Ghost Blogs

OK so as per my previous post I have reached limit of blogs I can follow with a single reader feed (Thanks to the comments of my kind readers I have several work arounds for this now). I have gone back and started unsubscribing blogs without frequent updates (good news, none of you made  the no posts in three years cut, although some of you are hovering at no posts in a year). In the process I did discover several blogs that had been blocked or deleted, which I have removed from my list. However, here's the "ghost" part, although when one went to the blog directly one got the message "this blog no longer exists" ( or some such equivalent message) google reader happily displayed a capsule of the last several posts of the blog and sometimes even thumbnails of their pictures. I am uncertain if anything useful can be done with this information, but though I should at least point it out. My hoarding nature always struggles with the ephemeral nature of the Internet, I have filled my hard drive with copies of blog posts I thought important, after watch  several of them being summarily deleted by the authors due some farrago of the Internet or slight (some real, some imagined). Perhaps the "ghost" blog phenomena can be used to recover some of what is lost (I have successfully used the Internet wayback machine as well, although lately much more of online content seems to be hidden from it). Reminds me a bit of  Sir Richard Burton's wife burning his memoirs in the recent biography I just checked out of the library, but that is a story for another day.

300th Blog follow

OK so Google tells me I have reached 300 Blogs I am following. You would think this was a good  thing, but Google says NO MORE! 300 is a maximum. So some of you who haven't posted in  over 3 years will be dropped. Please do not take it personal, and be assured I'll still list you in the blognomicon (although maybe not at the top of the list).

Dinky Dungeons Review

An obscure game from my collection. An antediluvian micro game from 1985. A sixteen 3.5"x2.5" page booklet it could be easily be printed one 8.5x11 sheet of paper by printing both sides. For something so small it packs a lot of sass. 2d6 resolution system, three character classes (warrior, wizard and bard) four character races human, dwarf, elf and my favorite fuzzy winker. Seven wizard spells and Seven bard spells, and 30! monsters in a 3 PAGE!! monster manual. Here's the cover 

Surprisingly enough this game has a fan site (here). They also include a tribute game called Dinky Dragon
They are claiming a value as a collectors item of hundreds of dollars. I think mine cost me $1. However, since mine has been hand tinted by my son when he was 3 its value might be slightly less (I have also mislaid the sample dungeon, which is too bad because it has a marvelous Fuzzy Winker Warrior illustration). I close with a description of the fuzzy winkers "1' tall rodents, -1 physical and mental, can't use magic, weapons, or armor and they are cowardly" Given their skill set  i.e. nothing I'd be cowardly too!

Portal 23 Temptress

OK so my random web serving has uncovered an awesome miniature painting forum. How the these guys could be up and running  over two years, and me not notice them, is one of life's mysteries. How pursuing extra dungeon tiles should lead to such a site, another. That being said, they also produce an awesome webzine Portal which is down-loadable for free. Issue 23 cover caught my eye with a marvelous paint job of a diaphanous purple gown. You can download you own copy here

However, here's my beef: on the the inside cover they have nice blurb from the artist who explains that since this is a miniature of Cersi Lannister the shear painting is almost required (as she is Game of Thrones uber slut I have to agree) and how much he likes the figure, but does explain how he did the paint job NO!! Oh well, I so I flip to the index and see there is another article on painting techniques from the cover artist, and say to myself all is not lost. However, when I flip to the article and start to read, is it talking about how to  paint the awesome shear fabric? NO!! IT IS EXPLAINING HOW TO PAINT THE MARBLE PILLAR AND FLOOR. I have to rate the article EPIC FAIL for being a total tease.

P.S. When I bitched to she-who-must-obeyed about this, she told me I must write a blog post so here it is.
P.P.S Download the webzine and its companion issues anyways, it is still an awesome paint job, even if the artist chooses to keep his secrets from the World.

In too deep on 1km1kt

As I mentioned on the Rulenomicon post I thought I  might be able to augment my collection of RPG with a visit to 1km1kt (that's interentese for "One Thousand Monkeys/One Thousand Typewriters") I did have a legitimate excuse one of the other blogs was mentioning Dungeon Squad and I though I needed a copy. Now an hour later I have 45 files (not counting five dungeon squad variants) to sieve through and index up for the Rulenomicon. A catalogers work is never done :(

Rulenomicon, It's Alive!!!

I have placed the completed (for now) Rulenomicon with links as as a new page on my blog. Nothing fancy but links to my game downloads (looks like one of those '90 webpages) note: blogs includes websites as well. I am not the only one with this idea, see this post from the free rpg blog. I am afraid his purported 669 games at 1KM1KT leaves my 100+ games (not all free) a little short. I am also working on a page to diplay feeds from the 289 blogs (although I like the sidebar widget currently on the main page it is always overrun with the daily posters so the less frequent posters are often lost) I am subscribed, however this will require some java scripting skills to make it work like I want it to, so it will be a while...