T’was quiet for a week or thereabouts in these parts. I’ve been busy with work and life, is all. Plus, I got sick there for a couple of days. Wasn’t fun.

Only a couple of things to report, but they might be of interest to some folks. Probably not.

First of all, another announcement from Antimatter: Our second official release, Mike Allen’s Unseaming, is out tomorrow. You can purchase it at the link back there. Five dollars and ninety-nine cents for a collection of fourteen really creepy short stories for your Hallowe’en reading pleasure, . The lead-off story, “The Button Bin” is an amazing piece of work, and a 2008 Nebula Award nominee. I’ll throw another link up tomorrow to remind you again. This one’s very, very good.

After flirting with the idea for several years now, I bought a kilt. A pretty nice “modern” kilt from UT Kilts. I have several sorts of occasions where it’s wear would be appropriate (Celtic Festivals, RenFaires, Irish Dance competitions, Geek Conventions) throughout the year, and it seemed like it would be a fun thing to have. I’ve already had several congratulatory comments from kilted friends who wish to gather for kilted photos, and it only took a few minutes after this acquisition was made public for me to be the recipient of the “what does one wear under there?” question. For the record, my answer is as follows:

I have been advised by men much wiser than myself that one must never answer that question directly; it destroys the mystery of this revered garment. Also, it’s none of your business.

Also this week, I got a new mobile phone. It was time for an upgrade. For once, I’m actually on the forefront of technology; the spouse and I got shiny new Samsung Galaxy s5s. It’s nice. Does what I need it to do. The battery life good. It’s a phone. I don’t get too excited about them, but a lot of people do (like the couple of co-workers who couldn’t stop fondling their new iphones in the last couple of weeks), so I thought someone might be interested.

Saturday, some friends and I took the new fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons for a spin. I’ve played most of the various versions of this over the past years, though really bought back in with 4th edition, which was a bit different than previous; it was a good game, though I understand why many folks said it didn’t “feel” like D&D. I did one of the open playtests for this edition a while back, and had a good experience, though after playing though the opening dungeon crawl included in the starter set box that came out over the summer, I can say that this one feels a lot like “old school” D&D, though with some updated and streamlined mechanics of the later editions that really worked – it’s a very good synthesis of the old and new. Combat moves swiftly, everybody had something to contribute at first level, and the rules get out of the way and let you try some weird, off-the-wall stuff to add to the fun factor. It worked, and I’m looking forward to playing again.

Otherwise, life continues to happen. There’s stuff, but nothing to talk about at this point. Maybe later. We’ll see.

In any case, have a nice week, folks. Maybe read something. I’ve given you a couple of suggestions already. 😉