Behold, my shining beard of gray and white, sprung forth from the very bowels of my face, bristling in righteous fury as I fall further and further away from the leading position. For shame! If there is a true beard aficionado among you, you will sponsor my beard! Sponsor it such that it might once again take the lead away from Greiner, the Lord of Beard-dur, master of the Beard-Wraiths. For Middle-Beard!

Yeah, I'm still here. Yeah, so is my beard. I keep forgetting/not having time to update. Maybe I'd remember to update more, if people would give my beard more money. For boobs!

Today I started arranging a get-together for people who are in the gaming industry, either professionally or semi-professionally, who live in the Philadelphia area. I've gotten some good responses so far, which has me excited. So, if you are within driving distance of Philly and want to come down/up/over/around on the 3rd of December, shoot me an email at engard at gmail dot com. Should be a good time.

Here I am at work, with my co-workers. We are displaying our beards; I have labeled them for easy identification.

OK, so I have two things to talk about in this post.

First off, I'm going to be running a game of Bulldogs! (which I co-wrote) at my FLGS. For those not in the know, Bulldogs! is a space opera RPG with a pulpy/humorous feel, sometimes referred to as "Han Solo, the RPG". If that sounds awesome to you, than you'd probably like it. Also, psychotic teddy bears with giant chainswords are playable. Just saying. Bulldogs! uses FATE (which also powers such illustrious titles as Spirit of the Century and The Dresden Files RPG), so if you like FATE, that's another reason to check it out.

Second, I've been playing a hell of a lot of Skyrim this weekend. Again, for those not in the know, Skyrim is the fifth Elder Scrolls game from Bethesda Softworks; it's a huge, sprawling, open-world fantasy RPG with a decidedly Scandinavian feel. Now, when I say "open world", don't imagine something like GTA or Assassin's Creed; those, by comparison, are pretty limited. In Skyrim (as in just about all Bethesda games), you can go anywhere and do anything pretty much from the outset. There are storylines to follow, but you're entirely free to ignore them for as long as you want to. Unlike a lot of open-world games, the main storyline of an Elder Scrolls game makes up maybe--maybe--5% of the content in the game. Think about that for a second. That's how much other stuff there is to do, without even touching the main storyline. That's how much freedom you have in this game. Also, to give you an idea of the amount of content in these games, the last Elder Scrolls game (Oblivion) had me playing for 120 hours before I finally got around to finishing the main quest, and I'd estimate that I saw maybe--maybe--60%-70% of the content in that game. They're huge, that's all I'm saying.

Anyway, beards.

Tomorrow, Skyrim releases, and I will be playing it. My character will also have a beard, even if she is a woman. For now, it is bed time, so I leave you with this thought: it is easier to grow a beard, then to grow one on someone else.

. . . it has been two days since my last bearding. Metatopia, again, was awesome, and you can read why on my blog (www.2d6cents.com). In other news, I get to write stuff for the Dresden Files RPG now, which excites me to no end. Between The Demolished Ones, DFRPG, Skyrim coming out, and other assorted responsibilities, I'm going to have some packed days and nights. I'll try to remember to grow my beard in the meantime.

My Metatopia Costume

I cosplayed at Metatopia today, as you can see in the attached picture. My costume was that of a nerd with a manly beard, who is growing said beard for the good of all boobs, everywhere.

Metatopia, itself (besided being the reason why there is no Day Five post) was excellent. Expect a longer post on the experience on my blog (www.2d6cents.com), probably tomorrow. However, I can tell you a few things about it. First, it was very small: roughly 200 people. Second, most of the people in attendance were game designers or aspiring game designers. Third, most of the games being played were in development and being playtested. This, it was possible to find games that were not particularly good, but the likelihood of having an effect on the finished product was quite high. If that appeals to you, you'll probably want to go to Metatopia next November. I know I'm going to; it was an invaluable networking experience for me, besides being lots of fun and extremely energizing.

Oh yeah!

I am on my way to Metatopia tonight, a small convention for game developers in New Jersey. I'm very excited to play games, go to panels, and show all those game developers my manly beard.

In other news, I preordered Skyrim not too long ago. A friend of mine told me that he'll buy it, but he's more excited about Torchlight 2. Torchlight 2's gonna be great and all, but I cannot understand the alien mindset that places the Torchlight 2 pedestal higher than that of Skyrim. Can you? Can you?!

Fun fact: this symbol (?!) is called an interrabang. True story.

Cheers!

I went to a nutritionist a little while ago to get my health on track, and here I am at Chili's, eating tacos! Don't look at me like that. At any rate, more money, more beard, more boobs. Do the math.