Richard Dansky's Blog, page 40

If you find yourself drinking whisky...

...out of a little teeny tiny mug that you used when you were 3 years old, you:

A) have a finely tuned sense of irony
B) need to put the whisky glasses somewhere a little more accessible
C) still need to drink away those hideously traumatic memories of recess
D) are too short to reach the top shelf, which is where the real whisky glasses are
E) are to be commended for not simply getting a very long straw and attacking the problem that way
F) will likely find yourself writing slightly tipsy blog pos...

How To Get Fast Service...

...at a sports bar notorious for serving burgers on geologic time.

1-Walk in the door carrying a coffee table book on Nazis and the occult. Make sure the title is in big letters, especially the words "Nazi" and "Occult".
2-Sit at the bar, right in front of the popular beer taps.
3-Prop the book up and start reading, making sure that everyone on that side of the bar can in fact see what you are reading.

They will not be able to serve you and get you out of there fast enough. I should have thought ...

Random Interview Powers, Activate

Here's a Desert Island Discs I did with Tom Jubert that just went up.

These are, of course, game discs. 'cause that's how I roll.

Exercise is Bad For You

There's a scene in the movie Splash where the characters played by Tom Hanks and John Candy are playing squash, and Candy's character ends up taking himself out with a serve.

Friday night, Melinda and I played racquetball. It was the first time I had swung a racket in anger in about twenty five years. I had forgotten the rules, Melinda never knew them, and neither arnis training nor boffer sword swinging really prepares you for a good racquetball backhand.

There were no casualties, but if you w...

How to get the creative juices flowing in three easy steps

1-Clear all the extraneous paper off your desk. That means bills, receipts, trash, forms, letters, coupons, cards, and printed directions that are completely pointless because you have a GPS on your goddamn cell phone anyway. Burn them if you can. It's cathartic. If not, recycle. Just because you're blocked doesn't mean you should be a tool to an innocent tree somewhere that never done you no wrong.

2-Take a nap. The stuff you write when you're exhausted and burned out isn't actually good. You...

HG100 & FG100 on Wired.com

Wired.com just put up a very cool piece on the "!00 Best" series of books, published by the cool folks at Green Ronin and edited by the estimable James Lowder. And again, let me say that these books have been fantastic reads for me, both in terms of introducing me to new games that I want to play and in giving me great backstory on games I already know and love.

In short: W00t.

Dear "River Monsters" Guy

They're not monsters. They're fish.

Just sayin'.

Double Wily, No Coyote

The second half of my gig as guest editor over at Wily Writers is up, Matthue Roth's "Hailing Frequency". It's a great story. Enjoy!

I Think I Speak For a Significant Number of Writers Out There...

...when I say I would cheerfully switch places with ESPN.com windbag Rick Reilly.

What It Really Needed Was a Wizard Riding a Polar Bear

Saw a poster at the local B&N for the release of Avatar on Blu-Ray & DVD. So help me God, it looked like van art.