Alex Keane

I'll put fiber arts people doing the same with sewing stuff up there too.

Quick video on a back stitch and a cheap sewing kit saved me a bunch of money when I caught a seam on something.

Revisiting Classics–The Moon Pool by A. Merritt

I've posted a few times before about going back to books that are classics of genres I enjoy, like I did with Winds of Gath or with Snow Crash. One thing I did at the start of January is pick up some pocket notebooks to carry around in case…

Been watching The Hunting Party since it premiered last year. Tonight's had Elizabeth Gillies guest star as the serial killer of the week.

Now I gotta wonder if she's from the Alan Rickman school or the Jared Leto school of convincing villains, because she's super convincing.

Excerpt from a Charlie Jane Anders article that says: Generative A.I., the thing that drives our whole economy right now, is a perfect metaphor for the abject failure of imagination on the part of the powerful. Generative A.I. has no imagination and offers no new insights. It's a mere predictive engine that uses statistics to find the most likely next thing. What's the next word in a sequence, the next pixel in a picture? This is the opposite of imagination, which is so often about finding the least likely thing, the startling incongruity. I worry that so many of us are outsourcing our imaginations and our whole creative selves to these stochastic parrots.

@charliejane.bsky.social said it so well.

Got some pocket notebooks this week. Grabbed as many TTRPGs that I like as I could find "inspirational media" sections in and copied those lists into them.

So far, my reading for the year tackles one from Appendix N, one from Traveller, one from Cyberpunk Red.

Interested to look through them

His heart was so full of Patriotism that it grew 1776 sizes that day.

Revisiting Classics: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson Over the last year or so, I've been revisiting books that were influential both to tabletop RPGs I'm playing and to genres I really enjoy. Snow Crash belongs a little bit to both lists. I originally came through it as an influence to a game I enjoy, but the cyberpunk genre has come to be one I really enjoy.

Revisiting Classics: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Over the last year or so, I've been revisiting books that were influential both to tabletop RPGs I'm playing and to genres I really enjoy. Snow Crash belongs a little bit to both lists. I originally came through it as an influence to a game I…

It's been quite the decade this month. Haven't had one quite like this since March 2020.

Decided to pick up some pocket notebooks after seeing them used in some videos. Stores around me only really have Moleskine, and then I decided to try the Pilot Precise v10s because I finally found a pack.

This was not a wise choice. I should have known the exact bleed and ghosting that was coming.

Day of Truth and Freedom, Jan. 23 #DayOfTruthAndFreedom #MinnesotaUnions

I think electric instruments would exist in #Eberron and they'd be made by Zilargo, making use of elementals as power banks or amps.

In this essay I will-
[This post has been removed by The Trust]

Though the loosening up is more or less there in the examples they give. Like "Studied Linguist" is always true, but "Because I'm a studied linguist, I happen to conveniently know the exact language giving us trouble right now" is where the point cost comes in.

Also, the best groups of players have people who can step into some of the "help each other" tasks that aren't inherently GM tasks but end up defaulting to being GM tasks.

Like world building can be unequal, but it's something I likely had prepped. Knowing everyone's sheets on the other hand...

Having had a 5e 2024 game in Eberron before the new Eberron book, yeah...

A Night with Cyberpunk Red This past weekend, my gaming group had a bunch of people who were out, so I ran a one-on-one Cyberpunk Red mission for one of my players who's been playing a lot of Cyberpunk 2077. My own Cyberpunk knowledge comes from reading Snow Crash and Neuromancer, and from years reading through the short fiction in and game mastering Shadowrun across two different editions (20th Anniversary 4th and 5th Editions in my case).

A Night with Cyberpunk Red

This past weekend, my gaming group had a bunch of people who were out, so I ran a one-on-one Cyberpunk Red mission for one of my players who's been playing a lot of Cyberpunk 2077. My own Cyberpunk knowledge comes from reading Snow Crash and Neuromancer, and from years…

Mechanically, in Cyberpunk Red, they also draw a distinction between disability/transition medical grade cyber stuff that brings mental image and body closer together versus the dissociative type of seeing yourself and others just as piles of replaceable parts.

With all the "He's With Us" ads I've seen during college football, I've been waiting for that bowl to materialize.

Revisiting Classics: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett On January 1, 2026, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett entered the United States public domain. I got my copy of the book from Standard Ebooks. Most people who know The Maltese Falcon are probably more familiar with the 1941 movie starring Humphrey Bogart as Private Investigator Sam Spade. That film essentially set the tone for the Film Noir genre.

Revisiting Classics: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

On January 1, 2026, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett entered the United States public domain. I got my copy of the book from Standard Ebooks. Most people who know The Maltese Falcon are probably more familiar with the 1941 movie…

That's why I actually like a bit of the New Testament that Catholics focus on more than Protestants (not that Catholics are without their own issues)

The theory that while faith is what gets you in, you can tell the true faith by the works it compels you to do for others.

Comfort Watch: 10 Things I Hate About You I grew up in Tacoma, Washington. There is one movie that everyone I graduated with mentions and lists off locations from. 10 Things I Hate About You was released in 1999 and stars Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Larisa Oleynik. It's a modern adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. Cameron (Gordon Levitt) wants to date Bianca Stratford (Oleynik) but her father won't let her date until her older sister Kat (Stiles) who is completely anti-social does.

Comfort Watch: 10 Things I Hate About You

I grew up in Tacoma, Washington. There is one movie that everyone I graduated with mentions and lists off locations from. 10 Things I Hate About You was released in 1999 and stars Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Larisa Oleynik. It's a…

Book Club Reads: I’m Starting Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin My local library has a science fiction and fantasy book club. One of the books assigned this year was Jason Pargin's I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom. Premise Black Box of Doom centers around a group of people who end up on a roadtrip that draws the attention of the “hive mind of the internet”. They are trying to take a black stagehand box from California to Washington D.C.

Book Club Reads: I’m Starting Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin

My local library has a science fiction and fantasy book club. One of the books assigned this year was Jason Pargin's I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom. Premise Black Box of Doom centers around a group…

Revisiting Classics: Winds of Gath by E.C. Tubb Like I mentioned in my reviews of Ensign Flandry and The Onion Girl, my interests in gaming, together with interests in science fiction and fantasy have led me to reading some older works and getting more of a sense for where my favorite genres have been in the past. I first learned about The Winds of Gath from a post by Mythic Mountains RPG about…

Revisiting Classics: Winds of Gath by E.C. Tubb

Like I mentioned in my reviews of Ensign Flandry and The Onion Girl, my interests in gaming, together with interests in science fiction and fantasy have led me to reading some older works and getting more of a sense for where my favorite genres have…

An Unexpected Encounter: The Hobbit as Game

For Christmas, I got a new Kobo Clara Color, and the first book I loaded onto it to read was The Hobbit. Back in middle school, I used to go through a box set of the entire Baggins saga every year as the Lord of the Rings movies were coming out. It's…

Sorcerer was also the level title for a 9th level magic user during 1e.

Tonight is D&D night in the Oops All Bards campaign.

Using the Super Easy Character Portrait PDF by @jpcoovert.bsky.social to add appearance of my emo dwarf to my character sheet.

And only switched to Roberts because appointing his personal attorney got laughed out of Congress.

Public Domain Day 2026 in Literature - Blog Read about the new ebooks Standard Ebooks is releasing for Public Domain Day 2026!

Happy New Year and Happy Public Domain Day!

@standardebooks.org has 20 of the greatest books of 1930 available for free to celebrate! I worked on the four Nancy Drew titles and am so excited to see them released!

standardebooks.org/blog/public-...

#Books #PublicDomainDay #NancyDrew

Celebrating Public Domain Day 2026

Every year, I get excited to check out what the new books and movies and songs entering the public domain are. I first learned of Public Domain Day while the US Public Domain was on pause, when the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School…

My seven year old loves Magical Kitties Save the Day.

You make a cat with magical powers, they have a human who has problems who lives in a town that has problems. These problems sometimes include hyper intelligent mad scientist raccoons, sometimes aliens, sometimes witches.

Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders I've really enjoyed reading works by Charlie Jane Anders in the past. I first came across her work in around 2010 as io9 gave me a view into what I should be reading as I got back into science fiction as a reader. I also really enjoyed Anders' All the Birds in the Sky around the same time. So I was really excited this summer when Tor Books approved me to get a copy of Anders' latest book…

Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders

I've really enjoyed reading works by Charlie Jane Anders in the past. I first came across her work in around 2010 as io9 gave me a view into what I should be reading as I got back into science fiction as a reader. I also really enjoyed Anders'…