Category Archives: Journal

This is me rambling about me, mostly. Current stuff: home, family, my head’s on fire… that kind of thing. This also includes everything imported from LiveJournal.

Crossposted, Journal

Heidelberg from the Hotel

Look, I could totally go outside, but right now I’m enjoying the view of my notebook’s screen while I listen to something that is neither engine noise nor other human beings.

I’m in Heidelberg, Germany. It’s 5:30pm, and by this time tomorrow I’ll be on a plane bound for Helsinki. Behind me lie three nifty castle tours, and lots of walking. I won’t trouble you with the travelogue beyond a few bullets:

  • There’s a mural in Neuschwanstein castle that looks like a Disney matte painting. Chronology suggests that Walt Disney took some pictures when he visited.
  • The stairway trail up to Hohenzollern castle means business.
  • Trains are way better than buses because they have wi-fi.

Obviously we got off the ship okay. That seems like forever ago, but I guess it was just Saturday. I’ve lost track. WorldCon is my next big thing, and by this time next week I should be in Indianapolis bracing for GenCon Indy. And after that? HOME.

Home is my favorite.

Announcements, Crossposted, Journal

Four Weeks of Travel…

On Wednesday, July 26th, I fly out of Salt Lake City for a series of events. On Monday, August 21st, I fly back into Salt Lake City and then hook a ride back to my house.

My house, my bed, my 4-monitor PC, my lit-from-four-sides drawing table, my kitchen, my food, okay yeah my kids, my couch, my TV…

Four weeks.

FOUR WEEKS.

I’m not looking forward to this. Sure, I’m totally looking forward to the events themselves, but concatenating them in this way is throttling the joyful anticipation a bit.

The events in question? WXR 2017 on a cruise ship near something called “Europe,” WorldCon 75 in Helsinki, and GenCon Indy in Indianapolis. I get a few days of rest between each event, and that rest is theoretically enhanced by me being not on airplanes to and from my house. Also, it’s more cost-effective.

During this time it is possible that I’ll drop off the internet and forget to do things like review movies (which I won’t be seeing anyway, I guess) and participate in social media stuff.

Fortunately, the thing most people expect from me—a steady, daily supply of Schlock Mercenary—will continue for the duration of my trip. As of this writing I’m 42 days ahead, and the server’s queue of comics has been populated to the point that it can (and will!) automatically deliver comics each day without any help from me.

If you’re coming to WXR 2017, WorldCon 75, or GenCon Indy, and you happen to meet me, you now know why I look like a piece of lost meat-luggage that is three weeks past its sell-by date.

Journal

The Kickstarter is Closed

The Game Chief’s Handbrain Kickstarter is closed now. Thank you for backing it! If you missed it, and are now kicking yourself (likely in lieu of kicking us for not getting the word to you sooner) please stop kicking things¹. In a few days we’ll post instructions for anyone who wishes to pre-order screens, but who missed the project.

Hopefully the auto-posting of this alert will be timely (the project closed at 11:30 am Mountain Time.) We’re at the movies right now, devices muted and stowed, enjoying a matinee showing of Wonder Woman².

¹ That sentence was written completely innocently, with zero intent to make a “kick” pun on Kickstarter. This note exists purely to alert you to the fact that we know the pun is there, but it wasn’t deliberate. Sometimes these things just happen.

² My review will appear later today, as will my review for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

Announcements, Crossposted, Journal

PLANET MERCENARY Goes to Print This Monday

Ten days ago I finished my last big piece of writing for Planet Mercenary. Yesterday Sandra and I finished the last small piece. Today we reviewed the cover layout, and realized it’s ready to be sent to the printer.

This has taken much longer than I wanted it to, but the project looks much, much better than I believed it could. Part of the delay is due to repeated discoveries that we could be doing something better, and then deciding to do it better. And of course another part of the delay is us not knowing how to work as quickly as we originally thought we could.

If you backed the project, your book (and anything else that ships with it) will be shipped July. If you didn’t back the project you can still use Backerkit to place a pre-order, but that link will go away in a few weeks. Eventually we’ll have Planet Mercenary in the Schlock Mercenary Store, but that’s not going to happen before July.

I need to write a whole different post talking about how awesome Sandra and Alan are, and how grateful I am that they figured out how to work with, and around me. For now I’ll just say that in terms of actual work done, Sandra’s name is listed at least one position too far to the right.

Note: The cover art above is by Jeff Zugale, and was laid out (along with the rest of the pages in the book) by Mike Brodu under Sandra Tayler‘s direction. The fact that the logo I designed two years ago is still a part of all this is evidence more of the force of my personality than my skill at logo design.