Bill Bodden's Blog, page 3

Friends Like These

I've been pondering the nature of friendship lately. In these turbulent times, it seems that virtual connection is pretty much all we're going to get without risking the health and safety of others. It's unsatisfying, but seeing people's faces on a computer or phone screen and chatting with them is vastly preferable to attending their funerals via Zoom or Skype.

This lack of direct contact - no hugs, handshakes, or arms around shoulders - is depressing to me. I need human touch. I grew up in a home with very old-fashioned parents. Hugs from my dad were exceptionally rare, and those we did have felt stiff and wooden, without much emotion. Why this is so happens to be another story for another time; suffice to say that I learned...

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Covidween Celebrations!

For a great many people I know, Hallowe'en is their favorite holiday of the year. Autumn weather, trick-or-treaters, leaves crunching under your feet and a hot beverage to chase away the chill are just some of the many delights of the season. COVID-19 has changed the way we do things, so in most municipalities trick-or-treating is cancelled. However, there are still ways to enjoy the season, if only virtually.

A group of us got together to "put on a show" as it were. Scattered across the US, over a dozen people have organized "Covidween" to celebrate the season with virtual fun. So far it's been a bit of a mixed bag; after all, we only started planning this a month ago...

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New Book I worked On!

Since March of 2020, I've been working on an ebook. It's a collection of 10 short stories that draw inspiration from the setting of White Wolf's Werewolf: the Apocalypse tabletop role-playing game. More specifically, the stories are about the other were-creatures in the world: bats, bears, foxes, crows, spiders, and many more - the list is long, but these ten stories incorporate a number of different weres - collectively called the "Changing Breeds" - into their narratives. The anthology is set in the Wild West of the United States, circa 1870-1900.

The title of the book is Changing Breeds: Wild West Tales. It isn't a terribly original title nor very creative, but in this case I felt it was more important to convey as much information as possible while still keeping the title short. It's also important to make clear that this is a fiction collection, and not a book of source material for the role-playing game. This book was published under the aegis of White Wolf's community content site, the Storytellers Vault. (https://www.storytellersvault.com?affiliate id=234579) It's perhaps one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to publish material - in fact, it's the ONLY way to self-publish material that uses White Wolf's Intellectual Property. Part of the rules for publishing in the Storytellers Vault is that only...

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The Sweetest Season

These are all contemporary "brands." When I was a kid, they used made-up, look-alike brands to copy actual cigarette packaging.

With Hallowe'en bearing down upon us, in past years it's always been time to think about candy. For T and I, thoughts run along the lines of "what can we get to give out that's good, but that isn't so tempting for us to eat?" The problem, of course, is that we realize we really need to buy two bags of whatever we're giving out to insure there's enough left for trick-or-treaters on the magic day.
When I was a kid, candy seemed to have infinite variety, and equally infinite promise of delights to enjoy. The kids in the neighborhood used to ride our bikes the four or five blocks to one of several tiny, neighborhood grocery stores and spend a quarter on some sweet treats. There's still a vast assortment of candy available, but many favorite brands of yore are gone, or have changed enough to be totally different. There are some candy types that I never liked, and some I've grown less fond of over the years, but my sweet tooth remains.

Weirdly, Candy Cigarettes were a thing that existed. Insidiously preparing kids to become smokers later in life, I loved the crunchy, powdery texture and they reminded me of Necco Wafers, which I also liked. The flavor didn't have any variety, though, so if I wanted the mouth-feel that they provided, I generally opted for Necco Wafers instead.

Among my favorites were...

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New Book On the Horizon

In February, an idea was pitched to me about an anthology of stories set in the world of the Werewolf: the Apocalypse role-playing game. I was interested; previously, I'd written a story for an ebook called Darkened Streets set in the same group of worlds that included the Werewolf setting, but focusing on stories of life on the road. It so happened that my story was set in the Wild West and was about a group of werewolves fighting against the downward spiral of environmental and moral corruption of the world by dark forces - which is also the primary theme of the Werewolf game. This new anthology would be set entirely in the Wild West-era of the United States, and I was delighted for a chance to revisit those characters.

To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2020/09/29/new-...

Adventures In Paradise

I've always wanted to go to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. For one thing, my dad and brother Tom had both been, and raved about it. For another, there's a distant (very!) family connection to the place, so as soon as we could afford it, T and I made the journey.

Since we live in a smaller city, there were no direct flights, but our transit was straightforward. Travel is always stressful, particularly with connecting flights, so even though things went smoothly, we were tired when we arrived. As we got close, I watched as the lush, green island of Cuba passed beneath us, and had those Cold War-related thoughts that only someone of my or the previous generation has stored away.

The welcoming committee outside the airport

Georgetown was hot and sunny that afternoon. We picked up our rental car, drove a few stress-filled, map-flipping, driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road miles to...

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Hello - Is This Thing On?

Thank god it's -- wait, what day is it again?

Eagle-eyed readers of this blog will no doubt have noticed that I'm having a tough time following through on moving New Blog Post Day to Tuesdays. Like everyone else, horror fatigue and cabin fever have both caught up with me, and, truth be told, I'm not doing very well. Days blend together, and there's little to distinguish them from each other save perhaps the rare event - having to put the trash out before garbage day, or those infrequent trips out for groceries, for example. The news continues to be horrible, and I realized that I was doom-scrolling through both Facebook and Twitter, hoping to find something to cheer me up. These days, that's like asking Charles Ponzi for investment advice. I spend a lot of my time...

To read the rest of this post, please visit: http://billbodden.com/2020/08/28/hell...

Drinking As a Hobby

When I was much younger, I discovered a fascination for beer cans and the brewing industry. Don't ask me why: I don't know. The fact is, I don't even like beer, but following my dad through the liquor store to get a bottle of something, I stumbled across a refrigerated beer case with a dazzling array of six packs on display. I decided to start saving cans I found interesting, and my dad - who wasn't a heavy drinker but enjoyed a beer now and then, was willing to help me out.

Soon, I was asking my dad to stop at liquor stores everywhere during our travels so I could see if they had anything interesting. I was surprised at how often the really obscure beers were available as single cans. Perhaps the store owner decided customers would be more willing to take a chance on one can rather than an entire six-pack. My dad jokingly complained that he'd had to drink a lot of crappy beer to help me with my new hobby.

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Where's My Blog Post, Dammit?

Our condo association had scheduled some routine maintenance for this week - repaving part of the shared driveway - and the small apron of same that leads up to each unit's single-car garage - with fresh blacktop. This year, the part they worked on was right outside my office window. They're done now, but for four days it was loud, dusty, and, finally, filled with intense heat and the piquant bouquet of petrochemicals. All that - plus...

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A Geeky Holiday

Today, July 27, happens to be a monumental day in the geeky calendar. July 27 is the birthday of Gary Gygax, who would have been 82 today. It may seem a bit random - or possibly overblown - to delebrate the creator of a game, but let me explain why this is so important to me and many others.

Gary Gygax

First, there's Dungeons and Dragons. Gary, along with Dave Arneson, created Dungeons & Dragons many years ago, finally codifying things and bringing a version to market in 1974. I discovered it later, after a more consumer-friendly version was published. I bought this version - against my parents' wishes - in 1977. The box looked like...

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