This is not a real day, so I don’t have to post anything today. Sorry, but that’s just the rule of this Web site. You’ll notice I didn’t post anything on this date last year, and you’ll find that I won’t post anything on this date next year, either. So I’m not posting anything this year. It’s sort of a freebie day, a day off. And I’m takin’ it.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Yesterday was my dad’s birthday. I meant to mention it in a special note just like I did my mom, my wife, and my brother this month. (Yes, February is a busy month for birthdays in my family.) I didn’t forget — I knew what day and date it was. I just . . .  missed. I didn’t even realize I didn’t do it until I sat down to write today’s post and saw yesterday’s post. Damn, I hate it when I do that. I can remember something all day long, all week long, all month long, but then I can just miss it at the time I’m supposed to do it.

I can plan to do something at 1:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, and I’ll remember it at 1:00 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I’ll think of it every hour from 6:00 a.m. until 12:00. And then I’ll think of it again at 2:00.

Mentioning my dad’s birthday in this blog is like that. I remembered everyone else’s, at the proper time, but then the last one, pfffftt. I miss it. Very sorry, Dad. Happy birthday.

Cowgrit has suggested many times that I should make a note about things to remember. I’ve done that just as many times. The problem is that I forget to check the note and so I still miss. Do I need to make a note to check my note to remember to do something?

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

This is my Captain America action figure that stands on my desk. He’s my best buddy at work. He gives me words of encouragement when I’m under a tight deadline. He pats me on the back when I do something good. And he keeps the Nazis and terrorists off my back.

Yeah, me and Cap’n A’ are best friends. He’s the first person I see each morning when I arrive at my desk, and he’s the last person I see when I get up to leave in the evenings. He’s always there for me.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

bump

We just got a book titled, The Dangerous Book for Boys, by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden, published 2007. I heard about this book many months ago, and I’ve wanted it, but I never remembered it when I was actually in a store or online where I could get it. It was always that thing in the back of my mind that I only remembered at useless times. And then Cowgrit’s mother surprised us with it.

It’s a big book of stuff for boys. How to tie a knot, how to fold a paper airplane, interesting history and stories, and all kinds of stuff that interests and intrigues boys. (Sure, some girls probably like this stuff too.) There’s a ton of various information in this large tome — too much for me to go into for a blog post. I’m just going to talk about one page in the book.

This book includes a page on Role-Playing Games. I think this is very cool. I agree that RPGs are something boys would like (they’re all about adventure and excitement), and RPGs have many good features.

The authors say, “It is a training ground for imagination,” “it is a social game,” and:

This is all very true. But some of the things the authors say show they didn’t do any research about the subject. They seemed to write the page based solely on their memories. They say, it “was put together in 1972.” But the first version was initially published in 1974.

And then they mention the characters you can play, “Fighter, Thief, and Magic-user.” But the thief and magic-user names haven’t been used in the game for 19 years, since 1989.

They say, “we progressed from Basic to Advanced to Expert to Immortal levels….” But that’s a non-sense “progression,” mixing two different versions of the game from 22 years ago, 1986. (For the D&D pedants in my audience: I know you could “progress” from Basic to Advanced, but you didn’t normally progress from Advanced to Expert or from Expert to Immortal.)

I know it may sound like I’m being pedantic, myself, in making these observations. And maybe I am. But the above items will make no sense to most young boys, or dads, who play or want to play Dungeons & Dragons today. The terms “Basic,” “Advanced,” “thief,” or “magic-user” have not been used in D&D for a couple decades. Why didn’t the authors check out the contemporary version? It’s not like it’s hard to find or pick up.

What these authors have done in this chapter of the book is like using the terms “floppy disk,” “kilobytes,” “ASCII,” and “Zork” when talking about computer games. These terms are out of date and would only confuse an audience of young boys in today’s computer world.

This lack of basic research for a chapter in an instructional book puts doubt in my mind about everything else in the book. Is the information on dinosaurs, bugs, and astronomy similarly out of date and unresearched?

But then, the “chapter” on role-playing games is only two-thirds of a page long — the shortest chapter I’ve so far read. Maybe including it was an after-thought they considered unworthy of actual research.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com