Funny Spoof of Star Wars

Maybe you've already seen it, but I certainly had not. Thanks to Ron Mullikin for emailing the link to me!!

George Lucas In Love

The Beast Goes Live

I just finished submitting my (surprisingly easy to put together) application for registering "GoatDog Games" as a trademark. The USPTO won't even assign an attorney to review my application for 4-5 months and the application probably won't be approved for upwards of a year, assuming it isn't denied for some weird reason. The important thing is that my application is filed, so trademark squatters (they really do exist) won't be able to force me to pay them for use of my own company's name.

On top of that, I'm not yet able to provide evidence of "actual use in commerce" since I haven't sold a product across state lines yet. Within six months I either need to be able to provide said evidence and file the appropriate paperwork or I need to ask for an extension on my application.

As for the other names that some of my readers may assume I'll need to register? Well, those are all more complicated and I'll need more time and money to get the applications put together.

Tomorrow I'll start dealing with the complicated (but again not terribly difficult) task of forming a "business entity." I'm thinking S-Corp, but I won't really know until I get a lawyer and discuss the issue with whoever it ends up being.

Novacaine and Kitten Feasting

Let me just state for the record how much I hate having Novocaine injected into my jaw. It sucks so very much. Still, I like the new dentist a lot more than the old one, even if her pain killer injection technique is a bit . . . brusque. Nothing like being able to feel the needle sliding into your flesh, even if it doesn't actually hurt.

With that yuckiness dispensed with, here's a funny picture. Hat's off to Banana Lee Fishbones for cluing me into this wonderful piece of political commentary.

Tryptophan Aftermath

This year, I successfully cooked the majority of Thanksgiving Dinner for my family. We're talking about a 20 pound turkey with a bacon, apple, sage and carmelized onion stuffing. Real giblett gravy. Garlic mashed potatoes. And, of course, maple syrup glazed pecans with orange essence and shallot green beans. Other people handled the rolls, green salad and appetizers. My Aunt Nancy cooked pecan and pumpkin pies.

The closest I ever got to disaster was realizing that the turkey was not even close to being thawed on Wednesday afternoon. Apparently the temperature of of the fridge was 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Luckily, I had already decided to brine the turkey, and being immersed in cold water for 4 hours thawed the bird right out.

Featured Cartographer!!

A map I put together over the month of October for my upcoming campaign has been featured on the "Cartographer's Guild" website. I'll be sure to mention all of you in my acceptance speech.

Sad Collie, Wicked Groomer

I'm pretty confident that the new owners of the place Mikey gets his semi-monthly grooming at are muzzling him. I didn't actually see one on his face, but I certainly know what he sounds like when he's trying to bark but has something in his mouth. I'd wondered if they were muzzling him two visits ago, but I didn't hear him as clearly then as I did yesterday.

Look. I know my dog barks. I know he barks a lot. If they'd come to me first and said, "Your dog barks a lot and we'd like to be able to muzzle him if he's causing a problem." I would have told them "Sure. Just make sure it's not too tight." But no. Instead, they muzzle him without my permission. Then they make a concerted effort to keep me from seeing my dog when he's initially let out of the cage he's been kept in. Finally, when I ask the groomer if they're muzzling my dog, when it's pretty 'effing obvious that I already know they are, she lies to my face and lies poorly at that.

So yeah. Not so happy with the groomers right now. I'm thinking I'll need to find a new one or figure out how to wash the dog myself. Shouldn't be too hard, right? Just need lot's of soap or something.

Writing Report

I managed to write four whole pages yesterday afternoon!!

Seriously, for me that's a good day. Usually I have to badger myself for most of the work-week before I actually manage to drag my butt to Verite and write.

In other novel related news, I think I've decided that the bio-engineered disease that wipes out a sizable chunk of the human race 150-250 years (I haven't settled on exactly how far in the future the book is set) before the period of time depicted in the novel is referred to as "The Fugue" because of how it causes its victims to drowsily slip into a coma from which they usually don't wake up.

I Finally Snapped!!

You can read it here!!

The larger thread that the above link belongs to can be found here.

Playtesting Is Hard Work

Progress on the card game is still firmly mired in the playtesting stage, as it has been for about the last six months. It really is a process that resembles taking three steps forward followed by two steps back.

If you had talked to me a few weeks ago I would have told you that the game design was nearly complete and I'd be printing the production deck sometime in January or February assuming I had the cash to do so. But now? I don't quite know, probably more like March or April. During playtest a couple of things kept happening over and over. At first I thought these events (let's call them "getting Meaganed" and "Rachaeling") were just random, but when they showed up in pretty much every single playtest game I concluded that they must actually be design flaws in the game.

The problem was, really fixing these problems so that no one could ever get "Meaganed" and it was very very hard to "Rachael" meant that I had to redesign the game on a fairly significant level. Good thing I've gotten pretty proficient at coming up with new rules and re-designing cards. Seriously, this re-design is fairly comprehensive and I pumped out 2/3rd of the new card design in two days. Of course, that also shows it really shouldn't take me a year to put together my next product.