Friends, I hope the past fortnight has treated you well. I've been busy with the usual things: work, various games, genre entertainment, and winter events.

Happy birthday to brother-in-law Gary (pictured), sisters-in-law Kelly and Shelly, and co-workers Michele and Donna! Gary's wife (and Janice's youngest sister) Melinda threw a surprise 40th birthday party for him at the "Parting Glass," an Irish pub in Saratoga, New York.

Congratulations also to fellow blogger Steve M.R. & Aleece Z.R. on the birth of their daughter, Lauren! I hope to see them and toddler Connor later this spring. I wish high-school chum Damon F.P. luck with his annulment proceedings, and I plan to attend my niece Lili's baptism as well.

Janice and I had our annual reviews at CW and OCS, respectively. On Saturday, 16 February 2008, we got our taxes done at H&R Block in Norwood, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, Janice has had to bring her car in for repairs after a thrown truck tire in the middle of the highway damaged the rear bumper.

In addition, I participated in a Jeopardy-style tournament at work. I ended the first round with -400, but bounced back during Double Jeopardy to about 12,000. Although I didn't bet enough in Final Jeopardy to win, I should have enough points to move ahead, since I would have won any of the other games played so far. The trivia contest has helped me to get to know some co-workers, but my billiards game with Bob R. has gotten rusty.

I've also been playing Scrabulous through Facebook with Janice, Erik B.L., and Ken G. As for social networking sites, I've been reconnecting with friends and co-workers through MySpace.com, LinkedIn, Classmates.com, and Google and Yahoo.

Speaking of games, Sara F.'s boyfriend Josh C. has joined the D&D3.5 "Vanished Lands: the Broken Chains" Arabian fantasy group on Tuesday nights. The current face-to-face party of six Player Characters has gotten involved in intrigues in the city of Falit, hunting down members of the cult of Set and instigating a riot in the slave market.

The Thursday night "Holy Steel" teleconferencing team of Byron V.O./"Ibrahim" and Dexter V.H./"Faelonia" is also in Falit on its way to the distant empire of Khemet (New Kingdom Egypt). Over the past 25 years, more than 300 P.C.s have explored and helped develop my "Vanished Lands" campaign setting!

In addition, the role-play by e-mail team of Byron/"Melchior," Paul J./"Sai," and Gabe C./"Eva" have belatedly moved forward in their reconnaissance around the Temple of Elemental Evil, an adventure module that I may run later this spring. Greg D.C./"Janus" is helping them, while fellow Game Master Dexter is helping me prepare for this tabletop (pen-and-paper, dice-and-pizza) scenario.

Aside from "double-XP" (experience-point) weekend in City of Heroes, David I.S., Shari S., and I haven't had much time lately outside of the Sunday morning virtual sessions. The rest of our group — Kim A.G., Steve M.R., and Thomas K.Y. — has continued regularly in the multiplayer online superhero game.

I've enjoyed the Wii, which I'll probably get to use at CW's annual offsite editorial retreat in late April, and I'd love to play the Lego Star Wars (Classic Saga), Batman, and Indiana Jones video games.

Next time: More genre entertainment and food!

After blogging about various games, a contest that has proven to be equally entertaining and more important to the nation is the U.S. presidential primaries. The withdrawals of John Edwards and Rudy Guiliani have narrowed the race considerably. The good news is that voters now have a clearer choice, but the bad news is that the remaining candidates will disappoint both the liberal and conservative faithful.

On the Republican side, John McCain is the candidate with more experience and endorsements, although Mitt Romney's fiscal and social conservatism may be more appealing to the party's base. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton's network and detailed proposals are offset by her personal disputes with Barack Obama, who is appealing to younger, idealistic voters with his promise of change. If you live in a state participating in the "Super Tuesday" primaries, please remember your civic duty as we head toward the next election!

After rewatching The Who's Quadrophenia last week, I caught Shut Up and Sing, which documented how country music trio the Dixie Chicks were blacklisted by radio stations after lead singer Natalie Maines-Pasdar made a crack about President George W. Bush at the outset of the second U.S.-Iraq war. Although I'm not a big country music fan, I was impressed by the Dixie Chicks' integrity in the face of political criticism and commercial setbacks, and I hope that our divided nation can respect free speech and differences of opinion.

I've also caught up in reading recent issues of Captain America, another intersection between politics and art. As former sidekick (long thought dead) "Bucky" Barnes takes up the shield of Steve Rogers, writer Ed Brubaker shows how our ideals and methods have changed from World War II, through the Cold War, to the current so-called War on Terror. He stays nonpartisan but notes that security and liberty are difficult to balance and that people are often their own worst enemies.

In addition to the various comic book adaptations I've already mentioned (such as Justice League: New Frontier and Incredible Hulk), I should add new animated versions of Spider-Man and the X-Men that are in the works. We'll see if they capture the "With great power comes great responsibility" idealism, youthful energy, and concerns of oppressed minorities of the original titles and other recent takes on these characters. I'm also looking forward to an animated Batman: Gotham Knight direct-to-video release that is supposed take place between the two Christian Bale live-action movies. May justice prevail!

On Sunday, 27 January 2008, Janice and I met birthday boy Beruk A. and Thomas K.Y. for the "Death by Chocolate" charity event at the Sheraton Newton hotel. For $15 per person, we got to taste confections from about a dozen local restaurants and bakeries and rate them for best cake, cookie, brownie, and candy. We also got to judge the most unique dessert, observe a silent auction, and chat about politics and gaming. Beruk, Thomas, and I plan to meet again this coming Sunday for Day Watch, the second installment in a Russian modern fantasy/horror film trilogy.

Speaking of gaming, the D&D3.5 "Vanished Lands: the Broken Chains" face-to-face group has been going strong on Tuesday nights: Sara F.'s boyfriend Josh C. joined the Arabian fantasy campaign this week. The current Boston-area Player Character party is between quests in the Halmed Desert at the moment.

However, the Thursday night "Holy Steel" teleconferencing team of Dexter V.H./"Faelonia" and Byron V.O./"Ibrahim" and the Sunday morning City of Heroes online supergroup have run into scheduling snafus. Apparently, getting people with careers and families in multiple cities to coordinate schedules is difficult, but I have been in touch with other out-of-town friends, including Damon F.P., Ray C., Corbin A.Y., and David A.H.

In addition, with Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition (D&D4e) approaching, fellow role-player and Game Master Brian W. and I have been evaluating that and alternative rules systems, including Green Ronin's True 20 (a streamlined version of the D&D3.5/D20 Open Game License), Steve Jackson Games' Generic Universal Role-Playing System (GURPS) 4th Ed., and Pinnacle Entertainment's Savage Worlds.

I like True 20, which is similar to the Mutants & Masterminds 2nd Ed. superhero game. Brian and I have played and run GURPS, but we've found a lack of support for the latest edition and a steep learning curve to be intimidating to newer gamers. Savage Worlds, which originated as a pulp game, may provide a good balance of simplicity, flexibility, and genre neutrality, but EnWorld.org and Wizards of the Coast's latest previews of D&D4e still promise to make preparing for and running sessions easier. Character creation is still being debated, both within our group and in the wider community.

Of course, the big game that most people are thinking of (including fellow blogger Steve M.R.) is the Super Bowl, which I hope will be more exciting than the Miss America Pageant. At least the Screen Actor's Guild award show had some star power amid the ongoing writers' strike. Speaking of contests, I've been playing Scrabulous with Janice and Erik B.L. while it's still available through Facebook, and I've signed up for a Jeopardy-style competition at work.

Next time: weekend update and politics!

Friends, I hope you've had a good week. On Saturday, 26 January 2008, Janice and I drove down to Norwood, Massachusetts, to take advantage of sales at Barnes & Noble and New England Comics and to use an Applebee's gift certificate.

Comics of note include darkly quirky Umbrella Academy, classic Mythos: Fantastic Four, and Star Trek: Year Four. The controversial retconning of Avengers: Illuminati, Countdown to Final Crisis, and Spider-Man: Brand-New Day has produced decent storylines, if not in the best way. Over the weekend, I also watched documentaries about Black Sabbath and Metallica, two of my favorite heavy metal bands.

We also enjoyed the latest misadventures of the sleuths on Psych, some episodes of the animated Avatar: the Last Airbender and The Batman that I had missed the first time they were on television, and the last two installments of Chuck made before the writers' strike. The espionage comedy was more predictable than, say, Reaper, but it was still amusing. Wikipedia has a good list of genre programs. What do I mean by "genre"? Anything that's not a mainstream modern drama or comedy, such as science fiction, fantasy, or horror.

Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood returned to BBC America, only a week or so after Series 2 began in the U.K. I personally like the slightly lighter tone of the new season that is the result of the supernatural show moving to a more family-friendly BBC channel. For more adult fare, The Graham Norton Show is a guilty pleasure. I've got some Jane Austen adaptations on "Masterpiece" (formerly "Masterpiece Theater") and the latest Robin Hood to catch up on.

In my recent mixed review of Cloverfield, I didn't mention the movie previews that we saw. Of those, Iron Man still looks promising, but the brief teaser for Star Trek (XI) was interesting. On the one hand, I'm a fan of the long-running space-opera franchise, but on the other, I'm leery of yet another attempt to retcon Gene Roddenberry's humanist vision of the future, which is very different from the cyberpunky Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles or "reimagined" Battlestar Galactica. I hope that heroic optimism eventually returns to popularity. Unfortunately, the Justice League movie has been indefinitely postponed.

On a related note, Cinescape.com ran an amusing article about historical inaccuracies in cinema. As Janice has observed for certain adaptations of mystery novels and I tend to point out for weapons and armor in period epics, such things might go unnoticed by mainstream audiences but are distracting to people who know the source material.

Next time: "Death by Chocolate" and gaming updates!