Announcement: Summer Hiatus Over!

"Most Complicated Board Game Ever" by Rhett & Link

Oh, look. Someone's already invented my game.

Dear Valued Readers,

I'm back to the grind!  Thanks for not going anywhere.  Over the course of the next week, I'll be ramping back up to my normal posting schedule.

As you might remember, I took a month off from posting to work on a board game design that I hoped to launch on KickStarter later this year.

Designing a board turned out to be a lot harder than I expected, but not for the reasons I expected.

I thought the most difficult part of designing an actual product would be the business logistics: how it would cost to print a game, how I would raise funds for the initial printing, where I would distribute the game from in order to minimize postage costs, etc.  It turns out, the real challenge was my own runaway exceptions.

Announcement: Summer Hiatus

Dear Valued Readers,

I'm taking a hiatus through the coming month for the purpose of working on a board game that I'm hoping to crowdfund later this year.  I've been following recent boardgame trends since the whole KickStarter craze began a few years back, and I've come up with several ideas for games that I think would sell very well.  However, I can never quite seem to find the time to set anything down on paper.  This summer, I hope to change that.

In the mean time, I hope that you'll keep this site in your bookmark roster.  I'll be back to my daily post schedule in August.

If you start to miss me, try visiting my snarky Twitter feed, or my other Blogspot blog, The Great Geek Manual, both of which I've loaded down with enough of my own unique brand of wit and wisdom to last through the month.

Yours Truly,

Pipedreamergrey

Admin, The Geek Art Gallery

Rant: Doom's Love of the The Beatles

Can we just stop and talk about this panel from Loki Agent of Asgard #7 for a moment, please?  In this issue published last October, Victor Von Doom gets Loki sentenced to death, and in the course of the story, we get a brief glimpse of Doom's secret inner lair.

Are there wracks and chains?  Laboratory equipment?  Giant banks of Batcave-style computers?  Nope.  First thing we see a row of old school Jukeboxes that apparently play a custom cover of "All you Need is Love" into which Doom's own name has been inserted.

There's a whole world of backstory in this panel, and it will haunt me forever.

Did Doom just one day decide there needed to be an evil version of "All you need is love?"  Did he pervert one of the most famous songs of all time as an act of defiance?  Or maybe humor?  Was he just too embarrassed to listen to his Beatles song while plot global mayhem?  Is he worried that if someone caught him jamming to a song about love he'd get loose all supervillain cred but incappable of letting go of this small remnant of his former life?  Or maybe that jukebox is a gift from an overzealous fan.

I don't know, and it's killing me.  I feel like this could be Doom's "Heart of Ice" moment - that little nugget of backstory that transforms him into a three-dimensional character.

Any thoughts or feels?

Rant: Annabelle Symbol

I cannot be the only person to realize that the demonic symbol from Annabelle is an inverted NASA logo.

Announcement: Summer Hiatus Over!

Dear Valued Readers,

I'm all settled into the new place and back online!  "Danger Cave 1" is fully operational!  I'll start posting on July 1st, barring unforeseen complications.  I'd like to thank everyone who commented, e-mailed, and Tweeted their support during my absence.

Unfortunately, my internet connection's not quite as fast as it was back at my old place.  My last house was in walking distance of a community college, so I had a lightning fast internet connection.  My new place is so far out into the boonies that it's a ten minute drive to Store.  That's not a typo.  The nearest place of commerce is a small, windowless building labeled "Store."

There's a huge handmade sign hanging just outside Store's one windowless door promising crawlers. When I asked if the sign referred to doughnuts or bait, a man wearing overalls and a flannel shirt in ninety degree heat treated me to ten minute rant about how Store stocks BOTH as part of fiendishly clever marketing ploy designed to draw traffic both on the way to AND from the local fishing hole.

In case you were wondering, I bought the bait.  Upon examination, it was the more sanitary option.

I would have been back online last week, but hijinks ensued when the AT&T guy who came to install the DSL modem I ordered pointed out that the old lady who lived here before me never bothered installing actual phone jacks.  The two sockets I stupidly mistook for phone jacks were both itty bitty wall safes with absolutely no internet inside.  My brother spent the entire week tormenting me by folding up little pictures of cats and stuffing them into said wall safes to simulate internet reception.

Until I adjust to the slower speed, my daily posts may be a little less frequent than prior to my hiatus.  I sincerely hope that you'll stick with me through the coming adjustment period, because I'm creeping up on the poverty line and the ad revenue from this blog is only about three years of growth from pushing me over the threshold.  Come on, dollar a day!

Yours Truly,

Pipedreamergrey

Admin, The Geek Art Gallery

Announcement: Summer Hiatus

Dear Valued Readers,

My parents have recently informed me that, ironically, retirement nest eggs are built under the presumption of eventually having an empty nest.  So, I'm moving out of my parent's old house at the end of the month, so that they can sell it to VERY SELFISHLY bankroll their retirement, because, evidently, I "don't need eight rooms to myself to watch cat videos all day."

Hopefully, most of my moving will be accomplished in the first week of June...

HOWEVER, my luck being what it is, you should be aware that if I run into any sort of trouble (broken monitors, lost Ethernet cables, suicide attempts in the face of carrying a quarter ton of books up two flights of stairs), I may be out of contact for a while.  My life has yet to afford me the opportunity to look back at a relocation and reflect upon how smoothly it went.  Most of my experiences with a moving van have played out like a poorly written episode of I Love Lucy.

I will try to pack my computer last, unpack it first, and bully the cable company into a prompt appointment with threats of subscribing to DSL, but let's face it, the cable company knows I'm their bitch, sure as if they had me strung out on crack.

Worst case scenario, I'm unpacking my five hundred boxes of books in ninety degree heat while grappling with internet withdrawal through June and back on duty in July.  Best case scenario, my parents have a change of heart and come out of retirement to continue support me in the style to which I have grown accustomed ...  or I get the cable activated promptly at my new broke-down apartment ("Danger Cave 1") sometime in the second week in June.

Either way, I sincerely hope that you'll keep this site in your bookmark roster through coming content lull, wish me luck each time your back aches in the coming month, and drop me a line if you hear of any crooked nursing homes willing to snatch up admit parents who are only mildly senile.

Yours Truly,

Pipedreamergrey

Admin, The Geek Art Gallery