My beautiful and amazing wife threw an excellent birthday party for me last Saturday night. I turned 40 earlier in the month, but we were out of town and so couldn’t have a proper blow-out. Ann corrected that in mighty fashion on Saturday night. People from all around the neighborhood and southern Wisconsin came out to give me a hard …

People wander in and out of the gaming industry all the time. For instance, this year at Gen Con, I ran into Matt Grau (formerly of Steve Jackson Games) and Nic Jequier (formerly of XID Creative), neither of whom I’d seen in years, and I had a wonderful time catching up with them. Here’s a blast from the past that …

My friends at Patch Products are looking for a product designer. They make all sorts of cool things, including games, toys, coloring books, puzzles, and foam sports balls, and they’re best known for games like TriBond, which they sold to Mattel last year. They have a great benefits package, including an on-site gym and on-site day care. Best of all, …

Jeremy Jones (who must be tired of talking with me by now) has another interview with me posted on FlamesRising.com. This one covers the details of shared-world writing and what it’s like to get paid to play in someone else’s sandbox.

If you missed the show on Geekerati Radio last night, you’re not out of luck. You can now listen to it for free online. As always, I had a great time chatting with hosts Christian Lindke and Bill Cunningham. The talk ranged over a wide range of topics, from the Mutant Chronicles and Brave New World movies to the Blood …

Here’s the official graphic for this year’s silver ENnies. Shiny! I took home less than 1% of one of these for my essay in Hobby Games: The 100 Best. Now to figure out which piece I get. I think one of the pips on the 6-face of the die would be cool. I suspect there’s a 1d100 (or 1d%) table …

As a reminder, I’ll be on Geekerati Radio this Monday, August 25, starting at 9 PM my (Central) time and 7 PM their (Pacific) time. The call-in number is (646) 478-5041. If you’re available, be sure to give us a ring to inspire the chat!

The fine folks at Geekerati Radio (the podcast linked with Christian Lindke’s pop culture blog Cinerati) apparently didn’t learn their lesson when they interviewed me last year. They’ve asked me to appear on their show once more! Tune in on Monday night, August 25, at 7 PM Pacific Time (9 PM Central for me), listen live, and call in with …

Jeremy Jones, who sometimes comments around here, recently interviewed me for Kobold Quarterly, the magazine published by fellow Alliterate and all-round good guy Wolfgang Baur. For me, the highlight of the interview is the all-too-kind quote my pal John Kovalic gave Jeremy for the article. Go ahead and read it, wipe your eyes at the raw emotion, and then come …

My latest post for Storytellers Unplugged is up. This month, I talk about the vacation I took between Comic-Con and Gen Con, as well as what it’s like to try to leave the office behind. I’m never very successful at it, sadly, but that’s just fine. Here’s a shot of my office for about 10 days of that time. It …