It’s not all video games, here at OMG-Central. I also enjoy old school, across the table, low-tech board games.
If you’re one of those for whom “board games” only evokes images of Monopoly and Parcheesi, let me tell you, these are not your grandma’s board games. They’ve changed a lot, in past decades, and they keep changing, adding new mechanics, new twists on old methods, and sometimes even extending “beyond the box” to include other media and technologies. Continue Reading »
Posted in Hi Tech, Low Tech | Tagged board games, fantasy flight games, game review, Gaming, mansions of madness | 2 Comments »
Bad diarist! No biscuit!
Back during The Event, I once again started a journal. I’ve kept a journal, off and on, for most of my life (though it’s definitely been more off than on). Like many diarists, I pick up my journal in times of strife and pain, writing each day (or more often) to rant, moan, analyze, introspect, and claw my way back toward something that resembles sanity. As the drama subsides, however, my journalistic fervor wanes in response; I am simply not compelled to catalogue the minutiae of my days.
And that is the point at which I begin to feel a sense of failure. Continue Reading »
Posted in Culture, Writing | Tagged anais nin, creative writing, diary, journaling, samuel pepys, writing through the pain | 1 Comment »
I’d heard of them long before I saw one in the wild. Rare, elusive, they were things of power and legend. Sure, I saw them in movies, but I knew those were fakes; we all did.
The C-note. The Benjamin. One hundred smackeroos.
I was nine years old when I saw my first one.
We were at Tiburon Tommie’s, the Chinese restaurant of my youth, a place where the drinks menu was long and fixed, and the food menu was short and subject to change. Continue Reading »
Posted in Culture, Writing | Tagged creative writing, currency, family, nostalgia, one hundred dollar bill | Leave a Comment »
Two weeks ago, I tried an experiment.
As some of you know, in addition to this blog I have a Facebook page for my writing, which feeds through to my Twitter account. (I don’t like Twitter, but I’m not convinced it’s useless.) Posts here also go to my LinkedIn profile, to Google+, and to Tumblr.
I don’t have too many readers here—hundreds, but not thousands—and membership on my Facebook page is . . . modest, if you catch my drift . . . but I figured that this situation was the perfect foundation for a small experiment.
In short, I ran an ad. Continue Reading »
Posted in Writing | Tagged boosting posts, creative writing, Facebook, indie authors, marketing, self-publishing | Leave a Comment »
Hallowe’en.
As stated, I’m not a fan.
Not that I’ve never participated. In decades past, I’ve donned costumes and showed up as Jacob Marley, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Max Klinger, but in general, the Hallowe’en festival leaves me annoyed and out of sorts. There’s little an introvert like me enjoys less than having to sit around on tenterhooks, waiting, while strange children continually pound on the door, begging for candy and costume appreciation, while their parents provide overwatch from the shadows.
Forced social interaction with a built-in judgment factor.
O Joy Unbounded. O Rapture Unexampled. Continue Reading »
Posted in Culture | Tagged halloween, introverts, Seattle | 5 Comments »
The sheer number of women I know who have posted #MeToo is agonizing. Not intellectually. I’ve read the statistics know that, depending on the study, anywhere from 75% (EEOC) to 90% (Harvard) of women have suffered sexual harassment, or worse. I’ve heard many stories, too, from my wife, my sisters, my friends, so I know that it happens. A lot.
But until my newsfeed was filled with #MeToo posts, until so many of the women I know opened up and gave witness to their harassment, abuse, and assaults, I don’t think I truly felt it.
I do now. I sure as hell feel it now. Continue Reading »
Posted in Culture | Tagged #MeToo, feminism, male attitudes, sexual assault, sexual harassment | 2 Comments »
Going back over early notes for this novel, I realized that this project has been rattling around in my head for over a decade.
The first outline I wrote up has a note on the top: Tabled Jan 2004.
Initially, this was very depressing. Continue Reading »
Posted in Writing | Tagged building believable characters, creative writing, indie authors, novel writing | 2 Comments »
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 