It’s a shame I was out of town for Spring. See, I’d gone to visit some friends on Friday, and it was suddenly a beautiful Spring day, after many months of winter and then a week of rain. And then when we returned two days later, it was 86 degrees outside and blazing hot summer sun. Basically, the Berkshires only gets a few days of Spring each year, and I’m sorry to have missed them. But no matter; enjoying the month anyway.

So tonight we’re sitting on the couch watching an action-packed movie with various things exploding and heavy gunfire in the middle of what is supposed to be a tense action sequence, and I realize that my partner and I are having a conversation about Spanish etymology.* This is indicative of something, which I had initially suspected might be the lack of acting talent** in the film we were watching, but which I eventually decided was simply the fact that my life is awesome.

Case in point: I’m now officially a Board Game Reviewer for About.com. For those of you keeping track, that means I now am a professional reviewer of board games, books, and restaurants. All I have to do is wait for someone to pay me to review my friends, and I will officially be a professional reviewer of everything I love.

Sure, it may not pay very well, but there’s something to be said for job satisfaction. I enjoy having a humor column where I can write about Tolstoy and truth if I feel like it. Or, if I’m feeling sillier, I can write about my propensity to consume questionable food. I’m pretty much living the dream***.

When I was young, I told myself one day I’d be fabulously wealthy and live in a house with a big room filled with food, and a big room filled with games. Well, here I am in a tiny victorian house, but it does have a pantry filled with food, and I do have a room filled with many, many boardgames. And heck, if one considers my friends rather than my finances, I would even account myself wealthy.

Of course, that kind of wealth doesn’t pay the bills, so don’t forget to buy my books.

****

*”Fuego” meaning fire, not only as in the sense of burning flame, but also in the sense of “to fire a gun”. This seemed like an odd coincidence to us. But the word “droit” in French means not only “right” as in the opposite of left, but also human rights. So maybe these bizarre connections are the same between languages sometimes. Then again, “watch” in French is “montre”, which means “show”, which is the opposite. So who knows. I suppose it’s possible the movie just used a crappy not-in-context translation. Or maybe fuego is like droit. I don’t know.

**Sylvester Stallone is probably not someone who springs to mind as a good actor. But then again, he did a quite decent job in comparison to Arnold Schwarzenegger. I guess when you’re making a film where the budget all went towards explosions and car chases, acting talent and non-sucky endings fall in the category of the Expendables.

***And not that one where you’re late for your final exam and also you forgot your pants.

****This footnote isn’t related to the entry, just closes it, but I wonder if all blogs have to either end up self-absorbed or talking about politics. Maybe next month I’ll write about politics. I suppose I could share rejected jokes with you, like my friend who talks about anime all the time who I call “The Last Earbender”.

Normally I would deal with the arrival of National Poetry Month by writing some sort of poetic blogpost, but frankly, I’m already writing enough poems at the moment. See, if you live in the Berkshires, you may be familiar with the annual WordXWord Festival in August. Well, the organizers of that festival have put together a blog and for National Poetry Month, they’ve asked a few different poets to write a poem a day all through April. And yes, I’m mentioning it here because I’m one of those poets, and I’m mentioning it now because I’m pleased with my most recent poem. But you should look through all the days, and all the poets, which include names you might have heard of like Taylor Mali, and names you might not have heard of but whose poetry you might quite enjoy nonetheless.

External accountability is a good thing for me. I’ve noticed that without it, my default is perhaps not to be very productive.* Left to my own devices**, I play a lot of games and don’t write as much as I perhaps ought. That’s why I’m delighted to have appeared in some publications this year. One of my poems appears in the first issue of Moral Relativism Magazine, which is a great joy to me since it lets me pretend that my philosophy degree is finally coming in handy. The poem itself is not readable online, but since 30 of my poems will be on the WordXWord site linked in the previous paragraph, I don’t feel too guilty.

And, while I very rarely write fiction, one of my short stories appears in the new Damn Faeries collection of short fantasy. So all of that is sort of nice for me, since it allows me to point to things I’m writing out in the world. Sure, I still have my local humor column, but I fear I may have alienated some of my readers with my April Fools column, a joke that ended up going slightly further than I thought it would.

Oh! And I almost forgot the exciting news — I’m now a contributing board game writer for About.com! The past few weeks here have been crazy, but going forward you can expect to see new articles from me on a weekly basis, on topics ranging from Settlers of Catan Strategy to Battleship Rules. At home, of course, we’re still playing all sorts of new board games, from Mines of Zavandor to The Golden City. So now in addition to thinking about games in all my spare time, I’ll be writing about them occasionally as well.

And I can’t help but end with a quatrain
Since it’s poetry month, after all,
And for four-lined rhyme schemes I have got brain,
Even if my metrical sensibilities were largely influenced by the work of the great Ogden Nash, whose metaphorical and versical presence over my work simultaneously casts a great light and an occasional pall.

* Last week I was very productive, but largely what I was producing was phlegm.

** Or even a single device, if that device is the Internet. “De Internet is device,” say the voices in my head.

Well, we’re past the Ides of March. But I still had three or four Caesar salads* in the past two weeks, which were delicious. And unlike most other delicious things I’ve made of late (such as greek meatloaf), with the salads I even feel like I’m eating something healthy.**

Anyway, I have to say, this March has been a fairly eventful month for me. First, I mean that literally — March has been full of events. I did another presentation at a temple for God To Verse, attended a few different birthday parties for good friends, had the usual bunch of gaming events and random gathers. And I also had an enjoyably busy weekend where each day, I was quickly trying to create something to perform that night. Third Fridays of each month are now Comedy Night at Main Street Stage, and March’s edition saw me in the role of both stand-up comedian and improv comedy performer. I love improv because it’s made up on the spot, but I was still honing my stand-up act right before the show.

The next day was a poetry slam, and even though I was only going to be reading two poems, I always feel I should perform at least one new piece whenever I attend a slam. I’d had a vague idea for a while, but hadn’t managed to write anything new. But right before the event was scheduled to start, a bolt of inspiration suddenly struck me, and I realized what I wanted to do with my poem. Sure, I couldn’t figure out how to do it, but I could at least write about what I wanted to do, and thus managed to finish and print my poem and still arrive in time to enter the slam.

Sunday after some logistical snafus, I was slated to attend a friend’s birthday party, and suddenly had the idea that I should bake and bring something interesting. So once again, although it made me late, I did arrive bearing freshly-baked wasabi-sesame-ginger cookies.***

March has just been filled with things. I traveled to Boston and then Rhode Island, doing some research for another RI book. I decided that I have too much stuff, and need to stop acquiring random stuff. Then I ordered another box of board games, because they were on sale, and I’d wanted At the Gates of Loyang for a long time. (Perhaps I can justify that as research too, as I may soon be writing About Boardgames.) Before the month is out, I may go see a poetry reading by Marie-Elizabeth Mali and Taylor Mali, or even go on a bizarre expedition that combines RPGs with speed dating.

Suffice to say, March may only be three days longer than February, but it has certainly felt very full.

*Oddly, the only popular dictator food. Nobody ever orders a Hitler sandwich. I suppose you could argue that the Earl of Sandwich should count, but he wasn’t really a dictator. Although now that I’m thinking about it, perhaps they should make dictator tots.

**Which of course isn’t entirely the case given the copious dressing and cheese. But I guess since there’s some lettuce, I am technically eating something healthy.

***My own recipe, of course. Where by “recipe” I mean “vague idea of three ingredients I wanted together in cookies”.

Or for me, roof with consequences. The other weekend I had a non-delightful reminder of some of the downsides of home ownership. I managed to survive mostly unscathed, if very wet, cold, and unhappy.

Thankfully, happiness should be on the rise soon. Tomorrow night I’m performing both stand-up and improv comedy at an event I’m led to believe has already sold out on advance tickets alone. Normally we don’t even sell out including walk-ins. So this is very exciting to me, and hopefully a harbinger* of more good things to come, as we’re hoping to make the improv/stand-up comedy night a monthly event

All of which means I should probably write some new jokes. I write some new jokes for every show, but some of my good material from previous events I’ll re-use. But I worry people won’t want to hear the same joke twice. This is why I like improv comedy so much. But the best stand-ups hone, practice, and refine their material until it’s great. I guess that touring helps you tell the same jokes without boring people**. Me, I like performing locally, which means new material.

A consequence of this is that I start feeling like anything funny that happens, I should try to make use of it. For example, yesterday I was (subcontractedly) recording a simple website review for a client. My recording is intended solely for their informational purposes, it’s not a commercial of any sort. Normally my satisfaction ratings are all very high. This company gave me only a medium rating, and a reason given was “the user sounds like a Canadian”.***

What’s that all aboot? Anyway, it’s possible I should try to carefully save all my various happenstances for columns and stand-up performances, but that way lies madness.***** In the meantime, I’m reading some of those books linked a few posts ago, eating lots of tasty food, and playing board games. Life is good.

*Can you have good harbingers? I suppose so. I just immediately think “of DOOM!” when I hear the word harbinger. Also the word cupcake. It’s possible there’s something wrong with me.

**Unlike, say, trephining.

***And walks like an Egyptian****.

****Which probably looks very different than you’d expect, given recent events.

*****Or Sparta.

I just drank some wasabi dust.

You might be wondering why I would do such a thing, and the answer is, it was in my cocktail glass.

Then you might still be wondering why I am drinking wasabi, and additionally wondering why I have a cocktail glass given how infrequently I drink alcohol.* Well, I’ve decided that wasabi peas, sesame sticks, and bits of crystallized ginger make a lovely snack mix, so I had a cocktail glass full of it. But I kept shaking it to mix it up, so a lot of the wasabi coating on the peas all sunk to the bottom. Which meant that after I was done eating everything, there was a bunch of wasabi dust still in the bottom of the glass. Which, since it technically qualifies as food, means I am not allowed to throw it away.**

Anyway, it’s been a good run of wasabi. Previous to the wasabi peas, I had some delicious wasabi peanuts, sent by a kind fellow from BGG.*** And I also acquired the game Wasabi!, which is fairly simple in terms of mechanics, but has lovely art. Where by “lovely”, I mean, “likely to make me hungry because it looks like sushi”.

Had a few good improv performances this month, which is a fine way to start a year. My columns seem to be taken down as fast as I can share them, but at least temporarily you can read my column about Facebook — or as I like to call it, VisageTome.

* I did almost have a drink last week, when I ordered some mead at The Olde Forge. Sadly, they were all out of mead, and so I had water. Apparently the honeymoon is over.

** I operate under a very strict moral code. If perfectly good food is left on the plate, it should either be saved for leftovers or consumed. Yes, I will ask to eat the food left on your plate. I am a delightful companion for dining out.

*** Yes, by now I expect I can just abbreviate BoardGameGeek.com as BGG and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I spend a lot of time there. At this point, when I type “www.” into my browser, it autocompletes with BGG.

For those of us with logistical difficulties, there’s always plenty of worries to go around before any large-scale event. The annual New Years Bash* is as always one of the events I most look forward to each year**, but as usual, roughly nothing seems to be going as planned in terms of who will be where when. I just hope my friend who is supposed to arrive in 12 hours or so still manages to show up then with no difficulty.

But I am skipping over too much. Perhaps I should mention things that have occurred between my previous post and now. For example, I wrote a column about how I’m trying to overcome my addiction to the bottle. And speaking of addictions, I bought some board games from Fantasy Flight during their annual Holiday sale. They are all currently sitting on my couch, as I was already out of shelf space before this purchase. But so far we’ve played Age of Conan (decent), Atlanteon (constant ties are lame), and the World of Warcraft Adventure Game (fun, if more simplistic than WOW:TBG)

Then it was Christmastime, and so it was off to the local Oriental Buffet for my traditional meal. I also wrote some new TSA Christmas songs which you might enjoy. And then the holidays were mostly over, although you should still feel free to peruse my previous post for potential presents to proffer your preferred people.

Of course, chief among said potential presents is From God To Verse, about which I was recently interviewed. There were more things I wanted to say, I am sure, but I am off to prepare to revel in some New Years revelry***, so I hope you all enjoy the dwindling remainder of 2010.

*Hit 2011 with a stick! HIT IT!

**The other being the Alphabetic Boardgaming Challenge.

***“Revel Revel!” (said in Hamburglar voice)

Given how small Rhode Island is, it’s amazing how much stuff is packed in there. The same could be said for my book:

America's best city-state

Sure, my new (as of 2007) book has a few things everyone knows about, like Waterfire and the Big Blue Bug. But there’s also some history, some cool events you’ve never heard of, and a whole bunch of fascinating people.

If you are in Rhode Island for any length of time, you are going to come across something from my book, even if it’s by accident. But if you buy my book, then you’ll know. Maybe you’ll have read up about who brews the Yacht Club Soda you bought at the farm. Or maybe when you run into the Coupon Queen over dinner, you’ll recognize her.

But Rhode Island Curiosities also contains things you would never come across on your own. And for some of it, that would be a shame. This book could entertain anyone, but naturally it will be of most interest to two groups of people: Those who live in Rhode Island, and those who might visit Rhode Island. The former group will be glad to see some of their favorite things in here, as well as learn about cool people or events just down the road, which you might catch in the near future.

As for visitors, Rhode Island offers a unique chance to see a whole bucket of cool stuff in a short time. You could pick any three places (aside from the annual events and world-travelling professionals), and easily catch them all in a day trip. Heck, there are dozens of things to see in a few hours just walking around Providence. My point is, unlike those travel books that list a hundred things to see of which you’ll realistically only catch two on any given vacation, you can find everything in Rhode Island.

Compared to Think You’re The Only One?, this book has a bit more of my voice. Rather than sticking to a purely fact-based reporting of my findings, I’ve tossed in my own opinionated commentary, a few limericks, more than a few puns, and often a whole lot of excitement about the topic. Why? Because Rhode Island is really cool. And once you read my book, chances are, you’ll agree.

(this post exists outside of time)

In November of 2005, I wrote a novel called Shards, as part of National Novel Writing Month. I’ve got too many books in the works already to be pitching it to publishers, so I printed it up through LuLu. What’s the advantage of this self-publishing? Well, instead of waiting years to find the right publisher and make agreements like my other books, it was instantly available online — and still is. If you want to read some sample chapters for free, or even purchase it, just clicky on the cover photo.

my first (and currently only) novel!

It was a change for me to write a free-flowing story instead of a labored process of neverending re-editing of minutia. It’s my first novel and I’m glad I wrote it. It’s heartfelt, and in some sense contains more of me than other books I have written and am writing. My friends who have read it all seemed to enjoy it, but this book contains more of my deranged mind and less research than my other books, so be warned.

(this post exists outside of time)

Organizations of procrastinators and pessimists? Competitors in sports ranging from cheese racing to rock paper scissors? Religious devotees who worship everything from slack to Satan? Men proud of their award-winning beards and women against peeing while standing?

Yep, we’ve got all of that, ever since 2004.

my first book!

Think You’re The Only One? is a collection of short profiles on over five dozen of the world’s most bizarre groups. Two-page spreads on everyone from the Christian Deer Hunters to the Space Hijackers, with probing questions, inside information, and of course, instructions to join. Although I certainly had my trials and tribulations while writing the book, I must say that it was pretty cool, at least in retrospect. I got to talk with some truly fascinating people, from whom I found out a whole bunch of neat stuff, which is all in a conveniently priced and portable book form.

(this post exists outside of time)

Well, it’s officially Thanksgiving. And if I had to name one thing I was most thankful for, it would probably be my friends. They are smart, funny, kind, talented people. And heck, if you’re reading this, there’s a pretty good chance you’re one of them, since I am not that famous. So thanks.

Now, to business. And by business, I mean, helping you become happier. How can I do that? Simple. A study from 2008 showed that your happiness is influenced by the happiness of your friends. And not just first-degree friends, but their friends, and even their friends. The upshot of this is that a great way for you to become happier is to increase the happiness of your friends, as well as (if you’re a friend of mine) the happiness of my friends.

Conveniently, I have a plan that will accomplish both of these goals. See, as previously mentioned, my friends are really talented, and make cool stuff. So if you bought the cool stuff they made, they would be happier. Then if you gifted that cool stuff to your friends, *they* would be happier. And with these two groups of people now happier, you and I are (statistically speaking) likely to be happier as well. So here are some awesome gifts to help you increase happiness all around:

Yes, I threw my three books in there as well. But there’s also an award-winning graphic novel, two great fantasy novels, a kama sutra for Snuggie-wearers, an incredible stick-figure version of Hamlet, and a novel about child sex trafficking. All written by friends of mine. And not all books are on Amazon; if you’re willing to brave the LuLu storefront, you can find two poetry chapbooks, one children’s book, and even my own NaNoWriMo novel Shards.

Or perhaps you’d prefer a game?

These were not solo endeavors, as games require many people, but friends of mine worked on each of these games. Heck, I have *two* friends who worked on Rock Band 3. I did mention my friends were awesome, right? And finally, some unique and handmade gifts that aren’t available on Amazon. But they’re worth navigating other sites for!

You could visit etsy, if you wanted some incredibly beautiful felted bags, some of which are hand-knit. Or some lovely beaded and baubled necklaces and bracelets. Or some silver earrings, in limited supply. I had other friends with etsy stores, but they appear to be on hiatus.

One of my friends who worked on Rock Band 3 has his own Chamber Music CD.

One of my friends who did not work on Rock Band 3 made Handmade Cards, and so did her patients.

Finally, for people who are too stressed and don’t need any more material goods, you should get a gift certificate for a massage, presuming you live near one of my masseuse friends in Boston (sarah.reinfeld) on hiatus until mid-2011 or NYC (kimicat). Both can be emailed @gmail.com, and tell them I sent you.

So that’s it. A whole bunch of stuff, which you should buy from my friends and give to your friends. I bid you all a pleasant Thanksgiving, and may you increase happiness in the world.