This afternoon, I took my 6 year old to a comic book shop for the first time. We left the house with no particular place to go—we just needed to get out of the house for a while, and it was too hot to play outside. When I suggested the destination, he got excited. The nearest shop I know of is a hole-in-the-wall kind of place.

I’ve been to many comic book shops over the years, and they range from dark, gothic shops to bright, fluorescent stores. The owners and employees range from surly “fat-beards” with a chip on their shoulder to happy, helpful, friendly geeks. My preferred places are those bright stores with friendly geeks.

I had only been to this particular place one time, and it leaned a bit to the dark and surly. I know of a better place in the area, but it’s at least a half-hour drive away. I got my son excited about going to a comic shop before I really thought about what the closest place was, and kind of cringed at what his first experience with a comic shop would be. I hoped I could keep things good for him despite the establishment.

We walked into the store, and I was happy to see two normal-looking guys talking at the counter. The clerk immediately asked if he could help us with anything—a good sign. I told him we were just looking.

My son’s head was on a swivel, looking all around the room. There were comic books and graphic novels everywhere; I think he was in visual overload. He was quiet and intent. He looked at everything, and took his time moving from shelf to shelf. I made sure he quickly passed over anything of questionable imagery.

Contrary to what some non-comics-fans think, comic books are not specifically for children. Many comics are strictly for adults. Like most movies are PG or R rated—not for children—so are comic books. And even the ones not specifically for “adult audiences” can be a bit intense for young kids.

We spent many minutes looking at the new comics, some comic-character toys, and some new and old role playing game books. A few patrons moved through, in and out, of the store. The patrons were all males, and just normal guys. My initial concern about the environment was dropped—the store was physically dark, with dark walls and dark shelves, and just sufficient lighting, but none of the employees or customers were like that.

My boy found a Spider-Man comic on the new issues shelf and wanted to get it. The cover showed The Kingpin – an evil crime lord. (He’s not just a “bad guy,” he is Evil.) I paged through the book and saw this issue was almost entirely a long violent sequence between Spider-Man and The Kingpin, so I said no to that book. I suggested we go to the back of the store and look through their old comics in boxes and plastic sleeves.

New comics are around four bucks each, and I figured many of the old books wouldn’t be more than that. Plus, the sufficiently old ones might be cheesy enough to not bother a child’s sensibilities.

We searched through probably a hundred Spider-Man books until my son found one that intrigued him: Spider-Man versus The Lizard and some other reptilian/dinosaurian monster. The book cover was in bad shape, but it was only priced at $2.50. Its “pre-damaged” condition assuaged my feelings about giving a 6 year old a 30 year old, collected comic book. (He looks at his comics so much that they fall apart within a couple weeks.)

We went back to the front of the store where I picked up a couple new issues of Incredible Hulk. As we were about to check out, I asked the clerk if they had any Marvel comics (the publisher of Spider-Man and such) for young kids. They had several. The clerk showed us where they were on the new issues shelf, and my boy picked out a new Spider-Man to go with his ancient one. We were both happy and excited about our new comic books.

We made the purchase and went back out to the van. My son of course wanted to look through his books as soon as we were buckled into our seats. I wanted to look at my books right away, too, but I had to drive.

* * *

On the subject of comic book shops, I will add that I actually worked at a comic book shop for a week back in the late 90s.

I was writing freelance at the time, and so had a very flexible schedule during my days. The owner and sole operator of the comic shop where I made all my comic purchases, a bright, clean store, wanted to go out of town for a few days to a major convention. One of my long time dreams was to run a comic book store. (Not exactly a “change the world” dream, I admit.) So I offered to run the shop while he went to the convention.

The owner was supposed to be gone only three or four days, but winter weather held him up wherever he was—I don’t remember in what city the convention was being held. Through regular phone check ins, he let me continue to run the store for seven full days, from opening till closing.

That was one of the most enjoyable jobs I ever had. I got to hang out in a bright and clean comic book store all day, looking through the old issues, reading the new issues, talking with fellow comics fans, and just generally getting my comics geek on for seven glorious days.

Bullgrit

I’m not a happy handyman. I fix things and install things when I need to, but I don’t look forward to the process. But I like hardware stores. Go figure. I was just in two very different hardware stores: Ace Hardware and The Home Depot.

Ace is closer, so I went there first. It’s a small store; maybe one-tenth the size of the other. I can roam the whole store in about ten minutes. You can stand in the center of the store and see every aisle, and all four walls. It has a homey, comfortable feel about it, like a mom-and-pop store. There’re two or three styles of everything I see, and if I’m looking for something particular, I can get it and be out quickly.

I found what I went there for, and took it to the check out (just two registers). There was another customer at both registers, and things were held up. The computers were glitched. They mentioned having to reboot the system, so I took my item back to the shelf (about 10 steps away) and left the store.

I then went on to The Home Depot. It’s a huge store. The outdoor garden area alone is bigger than the whole of Ace. I can roam the store for half an hour and not see every aisle. It takes about five minutes just to find the location of the item I’m looking for, and then there’re 20 versions and options to choose from. Have you ever looked at the nuts and bolts aisle?

I found the item I needed and took it to one of the dozen check out counters. I saw an interesting difference at the check outs. Ace had a shelf full of candy, like you’d see at a grocery store; Home Depot had shelves full of unusual little gadgets.

There’s a scent in the air of hardware stores. Ace has the same scent throughout the store – metal, oil, paint, all mingled together. It’s not a bad smell. Home Depot has a different smell on each aisle – metal on the nuts and bolts aisle, oil on the lawn machine aisle, paint on the paint aisle. These are not bad smells either.

I like both kinds of stores—small “mom and pop” style, big warehouse style—and I enjoy visiting and roaming about both of them. I can find something interesting to look at, something I haven’t seen before, something I have no idea how to use, and something to solve some problem in my home or yard. I just really like hardware stores.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Classic D&D adventure module review

The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, by Dave J. Browne with Don Turnbull – Advanced D&D, 1981

An adventure for character levels 1-3

32 pages plus the separate tri-fold cover with maps on the inside faces and the third panel of the outside face. (1 blank page backing player handout illustrations.) The adventure has 30 numbered areas in the mansion, and 17 numbered areas on the ship.

This was the premiere module from the United Kingdom, and the preface mentions, as a light warning, that American readers will probably notice the “slightly different flavour.”

The first four pages introduce the module, mention the town of Saltmarsh, tell the legend of the haunted mansion, and explain the overall plot and story for the adventure. Unlike other adventures of the time period with a town name in the title, this module does not detail the main town. The section on the town merely gives an overview and tells the DM to create any necessary details, including the names and occupations of the Town Council and other prominent citizens, any inn and/or tavern, and the place(s) of worship. The only details given are the population, “about 2,000,” and its coordinate location on the World of Greyhawk map.

The plot for this adventure revolves around a supposedly haunted mansion on a cliff near the town. The text gives several plot hooks to get the PCs to investigate the mansion. Once the PCs investigate, they should discover a smuggling operation working out of the basement with its small sea caves complex. When the PCs defeat the smugglers, they will then need to prepare to capture the smugglers’ ship when it arrives.

The mansion is not actually haunted, but is dilapidated enough to have a few dangerous spots that act essentially as traps. There are several giant vermin encounters in the mansion, and in a change of the AD&D paradigm, the vermin don’t have deadly poisonous bites. The authors made the spider and centipede bites debilitating instead of killing.

This module has boxed text to be read to the Players, and the room information is broken up into readable paragraphs. This helps tremendously compared to other modules of this era with dense paragraphs and no text boxes.

All the monsters are listed in the “old school” stat block style: (AC 8; HD 1+1; hp 7 each, #AT 1; D 1 hit point plus poison).

The only non-critter encounter in the house proper is with a tied up self-admitted thief. This Ned Shakeshaft is actually an assassin placed in the mansion to foil the PCs’ investigation. The encounter is set up such that Ned has what seems like a good story for his presence, but the story is flawed just enough that proper scrutiny will reveal a clue to actually push the PCs further in their investigation.

If the PCs make it to the secret areas of the basement of the mansion, they will find obvious evidence that the house is not vacant. The cavern areas are full of smugglers and some humanoid thugs. This part of the adventure in the mansion can and probably will be a series of combats, hopefully ending in the defeat of the land-based element of the smuggler operation. With the evidence found and deciphered from the mansion investigation, the PCs will need to plan an assault on the smuggler ship.

The ship part of this adventure can go in two completely different ways: It can be a stealth operation – sneaking up on the ship, slipping on board, quietly taking out guards, etc. Or it can be a straight-up boarding assault – storm the railings, hack and slash the defenders, etc. The module is written with the assumption that the PCs at least try the stealthy approach first, although a mass melee on the decks may result from mistakes or bad luck.

Once the smugglers are defeated and the ship taken, there is more mystery and intrigue to discover: what the smugglers are actually smuggling, and to whom. This sets up the plot hook for the next adventure module in this series, Danger at Dunwater.

Overall, this adventure is not a mindless hack-and-slash affair. It is a mystery story punctuated with interesting combat scenarios. There are intriguing plot points throughout the adventure, and the whole operation is full of great role playing opportunities. Impatient, strictly kick-in-the-door types may not appreciate this adventure, but there are enough of most gaming style elements here to satisfy most gamer types. This module is truly one of the greatest adventures ever created. It has story, role playing opportunities, and plenty of grand, interesting combat.

Bullgrit

I’ve lately had a hankerin’ for some more time in World of Warcraft (WoW). So a few nights ago I went to the WoW Web site to restart my account.

I typed in my information, clicked Continue, and got nothing. The same page just reloaded with the information fields blank. So I typed everything in again, clicked Continue, and got nothing again. Well that was aggravating. Oh well, I gave up.

Then tonight (August 5) I had the urge strike again to go into WoW. I went to the Web site again.

I typed in my information, clicked Continue, and got nothing. The same page just reloaded with the information fields blank. So I typed everything in again, clicked Continue, and got nothing again.

I grabbed the phone and called the WoW customer service line. Customer service is closed Sunday evenings.

I stared at the computer screen for a minute, thinking, they sure make it hard. I wondered if upper/lowercase makes a different in the fields. I hit the caps lock key and retyped in my information again. Clicking Continue worked this time. My account was reopened and I was ready to start up the game.

I found the game icon in my files, and started it up. The auto-launcher opened and had to download some updates—it’s been a few months since I last played, so I expected there might be an update. The update downloaded and automatically restarted the game. Then the launcher had to download another update. The update downloaded and automatically restarted the game. Then the launcher had to download another update. Oh come on! The update downloaded and automatically restarted the game.

This time, though, I actually got the game screen, not just the launcher. I had to accept the license agreements for the updates, and then I finally made it to the login screen. I typed in my name and password, and clicked Login. My whole computer locked up. I waited a few minutes to see if it would unlock on its own, but no luck. I had to turn off my whole computer (losing the blog post I was writing in the process—so I wrote this one instead).

The computer came back up, and before I started WoW again, I started writing this post. And I saved it at this point before I went any further with WoW, just in case things locked up again.

I logged into WoW. Well, it didn’t lock up this time. I made it past log in. But then the application started downloading a patch for the game.

So far it’d taken about thirty minutes of my time, and I wasn’t in the game yet.

The software downloaded, and then automatically started updating. Once the update was complete, the launcher restarted—I was losing ground. And then began another download. And then automatically started updating again.

Then the launcher restarted, stopped, and restarted again. Then restarted again. I clicked the Play button, and it took me to the game login screen again.

Well, wonderful. I’d at last, for real, finally made it to the actual game. I could see my characters ready to play.

If I lost you through all of the above, then you feel pretty much like I did. It took me about 45 minutes to get into the actual game, through numerous downloads and updates and restarts. I typed this post as it was happening. If I hadn’t been typing this as it happened, I’d have no idea how many times the game downloaded and updated—and even having typed it all, I have to go back and read and count to figure it out.

Geez. I’ve kind of forgotten what I was getting back into this game for, now.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com