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.