Muskrat Ramblings
“l hit you on Youface. But you’ve got to promise to fingertag me back”…
posted by John

My Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/johnkovalic, recently hit 5,000 “friends.” And as facebook will readilly tell you, you can’t have more than 5,000 friends and be a real person. No, sir – you need to be a corporation, celebrity or monarch.

(I am not making the “monarch” thing up. It may be a Facebook joke. It probably is. But, frighteningly, IT MAY NOT! That’s just how Facebook is, anymore.)

Anyway, as a slew of other folks wanted to join the fun, so today, I took the plunge and turned my Personal Facebook Page into a Corporate/Celebrity/Monarch page.

If you were a “Friend” before, you’ve been automatically transported over to the new page…whether you like it or not!

(”Whether you like it or not,” by the way, would be my entry if Facebook ever had a “Create our new motto” competition).

If you weren’t my “Friend” before, well, now we can never apparently be friends ever again. Ever. At least according to Facebook.

But you CAN “Like” me.

So, “Like” me at http://www.facebook.com/johnkovalic. Why? Because we like you.

****

By the by, my very first post on the new Facebook page had a pretty awful typo in it. Which (a) is par for the course, and (b) what with Facebook being Facebook I can NEVER EDIT OUT, EVER means there’s no better time than now to plug my “TYPOS HAPPNE” t-shirts…in both Men’s and Ladies’ cuts.

****

No Origins or Gen Con for me, this year, I fear. With all the work to do, plus the generally feeling that I lost control of things these last eight or nine months, I’ve made the decision to just stay home and work.

And, you know, play with my daughter.

****

Possible new toy, in the My Little Cthulhu line: “My Little Geekthulhu.”

Each Little Victim would be its own geeky archetype. Though how I’m gonna covince Dreamland Toyworks to let me add bunny ears to the Fuzzy Victim, I’m not figured out, yet.

So. Basically. Imagine THIS guy…

With glasses and pocket protectors.

Like? Thoughts?

Fingertag me on Youface and let me know…

Muskrat out,

====== John

Muskrat Ramblings
I Know What You Did Last Week
posted by John

My week not at Gen Con:

* I helped my pal James win this round of the Cadburys Pocketgame competition. Well, when I say “I,” I really mean you all: the Army of Dorkness. From being down by fifty votes on Friday, the Army of Dorkness swooped in and helped Flick Racer win the thing by a comfortable margin of more than one hundred votes. Just amazing. James will be announcing a really cool “thank you” soon, and, with luck, so will I.

* By the way: “Flick Racer” looks VERY RUDE when typed in caps. Lesson learned.

* I went to see the New Pornographers with my wonderful wife and a slew of good friends, and the show turned out to be utterly EPIC. I was THIS close to Neko Case’s voice! THIS close, I tells ya!

* The lovely and talented Judith and I attended a Madison Mallards “Tribute to Bacon” night at the ballpark, where Judith suggested she’d go for a Bacon Chocolate Sundae, if they had one. They didn’t. But they did have bacon (and lots of it – some even in handy caramelized bacon bit form), and they did serve chocolate sundaes. So I suggested to Mallards VP Vern Stenman that they missed an opportunity here. He agreed, called the head of food service over, and by the fifth inning the Bacon Chocolate Sundae was on the Mallards’ menu. And it was a huge hit – at times, the line was 20 deep. So popular was it that the Mallards are keeping it on their menu. So…go Team Judith and John.

* Lest you worry about me eating too many Bacon Chocolate Sundeas (De-LISH-us, btw), I’m down another couple of pounds. This makes it 16 pounds lost, mostly through eating less (shock! Horror!) and going on long walks and bike rides.

* But the MAIN thing that happened while you were at Gen Con and I wasn’t? Seeing Louisa pedal her tricycle – on her own – for the first time. I started off pushing her, and she put her feet on the pedals. I gave her a bit of a shove, and she went off. Four feet later, I realized it was no longer momentum from the push that was keeping my baby girl going, but those little legs. I was stunned, and outrageously happy. I WAS THERE TO SEE MY DAUGHTER’S FIRST BIKE RIDE. Much like last year, when I skipped Origins, and saw Louisa pull herself up for the first time, I was overcome by a wave of pure Dadda happiness.

I hear Gen Con was great, and I’m glad everyone had such a cool time. Miss you all, and I’ll be back soon.

Me, though? I was busy at home.

——- John

Muskrat Ramblings
Gen Conniption
posted by John

As you may have guessed from yesterday’s cartoon, I won’t be at Gen Con this year.

In fact, looking at the calendar, it strikes me I haven’t been to Gen Con for…um…oh, dear. Seven years? Srsly? Wow. The first Indianapolis Gen Con was the last I was at.

Time doesn’t so much fly, as plummet, with a terminal velocity that’s never really been determined. It just keeps picking up steam. Every year shoots by faster, and all of a sudden, you realize you haven’t been to freaking Gen Con since 2003.

To lose one Gen Con, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose seven looks like carelessness.

In my defense, I hadn’t been to San Diego Comic-Con since about the same time, either. Origins? It may be five years since I set foot in Columbus. To be honest, I kinda stopped counting.

The burnout that hit me in 2003 was as overwhelming as it was complete. That year’s Gen Con was the last of a series of huge cons that summer, for me, and between the booth-time and the meetings – the many, many meetings – I don’t really have much real recollection of anything else. I just remember everybody – and I mean everybody – telling me how tired I looked. Those few fearful times I worked up the courage to glance in the mirror, I certainly had to agree. I was a wreck.

Meeting readers and fans is always a pick-me-up. But by that Friday night – two days into the con – wandering the streets of Indianapolis, I only remember being tired to my soul. I reached for my cellphone, called Northwest Airlines – who at the time had a ridiculously easy number to remember: 1-800-WE-REALLY-DON’T-SUCK-AS-MUCH-AS-PEOPLE-SAY-WE-SUCK, or something like that – and discovered a mere $100 was all it would take to fly me home the next morning.

I was ecstatic. I made my “flee” roll, and I fled.

Now, really, I have to ask you – just how wrong is that? Being happy to leave Gen Con early? Happy?

The first Gen Con I attended was in 1981, and I was 16. On summer vacation with my family, we found ourselves in Wisconsin. During Gen Con. Our hotel was in Madison, the picturesque capitol of the state (which a mere four years later would become my home), and I asked my Dad if he could make the drive to Lake Geneva.

Hilarity – as they say in Hollywood – ensued. Gen Con, you see, had by this point moved to the University of Wisconsin – Parkside, in Kenosha. Which isn’t actually located in Kenosha, but in the wilds of Kenosha County, hidden in the woods. Camouflaged, if you will. Seriously. If they had stealth technology at the time, I think they would have made the campus invisible to radar, as well.

Hot summer day. Driving. Madison to Lake Geneva. Confused Lake Geneva Game Store Clerk notes the incorrectness of my starting assumption. Lake Geneva to Kenosha. Kenosha to…somewhere else in Kenosha county. Woods. I remember LOTS of woods. I believe there wolves, too. Then, suddenly…

A building. A gym. A gym with games companies! Lots of game companies, all selling their…games! GAMES!

Long story short, never have I had to quest so hard getting to a con. Never before or since have I had to convince a carload of grumpy, hot, skeptical, increasingly bitter family members that yes, this “Gen Con” thing really did exist, honest. And once – hours later – when we finally found it, well, never before nor since have I had so little time at a convention left to do, you know, convention stuff.

But you know what? I met Marc Miller – I met Marc Miller – and he signed my copy of the Journal of the Traveller’s Aid Society #9, hot off the presses, and with a color cover! Color, I tells you! The Fifth Frontier War issue. No, no, no, no: listen – WAR has broken out in the Spinward Marches! The Zhodani are on the attack! And…and…and…PEOPLE! This is the freaking ZHODANI!

No, no…wait…you don’t understand – BLOODY HELL, I MET MARC MILLER! CREATOR OF “TRAVELLER.” AND HE SIGNED MY FREAKING BOOK!

“Let’s hope you survive the war. Marc W. Miller.”

Only one other moment in my gaming life has ever equaled that. I’m not sure, years later, when I was a music writer, that even being in the same room as Paul McCartney held the same whiz-pow fanboy geek-gasm that meeting Marc Miller did, in that tiny amount of time I had. In a gymnasium. In Kenosha. Wisconsin.

I had met my gaming hero, and he had signed my book. The book I held in my hands. Staring. Just staring at it.

“Let’s hope you survive the war.”

I was buzzed all the way back to Madison. I was breathless. I had signed gaming swag!

That’s what leaving Gen Con should feel like.

So, yeah – it’s been a while. To be honest, I think I needed the break. I just didn’t think the break would last quite so long.

Bygones.

But it’s time to go back. Not this year, no. But soon.

Maybe I’ll just go as a civilian, as I did at San Diego, and simply wander the floor for a day or two.

With luck, I may even bump into Marc Miller again.

And let him know I survived the war.

- John