View From the Bushes

First off an apology to all of my regular readers out there. My May 23rd blog was written on time but then I got busy and forgot to post it. It's now available for you edification in the archive. It's actually quite good, you should check it out.

Conduit Report: Day 1

Much of my plans for Conduit involved having internet access. I was assured by several people that wireless internet access was available at the hotel and that it should be no problem. It was a problem, a big problem. The obvious problem was that it's hard to sell subscriptions to a website that no one can see. But by far the bigger problem is that my umbilical cord has been cut. The combination of DireKobold and my job has led to a situation where with the exception of when I'm asleep I never go more than an hour without being connected. Someone asks me what "Gone with the Wind" made adjusted for inflation, a quick search on and I tell them. If my wife wants to know what a word she just read in Scientific America means (coprophagy, a definition I leave as an exercise for the reader) Dictionary.com spits out the answer. Do you have any idea it is to get European Cycling News (the Giro D'Italia is currently going on) without the internet!!

Obviously the thousands of people who look to "View from the Bushes" for their daily news do not want to hear about what I wasn't able to do, but rather what I did. With the exception of struggling futilely for several hours in the morning to establish some sort of internet connection the first day went rather well. Just about everyone I talked to loved the idea. I would generally begin with the line "This is the product you've been waiting for your entire life!" Adding after a half a second okay maybe not but it is pretty cool. I was surprised by the number of people who admitted at the end of my spiel, that it actually was what they had been waiting for their entire life.

To be honest I was surprised by the number of people I had talked to who were still playing 1st and 2nd edition D&D. I'll admit that it took me almost 7 years after it's introduction to start playing 2nd edition and that I never really embraced it (probably the reason I jumped on 3E with such gusto) but to still be playing 1st edition? Wouldn't you be better off playing Hackmaster? At least it's still being supported. And then of course there are the purist who think D&D isn't realistic enough, that only Rolemaster contains a sufficient number of tables to cover every contingency.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero,
Ross