View From the Bushes

On this day in history the first four-minute mile was run by England's Roger Bannister. For those gamers out there like myself who've never covered a mile in less than 20 minutes, allow me to provide an analogy to help you understand what it means to run a mile in under four minutes. Imagine that you're playing Champions with 12 high-powered characters and an equal number of badguys. Now imagine trying to kill all 12 badguys, all at once, in a single evening. Or if you've never played Champs, imagine downing a six-pack of Mountain Dew in under 15 seconds.

Today my wife had to have some blood drawn and since it was close to where I work, she picked me up, we drove over to the clinic and she left me alone... in the car with the kids. Actually, my kids are pretty good, though my youngest (month and a half) doesn't seem to like being strapped in with a four point harness, mummified in blankets, poked by her older brothers and subjected to the greatest hits of the late 80's. I tried putting on an Animaniacs CD we had in the car but my clumsy rendition of Wakko's World (United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru... Come on, everybody!) only seemed to add a high almost inaudible screeching component to her crying.

In other news, we have a little sci-fi convention by the name of Conduit here in Salt Lake City, which for years and years I've been meaning to attend but I always forget. In fact, several times I was at my (now defunct) Tuesday night game and my players would start talking about how cool it had been and I would say, "I will eviscerate you where you stand with this d10 if you guys don't stop talking about Conduit." Actually, it was closer to "You're kidding! I missed it again. Would it kill you to maybe invite me?" But this year will be different. More on that later.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross