I am still recovering from Easter; I am not certain when I actually got to bed last night, but I did not budge until the afternoon alarm, which awakens those on the three to eleven shift.  From there, I stumbled around a bit, trying to find my voice (I am battling an upper respiratory infection, and with the aid of the marvelous tropical fruit flavored Cold-Eze™ zinc and C drops I seem to be winning, but please don’t ask me to sing tonight).  Before I’d really figured out what I was doing, I was informed that I had to take a truckload of empty boxes to a frequently helpful friend half an hour away who is moving.

Thus it was after seven before I was actually on the road to take my mother-in-law shopping and deliver my son to his brother’s house for work tomorrow.  It seems both of them need me again tomorrow–she because she has run out of checks and did not realize it today until it was too late to get to the bank, he because he is working tomorrow morning and then off again for several days.  I’ll lose a few hours to that, but it will be good to have him home.

Home is where I finally found myself at one in the morning.  I immediately did the last thing I do each night, posting to the Corinthians list, so that I would not have to do it when I finished whatever I managed to do.  I then came here.  I have not yet done the e-mail, and possibly I won’t; given my condition, I might not finish the forum–but I have already opened it, so I will at least start it.  We’ll see how far the second wind in my sails carries me.

I did a bit of editing on the Faith and Gaming book.  I had expected merely to read a few of the articles while getting dressed and eating lunch, but in reading I found places where I needed to add footnotes, delete extra line breaks, and make a minor correction or two.  So today is not completely without progress.

–M. J. Young

Happy Easter to all for whom this is a welcome greeting; He is risen indeed.

I find that the front page of Gaming Outpost has been redone, as part I presume of a thematic update. There are things to like about it, and I do like them; there are also some glitches and concerns, but I’ll manage.  I’ll discuss these in the appropriate forum, I think, when I get there.

I have been proofreading my the text of the proposed Faith and Gaming book, the collected Faith and Gaming articles.  Mostly I’m adding footnotes to things that were easily linked or discovered when it was part of the Christian Gamers Guild site.  I’ve not yet reached the point of pricing this, which will be the longest book I have yet published independently.  I’ve not heard about the cover for the Game Ideas Unlimited series, but then, I don’t check my e-mail until tomorrow, and I am beat enough tonight that I’m not going to add anything to the list.

Actually, I’ve had a thought on that which I am going to have to send to Jim–O.K., I’ve sent it.  I’d like to list on the back cover, with a brief blurb, maybe half a dozen titles from the book which are particularly good, or at least particularly enticing.  To that end, I think I’ll offer at the end of this article the titles of the twenty-six that will be included, and if you recognize any of these as something you remember (or if the blurb entices you to read it), let me know which ones you would list.

Now I really must get through today’s work so I can get some sleep tonight.  I’m starting to get very run down, to the point that my wife is thinking I may need a medical exam, and I want to get a good night’s sleep to forestall any such problem.

Actually, rather than listing and linking all of them, I can take advantage of some of the work I did with the original series and again more recently. The first dozen are linked from the thirteenth, Game Ideas Unlimited:  Over My Shoulder which originally appeared on August 24, 2001, and marked the completion of the first quarter of a year of the series.  used that milestone as an opportunity to look back over what preceded, and forward toward what was to come.  The copy at Gaming Outpost has blurbs about all twelve, including as mentioned links to go read them.  I did the same thing every quarter, but I haven’t fixed all fifteen quarterly articles yet.  I have fixed the one for the second quarter, Game Ideas Unlimited:  The Process which also suggested that the way to learn creative process was by watching how others did it.  It still appears at Gaming Outpost.

I do hope this won’t disrupt my efforts to get people reading and discussing these one per week on the forum.  I’m just hoping that I can get some input from those who remember these articles as to which ones would be best to blurb on the cover, either because people who read them before would want to read them again, or because people who heard the idea mentioned would be fascinated enough to want to read more.

Thanks.

–M. J. Young