Religious experience

I am not a particularly religious man. I have, however, recently had a brush with the divine. I present to you the Vesta Burger.

As you can see, it took me a few bites to realize the divine nature of this burger. It's topped with too many condiments to list, but the key ingredients are a good half-pound of ground beef, sautéed mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese.

The ultimate satisfaction I felt while eating this burger was nothing short of a deep and meaningful brush with God. Of burgers. I swear.

I felt almost ashamed to eat it. How could I be worthy of such goodness?

But as I ate it, I took solace. For though I consumed the ultimate burger, it's spirit would ascend and become the ideal for which all other burgers would aspire to eat. And while no burger I eat will ever approach the purity of the Vesta Burger, I will appreciate the valiant effort of lesser burgers as they strive to meet the divine example.

That's The Vesta, in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, on the corner of Steeles and Dixie. Great all-day breakfast, and a burger of biblical proportions.

Chuck Rice is Turning Japanese

One of my favourite RPG writers, Chuck Rice (author of the recent Modern²⁰), is planning on writing a Japanese-style RPG. Not a Japanese setting, but one using Japanese conventions and styles. I really can't describe it as well as he can, so check out his blog. It sounds really cool.

He's releasing it under the ransom model - basically, he's taking donations at a site called Fundable in $10 increments. When he's raised $600, he'll complete the book and release the PDF for free. I'd encourage all my readers (all four of you) to donate at least ten bucks to this. I have the feeling it'll be worth it.

Good and Bad News

In Good News today, David S. Gallant received a promotion at work.

In Bad News, this promotion requires more commitment from him, meaning the already meager amount of writing he's able to accomplish these days will diminish further.

BIZZAM!

So, Action Maneuvers has been released. Last week it climbed up the charts so I assume it sold pretty good. An audio ad for the book (recorded by myself and my fiancée) is featured in the latest Accidental Survivors special episode, and is due to play again during their one-year retrospective show.

What's next? My name's been attached to a couple of projects in support of Modern²⁰. Finding time to work on any of that has been tough with my new job schedule. What I need is something to make me productive during my commute to work - pen and notepad just isn't cutting it.

Also, as something of an inside joke in response to an ENWorlder's assertion about Canada in games, I'm trying to produce a monster book / adventure entitled Evil Canada. It seems that, in most games, Canada is sugar-coated as just a left-leaning democratic nation with nothing sinister to hide. I plan to blow the truth wide open like a moose hitting an SUV.

Wake up! You're on Accidental Survivors.

Back in the day (yes, several months ago was "the day"), I appeared in a few episodes of the Accidental Survivors podcast. For those of you who haven't heard of this, Accidental Survivors is a podcast dedicated to modern gaming. Being a sucker for modern gaming, I love it. It's hosted by Fraser Ronald of Sword's Edge Publishing and features some of the best commentary and funniest bloopers of all the podcasts on my listening list. I haven't been on the show in quite a while, and I stopped listening for a while due to a lack of time. But now, with an hour-long commute to work and an MP3-playing phone in my pocket, I've been catching up on podcasts like no tomorrow.

So today I finally managed to catch up to Episode 16 of Accidental Survivors, all about game design (and featuring Charles Rice as a guest, who spoke about Modern 2.0 [now Modern20] and game design in general). During their News & Views portion of the show, I was very surprised to hear Fraser talk about this very blog! Both he and Charles seemed excited to know I am still alive and kicking. It was a great treat on a Monday morning to that kind of attention shone in my direction.


Oh, and Fraser, Charles is right. You did get my name wrong. And I won't hurt you. Yet... ;)

Yarr.

Ahoy! Today I be celebratin' my scurrilous heritage on this, the annual International Talk Like a Pirate day. 'Tis a fine day t'be a scurvy-ridden sea dog.

I love TheLe

TheLe Games is the unsung P.T. Barnum of our time. I love the way he promotes his products, usually using imagery that has little to do with the actual subject matter of the products in question. I find this refreshing - a lot of RPG products use imagery that is either too clichéd or too reliant on knowledge of the material to make any sense. This image is perfect. The lovely but frustrated stock photo women, the glowing title, the casual violence implied by the tagline, the d20 STL watermark in the pillow... I love it.

I can't wait for folks to see this book.