Coffee, Code, and Chronicles

Revisiting some early blog posts. Goals Well, six months later you have two posts in December. And A to Z 2026 is around the corner. Work and work related Continuing Education just creeped in and demanded more and more of my recreational time. Cigar Rituals Recall my ritual when smoking a cigar ? When the label finally lets go, I'll take the cellophane wrapper and re-tighten it to a roll small enough to fit into the label and release it. It will spring open again, pushing the label fully open. I'll then study the art and notes of the label before placing it too in the ash bowl. My ritual complete. I, of course, thought readers might like a visual; a visual for the non-smoker or the cigar curious. F1 2025 and 2026 The F1 season ended. While Max Verstappen didn't clinch the Championship, his run to the final race was phenomenal. I'm happy for Lando Norris, though I wanted Max to have his fifth championship. The next four months to the 2026 season will be exciting. New en...

I stumbled on, by accident, a Kickstarter for a “documentary" on the making of The Final Sacrifice . Take my money! And as a former Film/TV Producer and Location Manager, I had to learn more about the production of this movie, 37 years after its independent release. I first saw The Final Sacrifice on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) in the late 90s (Google tells me it would have been 1998). The right people will get it. The riffing on MST3K is easily in my top three episodes alongside, in no particular order, Time Chasers  and Space Mutiny . As a home brewer of some local renown I brewed an IPA recently that gave a serious nod to Zap Rowsdower (portrayed by Bruce J. Mitchell ) in The Final Sacrifice . Called Rowsdower's Final Sacrifice ,  it was a BIG Triple IPA, coming in at 10.9%. You may recall I blogged about this beer in March! The Kickstarter organizer and the director of The Final Sacrifice , asked me to post a picture of my label for Rowsdower's Final Sacrifi...

I've started seeing an emergent trend in Role Playing Games (RPGs) of late.  The issue with using the word “emergent" is that the algorithms at play in many platforms are geared to feeding you more of what you watch. Platforms become echo chambers.  Solo gaming may in fact not be emergent at all. But I consume a lot of role playing media on YouTube and there are a few “soloists" that I've caught and thus YouTube desires to feed the beast. Of the two “soloists" that have my attention, the first has more than 20,000 subscribers, the other just 920. The former is published, the latter is prolific and seems to be highly detail oriented with a lot of personal frameworks to drive the story telling in a purely randomly generated manner. Soloing I'm told is also called “journaling." I like this framing and as one that watches a limited amount of the available content can see how “journaling" is apropos . A gamer can quickly find themselves seeking to capita...

Busy month of May following my A-to-Z Challenge 2025 reentry into blogging. June will likely prove to be as busy, but I'm hoping to restart more regular blogging and take opportunities to write and schedule. This may prove to be a better way for me to blog as I often start on something “more important," relatively, and then pass on firing up blogger. May highlights include: The dash to mid-year performance feedback—and I had a lot of requests!—and these take time. Trust me. Ever have to provide “ Opportunities" for a hi-performing colleague? Try it some time. We brewed our Summer blonde ale, Beached Blond (2025) , a couple of weeks ago. Kegged, chilled, and ready for the beach. Games, games, games! The Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (4e) game continues apace with a summer break, somewhat forced by personal matters, ahead. But I'll be back with a Niklos Tale soon. Finding the right game event for a narrative, while a challenge, shows that there's a lot of possibilities...

As always I enjoy the A to Z Challenge.  My first was in 2011. I won “an award” that year from another blog recognizing fan content to the Warhammer community. I participated annually for almost a decade. Each year building more content on that theme. One year I partnered with Ben Scerri in a cross posting effort. My first international effort. Ben is now a contributing writer for Cubicle 7, the licensee of the Warhammer property and publisher of the current edition of Warhammer FRP.  The A to Z Challenge “forces me” to blog. 😉 I’m a creative and I believe blogging and gaming contributes to my career in unique ways. It contributes to solving and evaluating problems in Software Architecture. Gaming contributes to my social skills and management of people. Try wrangling four to five players at a table and, as referee, watch a story arc meet the player’s goals for their characters. Challenges all around. After a two or three year break I’m glad to be back blogging and I’m gratef...

Zentrem and his wife, Suella, and daughter, Malora run a sweetshop in Nulb, a dirty, “ramshackle," village on the Imredys Run, a small river that is deep enough for trade traffic. Zentrem is a retired busker and carries himself with a jolly, round, and bearded grin that matches his profession of baking “cookies, pastries, and sweet cakes." This profession has contributed to the family's portly first impressions. Zentrem sells to any customer, but a great deal of his product is sold to the Waterside Hotel. Zentrem is also an accomplished poisoner. This skill is in demand by the management of the Waterside Hotel. Zentrem's skill has a reputation beyond Nulb with his poisoned sweetcakes rumored to be used in the heart of Greyhawk in Verbobonc and even in Dyvers, many hundreds of leagues away. His poison of choice is a Sleeping poison made from local berries. The management of the Waterside Hotel often uses his cakes to rob patrons. Zentrem's skill has deadly results ...