"the term "beard" shall henceforth be replaced by 'crackling virility hedge'"

- Warren Ellis, patron saint of HoNoToGroABeMo, November 19, 2009

Descriptor of the day: mat weaving, initiated

Elevated Action

This is it: the halfway point. The point of...halfwayness. Not to be confused with halfassedness. Today also marks the Dawn of the Itching Face. I had to trim my nails to ensure that I do not scratch my cheeks to bloody ribbons. If you were hoping for a good dose of schadenfreude this month, it begins now. I am officially suffering for your amusement. If it means you'll toss a few shekels in my donation cup, I'm glad to continue suffering through the end of the month.

Hey hey hey, kids! Check it out! That right there is some genuine Bostonian sortofbeard! Yay!

That sly look...yeah, that's how I look when I get the chance to give away D&D goodness to the world!

That's right, Jeffrey and his crew don't have an exclusive right to talk D&D here on HoNoToGroABeMo. In fact, I'm gonna go ya one better.

There's a fellow, a fellow name Matt Goetz. He's awesome. He also freelances for game products of awesomeness. He designs for 4e (i.e. the Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond boxed set) and is also known to do some other game work (I think Pathfinder might be on that list).

Matt has a wife, her name is Roxxy, she does killer cool art/illustrations.

Combined they (and some guy named Erik, who's also awesome) did this 4e monster for The Tome Show.

Well here's the deal that they have agreed to for me. If my sponsorships get to $250 or above then next month he will design you your own custom monster and his wife will illustrate it just for you (well, one of you). How awesome is that?!?!? No offense to my podcast co-host, but this may be even better than the picture of that which this is all about she provided last year!

But wait there's more, if my sponsorships get over $500 one of my sponsors will get a custom night of gaming designed just for them. That's a whole delve-style adventure (3-ish encounters worth).

Can you imagine, you don't need to do any game prep for a whole session, but you will get it professionally designed and illustrated just for you. Seriously! Let's get those sponsorships rolling in!

And after you sponsor my beard shoot me an email (or if you've already sponsored my beard still shoot me an email to let me know, you can win too). TheTomeShow AT gmail DOT com and let's not cheat, I'll be checking to see if my sponsorships have gone up when you email (plus, you know I could always ask Bob, he knows where the money comes from).

Everybody raise your swords over your head and charge after that bearded drake bellowing with me, "FOR THE BOOBS!"

Now, the Manly Points for the day, this time without bonus points:

Chris - 70

Beard A Non - 96

Drew - 116

Wesley - 164

Bob - 158

Duane - 99

Brian - 165

Cmaaarr - 167

Fred - 64

Me - 110

Jeffrey - 160

Kris - 155

Michael - 41

Pete - 155

Brian E - 89

A Dam - 124

Jim - 167

Wannes - 116

Chooch - 158 (+2 for zombie beards, okay, I couldn't not give bonus points for this)

Jason - 97

Thank$ to the wonder$ of modern technology, you are hearing thi$ photo at actual volume!

I'm not sure where my voice went, but it's currently unavailable. This was extra fun in helping kids with homework and getting them to bed. And by "fun" I mean "not at all fun in the least". I'm afraid I was reduced to sounding like an air mattress with a slow leak more than once.

Still, the beard is looking vaguely beardy there. Still no new sponsors. Obviously the "sponsoring me will make me feel well again" ploy didn't work. OK, I get it. If you don't sponsor me, I'll get well anyway, so you might as well.

We missed The Walking Dead while on the road, so I was very happy to get to fire up the DVR and watch it upon getting home. I haven't read the comics, so am loving the twists and turns, though as I understand it they're not staying 100% to the book.

After that last scene - I can't wait to see the next episode!

Josephine, that rash on my belly is back...

Today's picture should (at least in part) evoke an era. An era named for one short man... the game might also evoke a New York brownstone, but I don't happen to have one of those lying around.

By my calculations, we should be at the halfway mark. And by further calculating, we should have all raised an average of $125 to reach a monthly mark of $5000. That does not appear to be the case, and it is clear I for one am in the lower standard deviation, and so am shirking my duties. Expect that to change.

The game for Day Fourteen is Chainmail, a minatures game first designed by Jeff Perren, expanded by a friend of his in the LGTSA, and published by Guidan Games in 1971. It was inspired by Siege of Bodenburg, one of the early miniatures games, and was primarily intended to be played as a historical medieval warfare game (like Bodenburg). However, it is most notable for the Fantasy Supplement, which were a set of rules that allowed players to fight fantastical creatures. Thus it was one of the first of many fantasy miniatures games to come.

Now if Fantasy Flight would only put out a Lizardman expansion for BattleLore, I'd be a happy man.

It's gonna be the future soon.

...are our future, or so I've heard. Help this youthful beard in it's pursuit of a better (and thicker) future. Your donations can make the difference. So please continue to aid us in shaping the destinies of all man(but more importantly woman)kind!

This image was created by UK artist Jack Bedford. I don't think Mr. Bedford had our little endeavor in mind at the time, but I suspect that this is how many of our participants feel about their own beards by the end of the month.

Dr. Evil, can I paint his yoo-hoo gold? It's kind of my thing, you know.

This is my reflection in a gold-plated mirror. How else would you build a planet destroying laser system? Do you think I would use silver and a simple piece of glass. No. Beryllium with an ultra-thin coating of gold. My beard likes the way it looks in gold.

Long day of driving from North Carolina in three legs. Nice dinner with friends in Richmond. Now it's time to crash.

After sauna

Work, work, work today. Of course there was some beard growing too.

Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug.

There are good beers, and there are great beers. Great Lakes Christmas Ale falls somewhere on the "great" side of the continuum between them.

Word Count: 18050, 0 today.

Today kinda sucked a bit, so no writing.

I should really not still be playing Fable at 1am.

Back in May, my Xbox Live subscription was up for renewal. As I was pondering how and when exactly to pony up, the Xbox dashboard offered me a pretty sweet deal: Renew now and get one of three games included. I took them up on it.

After two weeks with no news about the game, I called customer service. In an obvious get-me-off-the-phone blow off, they said it could take six-to-eight weeks for me to receive the email with the information to claim my "gift".

After two months, I called again. "Oh, it can actually take up to 12 weeks," they said. This strained credulity, but I also have come not to expect much from Redmond, so I let it go. And I really let it go. Totally forgot about it.

After four months, my wife reminded me about it. I called, expecting to have even less luck at this point. However, after a bit of escalation, I got in touch with someone who was able to confirm that the promotion was in effect when I'd made the purchase and was surprised that, not only had I not received my email almost immediately, but that I was given such obviously incorrect information about waiting. He said he'd verify that I was eligible to receive the game and they'd get back in touch with me.

Two months later, I'd forgotten all about it again. I arrived home from work this Friday to find a parcel on the doorstep. Having not ordered anything recently, this took me by surprise. A quick examination revealed that it had been shipped from Microsoft. My "free" copy of Fable 3 had finally arrived.

Moral of the story: Nobody knows what the hell they're doing up in Redmond.

Birthday Beard

Yay Birthday! And a day off from work!

Yes that is correct, I was born in November, and looking at pictures from those days, my dad would have been a worthy contestant in the Beards4Boobs event. Man, such a big bushy hippie beard (still love you dad :-) )

The misses and I just came back from a tasty dinner at a place called Bless My Soul Cafe. Creole and Soul food made from scratch with local ingredients. Was that ever good. Crawfish & Sausage Etouffee for my wife and Jerk Fried Chicken with caramelized banana for me.

Now to sit back with a glass of Single Malt whiskey.

And thanks for the Birthday wishes Duane!

"Try The Braun Series 3 Shaver Risk Free. 60 Day Money Back Guarantee!"

- washable.Braun.com, Google Ad that appeared while I was looking for beardy quotes

And, lo, it was time for the report of the first fortnight:

*personal sponsorship: $40 (Come on, people - feed my follicles with nourishing money! Let's do this!)

*HoNoToGroABeMo total sponsorship: $1657.01

*beard: reaching the length for proper intercalation of face-fibers

Many thanks to all those who have sponsored a beard! If you haven't yet, please do, as it's for the best cause of all!

Descriptor of the day: carpet initiation

What a nachtmare

Not a good day for the Jeffrey domicile. This is the second year in a row November water has been angry at our house. Oh, and might I add we are the Turkey day house. Last year it was a burst pipe from construction. This year it's a leaky roof from the prior owner hiring poor roofers. And here's the great part: I called the guy to come look at it before it started peeing water into my kitchen because I wanted to get to it before winter. He was scheduled to come out on Wed to look at it...and tonight's storm filled the ceiling bladder just a bit too much. Ah well, such is the life of a homeowner. Thank goodness real estate never really loses its value huh? Otherwise, who would bother? Right? But, I digest.

Back to the D&D DMing stuffs. The DM guide suggests that whenever possible, say "yes" to the PC's ideas. I am in agreement with this. However, this should not be confused with making ideas work all the time. Nor should it be confused with making everything easy.

For example, if a PC is looking for a rare item to help in their plan like, dragon scales. Give them a way to get the dragon scales, but don't just put them lying in the path right in front of them. Make them work for it, or think of a different way around the obstacle.

An example of not letting things work so easily might be (and I'm just pulling this from the top of my head here ;)) a PC wants to light the outside of a building on fire by pouring scotch on the building and lighting it with flint and steel in the middle of the night. You can have this PC out there for several turns just trying to light it, or have the burn be really slow, or just have the sparks in the middle of the night draw the attention of the bowman in the guard tower. It can really generate good fun for everybody even if a character fails at a task. Sometimes even more so. I mean, what great story ever goes according to plan? If it did, we would never have heard lines like "We're all fine here thanks. How are you?" Make sure you balance these with the success stories, but certainly don't be afraid to use some sprinkled failures to bring some reality and quick decisions into play for your players.

More to come.

Alone in the Dark

We're approaching the midpoint in our journey and have received just over one-quarter of the donations necessary to reach our $5,000 goal, but I'm not worried. Why? Because I took my pills, that's why. Everything is just fine when I take my pills. We'll make it. Or we won't. But we probably will. You'll help. Or you won't. But you probably will. Right? You probably will. Yeah. Good. Good. Good. Good pills.

I $hould clean my gla$$e$.

Today the beard and I rested, since I'm still feeling pretty icky. The lack of new beard sponsorship played a large part in my non-recovery, I'm sure.

So today I sat like a lump and watched some Walking Dead, and some Japanese Daikaiju films, because the people in those things have it a lot worse than I do. No zombies on my lawn, and no giant beasts tripped and crushed my house. When you look at it that way, I'm doing pretty great!

The beard is looking and feeling a bit more beardly, although it's still pretty obvious I started a week late.

Hey kids...you better be studying for that test on Wednesday!

A few things here.

First, I love having gone digital with comics and having an iPad in my life. All this time I have been acutely aware, however, that it is very easy to spend money here.

I'm reading some great comics, they're totally worth the price, but I am spending more on comics than I usually do. Some of this is the natural up-tick from the launching of the new DC 52, some of this is me having chances to read great old titles I want to read, some of this is a result of me not currently reading a novel (I took a break to catch up on comics...once I caught up I just kept going), but I would not be buying/reading with such voracity were it not for my new digital life.

I also find that I occasional find myself heading over to the App Store to check out new apps/games/etc. and if I find ones that look good and aren't too pricey...well you get the idea.

I've been acutely aware of the situation. I know the risks and I know the problems this could cause. I probably need to spend a lot less time in the App Store. I probably need to focus my comic buying attentions only to my regular titles and stories that pop up on the 99-cent sales that catch my eye.

These things, I think will help still allow me to still have my fun. The trick is this, I'm currently in the middle of Y: The Last Man. It's REALLY good. But it's not on sale and the issues read really quick. I can zip through 2 or 3 issues a night...but I just can't see myself putting it down right now.

Oh, it's a hard life I live. :-)

On the upside, I've recently gotten a raise (as a result of a Master's degree) and I'm making extra money as a result of my extra-duties. So I guess I'm still finishing off ahead of the game...but it'd be nice to have that extra cash for other things (you know, family things).

Oh well, off to the Manly Points:

Chris - 70

Beard A Non - 96

Drew - 116 (-1 for waiting so long on the conditioner, try moisturizer for the skin too, I've had good luck with that)

Wesley - 154 (+1 for oral hygiene, my grandfather was a dentist, after all)

Bob - 148

Duane - 99

Brian - 155 (+1 for tubes...are those the same tubes through which the interweb arrives?)

Cmaaarr - 157 (+2 for 'roni tales that delight)

Fred - 64

Me - 110

Jeffrey - 150 (+2 for gaming advice)

Kris - 135 (+1 for tenacity in the face of certain death)

Michael - 41

Pete - 145 (+3 you rocked that pic)

Brian E - 89

A Dam - 114 (+1 because I have that same hate and you pull it off better than me)

Jim - 157 (+1 for the kid and the games, +1 for subtly laid clues)

Wannes - 106

Chooch - 136

Jason - 77 (+1 also tenacious)