Well, the good news is that I am feeling healthy again. If you want to know more about why I might have been sick, feel free to read Friday’s column. There has been a lot of illness going around, though. Many friends of mine have been feeling under the weather.* I’m just glad I’m getting better before my upcoming Horace Greely-inspired** journey.

Things here, meanwhile, have been entertaining. I’ve been focusing less on my rapping, and more on my poetry*** and comedy. And of course, by “focusing”, I mean “paying attention to for the hour a day when I’m not playing games”. But my constant gaming is to your benefit: Here’s a new guide for how you can become a better Settlers of Catan player.

Meanwhile, if you happen to be near Pittsfield on the evening Saturday, March 7th, I believe there will be an improv show for you to catch.

*Then again, if they were over the weather, they’d be gods.

**I looked up the quote to check, and apparently the original quote is by John Soule. But Greely was the man who popularized it, and so I maintain that is by him that the journey is inspired. If you disagree, Go Soak Your Head, Young Man.

***Monthly local poetry slams have started up again. I wrote a new poem for the last one. It won.

Literally. Although the day started out quite promisingly, I spent the evening and all of today being very ill. I’m hoping that I recover soon, as I’m supposed to go do some stand-up comedy in Pittsfield later this week. And then in April, I’ll be doing some stand-up in Rhode Island. I’m trying to separate my comedy from my rapping a bit more, so I’m going to try to do these two shows with no rapping. Although one of these days, I’d love to do a rap-only show. Yo.

Anyway, Valentine’s Day may be a hateful thing, but I’ve still got my column for you, so that’s good. There was going to be something funny in this post, but I’m too ill to remember it, so I think I’m going to step away from the computer now.

My review of the above title will soon be printed in the USA Today, but you can catch a sneak preview on their website.

My Groundhog Day column comes a bit after Groundhog Day. To make up for that, next week I trust my Valentine’s Day column will be out the day before Valentine’s Day. Which, coincidentally, is Friday the 13th. And if you’re looking to celebrate Friday the 13th, you could either put on a hockey mask and buy a chainsaw, or you could come out to the RBIT show. The Royal Berkshire Improv Troupe will be appearing at the Main Street Stage in North Adams at 8pm, and for a mere $5 cover charge, hilarity could be yours. C’mon, it’s Friday the 13th, February, and near Valentine’s Day. You NEED some hilarity.

Actually, if you were the type of person who plays a lot of video games, there’s a new video game humor site that recently launched, called Gameist.com. And the reason I know this is because I’ve written a few articles for them, and hope to write a few more. The site is very video game focused, so if you like video games, you should go read my articles there. Conversely, if you hate video games, don’t bother following that link. You’d be better off just listening to the newest episode of News In Rap.

The Best Dang Games blog has posted another of my articles, this one about how to host a gaming night for non-gamers. I am lucky in that many of my friends already are gamers, so I can often skip right to the more complex games I crave, but for those of you with no such luck, hosting a gaming night might be a good gateway drug. I mean… event. I’m certainly not an addict who just traded 5 of my unloved board games through the mail to get other board games I’d like better. Maybe.

Speaking of fun, I recently came across this new site, OldJewsTellingJokes.com. It’s what you’d expect. The McCoy joke isn’t funny, but the other two are cute. Albeit old. I mean, that’s the point of the site. Old Jews, Old Jokes.

Anyway, February is the most depressing month, but I’m going to make a concerted effort to keep it fun, and so should you. In fact, I’m already having friends over for dinner tonight, and have plans with another friend tomorrow. To play some of those board games I don’t keep acquiring like an addict.