Billy Squier...Nobody Knows

YouTube's suggestion algorithms are...scary good? The rathole sucked me in again tonight, but presented me with a gem that I had not listened to, or thought about, in...maybe almost 39 years?

I was doing some work on my laptop this evening, with a few Rangers of Shadow Deep battle report videos playing in the background on the iMac (related to my solo gaming experience last night). Then there was an email that I was thinking about regarding the upcoming (we hope) marching band season. Which reminded me of Ozzie Osbourne's Crazy Train, which the band does a version of after the end of games (lots of teenage screaming and dancing). So I searched for Crazy Train videos and had that playing. For some reason YouTube equated Ozzie Osbourne and Black Sabbath with Billy Squier, which suggested a whole bunch of early 1980's Billy Squier videos, from both the Don't Say No (1981) and Emotions in Motion (1982) albums (which I should note that I have both of on vinyl in the basement...with nothing to play them on).

Without bothering to type it all out, Billy Squier had a lot of great songs in the early 1980's. A lesser known (i.e. not a popular MTV video) song, but probably my favorite song of his was Nobody Knows from Don't Say No (1981).

Don't Say No (1981)

How does YouTube know to suggest this one particular song to me? After watching Ozzie Osbourne videos?

Get out of my head.

Adventures of Erindale - Part 1

With lockdown continuing on...maybe forever...the need to get some sort of gaming in has become more and more top of mind for me. So if all else fails, do it yourself. In other words, play a solo game. I've owned Joseph McCullough's Rangers of Shadow Deep (ROSD) since shortly after it was released and have always wanted to give it a go. There's no time like the present.

ROSD is a solo (or cooperative) miniatures games set in a dark fantasy world where the "Shadow Deep" is encroaching on civilization. You (or several of you) play a Ranger and their band of companions, playing through programmed scenarios to defeat the evil rampant in the world. Each scenario defines the game board setup, objectives, random events, clues that can be found that tie in to the multi-scenario adventure paths, treasures available to be found, and gives basic artificial intelligence on how to control the evil creatures you are fighting against. No matter how many players you have, you are all on the same side fighting against the evil.

I would be remiss to note that ROSD is a different-flavored adaptation of the same game engine that runs McCullough's well-received earlier game Frostgrave (published by Osprey), which pits wizard-led war bands against each other in a player-versus-player version of basically the same game, but in a different fantasy setting (and much more oriented toward magic).

Scenario 1 from the rulebook is called The Deserted Village, and pits a brand new Ranger and his companions against swarms of zombies and giant rats while trying to discover clues as to what happened to the villagers. The initial set up is shown below. [I had so much fun fumbling though this first scenario that I forgot to take any more pictures after this one...]

Game Setup - The Deserted Village

A few notes on the scenario (and the setup). The Ranger and his companions start in the center of the 36" square board, surrounded by zombies and rats. There are a few houses spaced around the board, and 6 clue markers (the white beads, some of which are visible in the picture). The good guys need to collect the clues while surviving the attacks of the bad guys and their reinforcements, which come on every turn in the form of random events. I painted the terrain board. The rest are houses and various other pieces from my collection. The figures at this point are almost exclusively D&D figures from the various WizKids lines, although I have a bunch of new Frostgrave figures that I am assembling and painting specifically for ROSD.

I found the rules to be simple but fun, and made for an enjoyable ~2 hours. If I knew the rules better, this probably would have been played in under an hour. The nice thing about the AI for the enemies, and the randomness of the clues and events, is that by some very simple mechanics, it removed the usual issue in solo gaming of how to play the enemy at least somewhat fairly...

As for my mini-campaign, I created a Ranger named Erindale, named for my earliest Dungeons and Dragons character I can remember (an elven ranger from the AD&D days of the late 1970's). Erindale would be supported by his companions Roderick the guardsman, Volko the archer, Irina the tracker, Thomas the recruit and Ethan "Grayblade" the rogue.

In a very quick recap of this scenario, we took some significant damage early, but then had a good run of luck in the mid- and late game, resulting in a smashing success. Nobody dropped to zero Health, and we achieved all of the scenario goals, getting experience points for those, and also killing a bunch of zombies and rats in the process.

The role playing game aspect of ROSD is that your Ranger gains experience (XP) for things that happen in each scenario, allowing you to "level up" after gaining enough XP. This in turn allows you to improve your stats, skills, etc... Your companions can also improve, but at a much slower rate (they get a point of XP if they survived the scenario without dropping to zero Health, and advance at a different rate). A Ranger or companion that drops to zero Health during the game (i.e. out of play) must roll on a chart to see if they are killed, suffer a long-term wound/effect etc...

Since we had such a successful mission, Erindale will advance from level 0 to level 1, gaining some skill points as a result. I can't wait to play the next (and final) scenario in this two part mini-adventure. Which might happen tonight. Or I might work on some terrain, or paint some figures... There are other adventure paths available after this simple 2-scenario one.

Lastly, if you want to see great examples of what ROSD is about, go to YouTube and search for Guerrilla Miniature Games, then look for his Rangers of Shadow Deep playlist and find this scenario as one of the very first videos listed).

Masks

Americans like to think of ourselves as special, and we certainly have an overly developed sense of superiority. We might be the richest nation on Earth, but sometimes we are just dumb as f#$%.

Masks.

The simplest, most effective way to slow the spread of a pandemic that is devastating our country. If you believe in science. Which apparently many of us do not.

The level of ignorance required to turn a basic public health reality into a political statement is hard to comprehend. For which we have the current occupant of the White House to thank. That person won't wear a mask to set an example. The CDC says wear a mask. The World Health Organization says wear a mask. Pretty much every public health official or medical professional in the entire world says "just wear a mask".

Nope. No can do here in America.

We have rights. We have freedoms. We have liberties. No pesky public health officials can tell us what to do.

So most of us wear masks. Many do not. We have rights after all. Science? Never heard of it...but we're good at Fortnite.

We've made masks a political statement.

Personal freedom. I'm all for that. I'm just not sure how you can reconcile your desire for personal freedoms with the fact that your exercising of your personal freedoms could be killing your family and friends, or your neighbors, or any random person you run into at the grocery store.

Just wear a f#$%ing mask. Please.

A Vindaloo, Chickpeas, Dragons, and Dwarven Halls

It's Covid-19 Day 101 here at home, and it's both (A) a beautiful day, (B) Father's Day, and most importantly by far (C) in the vicinity of Grace's 16th birthday from a blog-posting perspective.

A few weeks ago, I made the Pork Vindaloo recipe from Cover and Bake, by the editors of Cook's Illustrated (I've noted their wide range of books that I own previously - May 7). Today, having a nice leisurely Father's Day ...at home (shockingly)... I needed something to make with some cubed beef stew meat. We all loved the vindaloo recipe, and there's no reason you couldn't swap out the pork and replace it with beef. So that's what's for dinner.

Beef Vindaloo

For a side dish with an Indian recipe, or frankly, any recipe these days, is my modification of a chickpea recipe, which I will post the details of separately for anyone who might be interested in that sort of thing.

Chickpeas with Coconut Milk and Spinach

For Father's Day, I picked out a few miniatures things for myself, and we did curbside pickup from Games Keep in West Chester when we were in the neighborhood to pick up the new Pilot a few days ago. There were 4 large miniatures from the Wizkids unpainted lines, and included a Gargantuan Skeletal Dragon, a Young Red Dragon, a Behir and an Adult Remorhaz. Now I have lots (more) things to paint...

Father's Day minis

From a crafting perspective, I have had the urge to do some EPS foam board crafting, so I have pulled out the Proxon hot wire table and made some more Dungeons and Dragons terrain pieces (modular caverns and passages, as well as some "Dwarven Halls" dungeon tiles). Given that I have all the dungeon tiles I really need (in two color schemes, no less), it made sense to scratch the itch by making a few fancier pieces. A few of these are shown below (work in process), and I'll continue to tweak some of the techniques and colors. Painting red squares onto the piece at upper left in the picture below was way too stark. The very watered down wash on the other pieces looks much better.

Dwarven Halls tiles

Lastly, and most importantly, Grace is now 16. Hard to believe. As with many of her friends who have had birthdays during the quarantine, and mostly Sweet 16s, it totally sucks that she doesn't get a real birthday party surrounded by her friends. We (I) spoil our kids, admittedly. And we would have spoiled her on her Sweet 16th. We do have a few things up our sleeves, and we will make it up to her when things allow. Until then, Happy Birthday, Grace! You bring me joy each and every day.

This and That

...or... A General Update.

If you count from March 13 (Day 1 of self-quarantine for us), it's Day 98 of Covid-19.

It's fair to say that everyone is feeling the strain from staying home for so long (and doing the right thing). I am still working at home full time. Amp is still working three days a week at a Covid-only dialysis clinic. Grace has started working some shifts again at the retirement home she worked at over the last year or so. We are all still healthy, despite having gone through a health scare over the last few weeks. I haven't blogged much because I haven't done much or felt like doing much during that. Blah. But hopefully we are past that and things will get back to our new abnormal normal.

We are still doing the fairly hardcore conscientious self-quarantining thing, despite the fact that our criminally incompetent occupant of the White House no longer seems to recognize that Covid-19 is even a thing. Nothing to see here. Move along please...

We do try to order takeout to support some of our favorite local places which are open again, and place curbside pickup orders where needed from some stores, such as art and craft supplies from Michael's, office products from Staples and some nice-to-have-but-not-necessary D&D unpainted miniatures purchases today from Games Keep in West Chester (a store that I love and want to go out of my way to support). Aside from that sort of thing, we don't go out much.

Along those same lines, and in the hopes that we will play Dungeons and Dragons again either online or eventually in person again at some point, I ordered a bunch of painted D&D minis from my go-to online source, Kings of Light. I love these folks. And with several hundred figures purchased from them, they probably love me too.

D&D minis from Kings of Light

In spite of Covid-19, some facets of normal life continue on in their appointed pace. One of these things is that we are nearing the end of the 3 year lease on our 2017 Honda Pilot. Loving the Pilot, and not being particularly interested in shopping for other things under current conditions, we talked with our salesperson at Scott Honda and told him we just wanted to roll over to a new Pilot with a minimum of physical presence required on our part. In other words, we picked the exact model and exterior/interior color and told him to go find one and do all the paperwork. This was safe enough to do since the only difference between a 2017 and 2020 Pilot is a few minor exterior trim changes (front grill, rear lights and rear bumper), and the addition of lane change warnings and some other electronics as standard.

New 2020 Honda Pilot EX-L

Short summary, we got a great deal, only showed up at the dealership for an hour today to check out the new car and sign papers, and drove home in our brand new Pilot. The process took a week and a half from end to end, with most of that being waiting to get the exact vehicle we wanted brought in from another dealer. As always, I like that Amp and the kids get to spend most of their in-car time in a big heavy tank. This is our 5th Honda lease for Amp's car, and we have now had a dark red Pilot, a dark blue Pilot, a white CRV, and a black Pilot. And now this medium/dark blue Pilot. This one isn't as dark as the very first blue Pilot back in 2008/2009, and is brighter and more metallic in the sunlight. I like it.

Anyway, life continues on (fortunately), and I have gotten back to doing some hobby painting and hobby crafting. That should make for another post in the near future.

Until then, stay safe, and don't listen to the brain-dead morons that are trying to tell you that the virus is "dying out". Look at the numbers. Be smarter than that.

Gaming Plans

After a hiatus of the better part of a year, we had just begun to make plans to revive our role playing gaming, and had played a session or two to get things going again.

Then quarantine happened and everything stopped.

Zoom and Skype and the like have taken over work as well as leisure pastimes, so we are taking baby steps toward seeing what we can do use online technology to enable gaming of some sort. There are a bunch of virtual table top options out there, but I am thinking start very modest. Get a few people together on a Zoom call and play something simple, without the aid of a VTT. For now.

This may or may not end up happening, but in anticipation of it, I have scribbled some map drafts. A borderlands region "beyond the mountains" from a fading kingdom... Semi-wilderness. Rugged terrain. Frontier laws, etc...

Borderlands

And the town of Oren, center of the modest Duchy of the same name. The town is divided into Orenspire, or the more affluent section of town built atop a defensible rocky hill, and Orenlee, the lower (and poorer) section of the town built on the level ground in the lee of the hill.

Orenspire and Orenlee

I have no idea what any of this means at this point; it's just a few rough maps.

I'd like this to be the basis of trying out Index Card RPG from Runehammer Games. It's simple, and I think my players would like it. And it is straightforward enough that I think we could play over a Zoom call without any difficulty.

We shall see...

Junior Year

Having finished her sophomore year this past week, Grace is now technically a Junior. I wonder what her Junior year will look like...

Grace's two main extracurricular activities are the Drama Club and its 2 (or 3) per year musicals, and the marching band.

The Drama Club is scheduled to do The Addams Family in the Fall and Newsies in the Spring. All of that depends on social distancing, what can be done in person, etc... We are hopeful, but...

Thing 1 and Horton the Elephant

As far as the marching band goes, the Hawaii trip this year was canceled and then postponed until next spring. So it should still happen. Maybe. If we are lucky.

The year end marching band banquet this year was replaced by a Zoom call (Monday June 1) where we played videos, had a slide show, honored our seniors, and unveiled next year's show (Western Side Story - a western themed show).

2019-2020 Band

One thing that wasn't included as part of the year end banquet, but which the kids have been clamoring for, is the naming of band leadership positions for next year - drum majors, field majors, section leaders and other positions. Drum majors, of which there are 3, are the student leaders of the band. Field majors, of which there are generally 2, are assistants to the drum majors, and are sort of drum majors in training (at least if they are underclassmen who will be around the next year). Grace was very anxious for these announcements, since she had applied for and gone through the interview process for a field major position. A bunch of people had applied for field major, and I told her just to wait and see what happened, but not to be disappointed if she didn't get it. She was also in consideration for a clarinet section leader position if field major didn't work out. Which I didn't expect that it would. There were a lot of good candidates.

Sophomore Clarinet

Those leadership positions were announced today. We have 3 great drum majors. A wonderful bunch of section leaders. And I am bursting with parental pride to say that Grace is one of two Field Majors for the GVHS 2020-2021 marching band season.

Now I just hope we actually have a 2020-2021 marching band season...

America Burning

America is burning and the current occupant of the White House needed a photo opp. So... tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protestors.

I guess First Amendment rights are subjective. God forbid we infringe on anyone's Second Amendment rights, because we all need assault rifles, but the First Amendment.... meh... when it's convenient.

It's astounding to me where we are as a country. And saddening. We are 50+ years after the historic days of the civil rights movement, and this is what we see on the news. Maybe we haven't made any progress at all.

We watch current events on the news. We try to stay informed. And we try to have a meaningful discussion with our kids. Looting is bad. Burning cars is bad. Throwing stuff at the police is bad. Anarchy and chaos is not the answer. Maybe understandable in a way, but not the answer.

But we also make sure that our kids know that every American should be outraged. And we should all protest the racial inequity that still exists. If we aren't in a place to be able to literally join, arm in arm, with our fellow human beings that are actually out there standing in the streets, we should support them. Support them with our voices and more importantly our votes. Not just to make ourselves feel better, but to actually hope to affect a real change.

Every American should support the protestors. Not the burning. Not the looting. But support the peaceful protesters. We Americans like to think of ourselves as great. Because we are a rich people. A dominant military power. For what that's worth. If anything. History will be a more objective judge, and perhaps not so kind.

If we truly want to be great, we need to lead. Lead ourselves toward a future that is better than today. Or sadly, at least keep pace with most of the rest of the world, which seems to be more socially advanced than us.

Most police are good. The story of the Flint Michigan sheriff who laid down his baton and helmet to peacefully march in solidarity with protestors warms my heart and gives me hope for the future. Celebrate the good. Weed out the bad. For the benefit of everyone.

One people.

Change is good. Righteous change is great.

At the most basic level, all people want the same thing. A roof over their head. Food to feed their families and keep them from hunger. Safety from persecution. Protection from living in fear. Shouldn't this be the most very basic thing that we can all agree on?

Let's teach our children in the hopes that their generation will be better than ours.