The eight steps from Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master haven't changed for me over the past eight years and I've used them hundreds of times to prep my games with several different systems. What I do

There is not one second of action or violence in The Russia House. It’s a very slow burn — mostly people having tense conversations — but I loved it.Set in the late 1980s, just as glasnost and…

Despite being told to hurry, James Bond changes out of his three-piece suit and into a country outfit for a debriefing at the Blayden safe house outside London. While James Bond's superiors, M and…

I don’t love N26. And this is particularly difficult for me to write. In case you haven’t noticed, I have spent a fair amount of time writing and thinking about Necromunda as a game since…

Not long ago I stumbled onto Nene Royal, a young Thai guitarist busking in the markets of Phuket, tearing through metal and rock covers like it was the most natural thing in the world. She is so…

At the conclusion of The Rats ( read my review ), London's mutant rat population had been eradicated by poison gas. Yet troubling questions remained. What if, despite the assurances of those in…

The past three Saturdays I have run a fantasy adventure game for five rambunctious kids, ages 9 to 11, one of whom is my son (aka, the Ringleader). Now I hear there is a player advice blogwagon , and…

If a GM runs systems where they call for specific skill checks (e.g., “give me a Computer Use check”), my experience — from both sides of the table — is that they’ll often develop biases in the…

The reviews are in! My new book Amazing Astro Animals has been out in Australia and NZ for almost three weeks now – big thanks to everyone who’s shared a review so far. Amazing Astro…

A close-up of a record needle reveals its pointed tip, fine scratches, and tiny particles clinging to the surrounding surface.

October 18 2026 - 20:00 I need to watch You Can See Everything so fucking bad. I haven't anticipated for something like this since Deltarune probably…

🎧 Play Along: https://simplejamstudio.com/sketch/34b607c3-7348-4ab9-816c-d47345ec770b

I'm watching the recent Oasis documentary on the Live 25 tour which I was fortunate to attend when they played in Chicago. Similarly to how I was at the show, I'm tearing up while watching this.…

A long time ago I remember people talking about one of the things that made star wars great was the thought that went into little things like, the X-Wings were dirty. As in this was a rag tag bunch…

In a recent conversation about genre, my friend challenged me to come up with specific examples instead of speaking in vibes. OK fair point 😉 I decided I’d try the same thing looking at how…

As a huge fan of the Friday the 13th franchise, I was looking forward to the new Crystal Lake series. I was especially excited that they were not only going back to the roots of the original film,…

A small historical library of my life.

Oh man, I didn’t know what this movie was about when my wife put it on. These stories were hard to watch and that makes me sad in that it echoes so much of the what happened and what continues to…

Manthan which means churning is a 134-minute 1976 film was a transposed narrative of the origins of a dairy cooperative movement that transformed India from a milk-deficient nation to the world's…

Alchemy 1.41.0 adds shape drawing, area templates, and a token tray to Tactical Mode, a Select tool with undo, and automatic armor math for Daggerheart sheets.

Tonehole crescents are (in my opinion, a last-ditch) method for altering the intonation of the note coming out of a tonehole by non-permanently altering the tonehole’s size and location. You…

Reflections on McKenzie Wark’s Reverse Cowgirl

Memory's Legion is a collection of short stories and novelettes in the Expanse universe, largely taking place between the main series novels. It tells the stories of a few side characters, before or…

A young man, Joe, whose fiance died in a homicide just few days before the wedding tries to cope up with grief and emotionally supports his parents in-law. The whole incident unfolds slowly through…

Last weekend I found myself in an actual record shop. It's very rare for me to ever go into record shops over here in the UK, as there aren't really any that are anywhere near to my house or that are…

“Nothing is more nerve-wracking than a family conference on finance when the family finances are in a bad way,” Mary Borden writes in No. 2 Shovel Street, her 1949 novel of a widow…

Purchase a copy for immediate download of “That One Matt Bors Comic” and “Flong Time, No See.”

Composer and multi-instrumentalist Jason Frederick continues to surf the wave of an enormously busy career that we’d normally expect from several different people. At any given moment, he might be…

MSF 750P is a 1976 Seddon Pennine 7 coach with a Gardner engine and Alexander body, built for Eastern Scottish express routes and now preserved at Lathalmond.

A list of things I highlighted from my first read through of John Green's "Hollywood, Ending"

When a stage adaptation of “Paranormal” Activity by Levi Halloway opens with a man video-calling his mother in Boca Raton, you'd be forgiven for wondering if you'd wandered into a sitcom taping…

A book recommendation and notes about when and where the public can engage with Prof. danah boyd regarding Data Are Made, Not Found (University of Chicago Press, 2026).

The 1973 Radio Times Special (see Featured Post of go to November 2018) was an iconic publication for fans so it’s not surprising that a follow up was produced ten years later to celebrate the show’s…

Here are the last lines of some well-known novels. Can you identify them ? 1) ‘ Tomorrow I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.’ 2)  Lying on the floor…

Before their new long player drops on 6 November, there’s just time for Melbourne’s most famous funk outfit to squeeze out a third and final single and that’s this one – On…

Books I’m reading and have read in English and Thai, with reading years, notes, and ideas that stayed with me.

Irish alt-rock band Fontaines D.C. are one of the most exciting and interesting acts making music today, and while they’d been gaining critical acclaim and popularity since the release of their debut…

“When the great etch-a-sketch is shaken”, Gregor Hens writes in The City and the World, “and the public streets are erased, this microcosm always remains, the memory of the most…

At least they're human. Biologically human, anyway. 1.   Civilization ends at the Hudson River — everything to the east of it is a howling barbarian wilderness. It's dotted with quaint…

Last year I rediscovered Harvest, and quickly became obsessed with everything that the band did. I bought every Harvest record that I could get my hands on... and unfortunately that ended up being…

Hunjiya Start Over The latest release from Korean musician Hunjiya, Start Over emerges like a hazy filtered memory. Guitars, spoken snippets, and wisp-like vocal harmonies float against a textural…

The week’s Bizarro comics and my scandalous confessions about vacation food and Grandma’s house!

On Thursday, October 15, I completed my 31st cycle around the sun. My wife bought us tickets for “Elephants and Ants”, a play based on one of Yaşar Kemal’s books. It was a story about elephants…

A Rule of Thumb that’s worked for me pretty well so far is: I do not expect the wealthy and powerful to do the right thing 1 . I also do not expect Nathan Fielder to not have a laugh at our expense.…

I’m sitting at a café in my neighborhood. A song came on that I think is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. “Jag ger dig min morgon” by Fred Åkerström, which is a cover of Tom Paxton’s…

I first covered Scragtag, the verminous mid-1980s puppet operated by Marcus Kimber, in 2013. I must have watched him in programmes such as T.T.V and Scragtag and his Tea Time Telly , but I couldn't…

We returned to Birmingham, Alabama for a metal festival in the Iron City.

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I’m sitting at a café in my neighborhood. A song came on that I think is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. “Jag ger dig min morgon” by Fred Åkerström, which is a cover of Tom Paxton’s…