22. January 2015 · Comments Off on Christy and Julia are running a Kickstarter · Categories: Art, Christy, General

Christy and Julia are making art! That’s not really news, they’re always doing that, but now they’re going to collaborate on a larger scale installation. The Banff Center has invited them to spend a month making this work. How do a pair of emerging artists get the resources for making a large piece and shipping it 2,000 miles away (and back)? They put up a Kickstarter!

Go check it out and send them dumptrucks full of money! They rock!

This is a summary of how to create a PDF file that has internal links. Perfect if, say, you’re creating a solitaire adventure for Tunnels & Trolls (think “Choose Your Own Adventure” kind of thing).

UPDATE: I decided to really blow this thing out and add a whole lot more detail. It’s so long it now has its own web page: http://www.ardenstoneadventures.com/writing/how_to_write_a_solo_adventure. I recommend you go there to read while I debate removing the below instructions.

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24. January 2013 · Comments Off on Deluxe T&T Kickstarter Pledge Helper · Categories: General

One of my favorite pen and paper roleplaying games is Tunnels & Trolls (T&T). I’ve done things like create an online character generator and tracker over at Ardenstone Adventures and I end up playing through mostly solitaire adventures here and there. Anyhow, the author and publisher are issuing a new version of the rules and I encourage all you fellow nerds to support the Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls KickStarter campaign. But you need to hustle; it ends February 5th.

In fact, I encourage it so much that I wrote a little web application to help you figure out what pledge levels allow what optional rewards and how much your dream bundle would cost. Please see the totally unofficial Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls Reward Calculator.

I’ve heard one too many motivational speeches lately and it finally occurred to me who most embodies the phrase, “Stay Hungry – Stay Foolish.” Thank you, Lucy.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

13. November 2011 · Comments Off on T&T Character Creator · Categories: General · Tags: , ,

I have, in all my long days of being an upstanding nerd, played various roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, etc. I don’t play much these days, but a few times a year I’ll still crack open my favorite rules and play a Tunnels & Trolls solo adventure.

What could make this post even more nerdy? I could take the opportunity to polish up my feeble AJAX skills and write a T&T Character Creator. Nerdtastic.

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02. July 2011 · Comments Off on Word Count · Categories: General · Tags: ,

This is a simple word counter (and character counter). Sometimes online forms ask you to limit yourself to some number of words or characters. To see how big your text is, just paste it here below. In addition, this will "clean" the text for sites that say things like "don’t paste MS Word text, copy to notepad first", etc. Text entered below will automatically have smart tags and other common characters transformed into their plain text equivalents. If you’re trying to paste into an online form and getting strange characters (like question marks with diamonds around them), paste it into the box below and then copy it.

Note that JavaScript must be enabled (that’s how it cleans and counts).

Words: 0        Characters: 0

14. March 2010 · Comments Off on Anza-Borrego translation guide · Categories: General · Tags: , , ,

Cholla!
Ok, we’ve just returned from our fourth trip to Anza-Borrego, and once again enjoyed it thoroughly. The flowers are just about to pop (if the weather holds, I imagine next two weekends (3/20/2010 and 3/27) will be really fabulous) with a few early birds already showing their stuff. However, for those newly going to the park, a few hints:
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Bourbon Shootout DirectionsWell folks, the Bourbon Shootout was a rousing success. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and filled our tiny apartment to the gills. We ended up trying every bourbon I own, except for the Jim Beam, which means we tried nine (9!) different bourbons plus a variety of other cocktails and liquors. Fortunately the tasting was post-potluck, where much delightful food was consumed.

So what were the popular bourbons? The 3 clear winners were:
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