Poetic Musings
Thank you for taking this literary journey with me! Here I post personal thoughts on social issues, reflections about day-to-day living, and of course a healthy amount of stories inspired by the many games I’ve played over the years. I try to update several times a week, and genuinely appreciate the care and support of all who read these words, whether the post is fanciful or heartfelt.
The Where to Start page has great suggestions for first-time visitors, and all posts are sorted by the Categories you see in the right-side menu; feel free to narrow things down!
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Sacrificing on the Altar of Numbers
While working in the managed IT space, I encountered an enormous collection of businesses, departments, and managers who measured success by a singular metric. While that metric may change between companies—total revenue, number of IT tickets opened, number of...
Preparing a Move to Linux
For more than twenty years I've always had some flavor of Linux running in my home, whether it was the OS powering my servers, my low-powered laptops, or even as my primary work computer. Though for the past few years I have been running a stripped-down version of...
The Token Cloning Machine
In Magic: the Gathering, tokens are a special type of permanent that only exist so long as they're on the battlefield. If a token—of any kind—leaves the field of play, they cease to exist. This means that bouncing a token back to someone's hand, or killing a token...
System vs Simulation
In game design, a careful balance must be struck between having mechanics that act as systems and those which act as simulations. From board games to RPGs, video games and more, where and how a given game rests on continuum between the two helps determine who the...
Covert Ops: Radio Free Bolivia
As my team works its way through the mountainous jungle, chopping the Santa Blanco cartel's operations off at the knees and giving the Unidad military a pair of black eyes, there are eternally two distinct voices in our ears: Karen Bowman, the CIA spook who acts as...
Covert Ops: Flying Friendly Skies
The cartel is a large, multi-headed beast, and it takes serious logistics to keep from collapsing under its own weight and petty grievances of the egoists who usually thrive in such an organization. Its founders understood the need to establish control—and...
