _The Shaping of Middle Earth_ (History of Middle Earth volume 4) by JRRT and CT; this was one of two holes in my HoME series
• _The Definitive Frazetta Reference_ from my brother Brian

Rounded out with some new tunes too: _Heartbeat City_ by The Cars (now playing), and Michael Moorcock & The Deep Fix's _Live at the Terminal Cafe_. 

Allan.