Wild Chronicles - video podcast feed (FeedBurner)

Remember that video that passed around where those Japanese hornets massacre a hive of honey bees? If you do you need to download Hornet Hunters which puts that whole scene in context.

8 Invaluable Wordpress Plugins

I have too many projects on my plate, so of course I'm thinking about re-designing and migrating to a better blog system. Wordpress appears to be the app of choice among typography conscious bloggers, so it's probably the way I'd go.

Daily Show: Dr. Alon Ben-Meir

Part 2 (recommend opening in new windows). Continuing to try to wrap my head around what's going on, in as superficial a manner as possibe. Helps to have the buddy list open at the same time.

The Making of VIKTORY II

If I were to try out a war game I think this'd be it. Next time we have a game night we're gonna try out Settlers of Catan, which this is partially based on. It was also based on Axis & Allies, but long slow strategy games like that (Risk, etc.) have never had much appeal. But this game looks like it's designed to be fun from turn 1. I love games that support aggressive play, that was one of my key criteria in designing Dragon Duel.

I never took my game through the full production process, not sure the board design would survive. Fun to look at the iterative design process that produced the playing pieces, but that must'uv been such a pain going through so many rounds of fixes, watching the designer fix one thing while breaking another.

From a game rules design perspective the most fascinating thing to me is how he's taken the dynamic hex board idea one step further by revealing the board through exploration. That reduces setup time, and must effect early game strategy, where you can't just sit back and think about what you're going to do, you have to get out there and find out what's around you.

The Middle East Buddy List - Slate

So, I've learned my states fairly well. Still have some issues placing states like Arkansas and Oklahoma, but who cares really? I've been getting a pretty consistant mid-80's score on Europe, all of the mistakes coming from Eastern and Southeastern Europe, but this whole WWIII thing has me skipping ahead to the Middle East. Josh gave me the above "buddy list" link so that I could put the countries I'm learning in context.

Cybil Solyn: Hair Removal

Vagina on Cybil's website, finally! Turns out the idea of having one's anonomous private parts on a website (even only for educational purposes) is more appealing than actually doing it. We got as far as Cybil taking photos of two of her clients and touching them up, but when presented with the final images they each backed down. So I ended up grabbing some anime, and with Cybil over my shoulder, drew in various amounts of hair.

YouTube - Unnessary Censorship

Fucking brilliant. Drives home the point that the FCC only has control over the words we say (which is too much in my opinion) but doesn't have control over the concepts that we convey.

Rick Steves' Europe: Recommended Reading & Viewing

Plane tickets have been purchased. Have to re-adjust my Netflix que as the trip approaches.

Fresh Milk

…from a waitress (video on YouTube). One of Cybil's clients showed her a bunch of videos, including a new way to solve problems, Zidane style, and this octopus eating a shark. Also, for anybody that's caught the travel bug at all, there's Where the hell is Matt?.

Top Gear: New Compacts Test

The verdict is in, I have the taste in cars of a middle aged man's mother.

USATT Ratings Search: Nils Devien

New Rating: 972. So I get to play in at least one more under 1000 event. Wheeeee!

Save $200 in 2 minutes and have the worlds best writing pen

I've currently got a personal record going, I've used about a centimeter of ink without losing or breaking my current pen. If I can continue this streak until I've used at least half the ink in this cartridge, when I do eventually lose or break it I may just treat myself to this hack, or a space pen.

Special offer: redeem your old cell phones for TerraPass products

Kill two hippie birds with one stone.

Regrets Only

Nice to see people in my field making a statement against "an administration that has engaged in a prolonged assault on meaning"

Manufactum: Product Details - Forest Shadow Game

Dude. A wooden board game with an open flame. And with dice. Can't get much better than that. Looks a lot like Treehouse. Thanks for the link Jon!

Projects Wiki

Foo on backpack, I set me up a wiki. There were too many projects in my head. I got them on paper on the way up to Napa, but paper isn't dynamic enough to allow projects to grow and tasks to get checked off.

India, Ink.

A delightfully opinionated blog from a typographer in the trenches.

Place The State - Intermediate

Dude. Cybil and I are traveling enough these days that I really should learn my states. Scored a 78% first time through, by that was mostly using geometry, not geography. I'm going to do this once a day until I can beat Mark's 90% score, then move on to what I really want to learn – Europe.

New DVDs

• Master and Commander collectors edition
• Monsters, Inc.
• Scrubs third season
• Boston Legal season one
• Lord of War
• Indiana Jones complete collection

Either of you are welcome to borrow any that you like. Jeff, did you see Lord of War? I know it came up at work but I can't remember who had seen it.