Just noticed this today on the subway:

Isn’t that weird? The Os are sideways, all of them. The N in lean is slightly shaved off on the right edge; compare it to the N in not. And the letters in lean don’t seem to have the same baseline.

What the hell is up with that? I thought it was some kind of pranked-up fake sign at first, but all of the Do not lean on door signs were like that.

Take a picture of yourself right now. Don’t change your clothes. Don’t fix your hair. Just take a picture. Post that picture with no editing. (Except maybe to get the image size down to something reasonable. Don’t go posting an eight megapixel image.) Include these instructions.

I’ve been hankering for more gaming in my life, so when I heard that NerdNYC was having a gaming get-together within walking distance of my home, I couldn’t miss out. (Though I didn’t actually walk, since it was raining.)

I played one game of Jungle Speed, a tense twitch game that relies on fast pattern-recognition skills. I’ve played it before at GC. I came maddeningly close to winning at one point, then fell way behind.

Then I got into a couple of games of Incan Gold, a quick, simple game with a treasure-hunter theme (and step-pyramid art, though I don’t think the Incans were pyramid builders). Players explore a tunnels as a group, with each player having the opportunity, at the end of each turn, to either press on or return to camp. Returning secures your existing treasure, and might let you scoop up more on the way out, but bars you from further gains in that tunnel. Pressing on gives you the opportunity for further treasure, but risks losing it to a random hazard card. There’s a strong chicken aspect to the game. It supports up to eight players, and I think it’s better with larger groups.

For role-playing, I signed up for what is probably cadhla’s ideal dream game: The PCs were all Disney characters, living in Kingdom Hearts-style linked worlds, when the zombie apocalypse hit. (bugsybanana says that for it to be truly Cadhla’s perfect game, it would have to smell of pumpkin spice.) We started out holed up in Scrooge McDuck’s money pit, and wound up heading to the setting of Aladdin to get the genie’s lamp and end the plague. I played Huey Duck; the other PCs were Scar from The Lion King, Mulan and Mushu, Sally from The nightmare before Christmas, Clayton from Tarzan, and Gonzo from The Muppet Show.

The really odd thing about this game was the resolution mechanic, which involved pulling a piece from a Jenga tower to do anything dangerous or interesting. If the tower collapsed, your character died. This only happened once, near the end of the session, but for a good half the game the tower was really intimidatingly skeletal, and we all eyed it warily as we weighed our options.

It also occurred to me that you could use this mechanic for a really tasteless game in which the PCs are firemen trying to evacuate the WTC on 9/11.

A few days ago I dreamed that I, and several other people, had superpowers, but to activate them we needed to eat crystallized ginger. I’ve still got some crystallized ginger candy that I bought at Fairway last year, and just ate a piece, but no superpowers. (Hm. It also tastes a lot stronger in real life than it did in the dream.)

I also recently dreamed that Crayola had a crayon color named after the French and Indian War. I remember thinking, as I woke, that the really odd thing was that this crayon was purple instead of green. See, I figured, green could make sense, as a combination of French Ultramarine (the most valuable pigment of Renaissance Europe; a reward was offered for anyone who could come up with a cheap synthetic version) and Indian Yellow (a pigment made illegal because its manufacture required the mistreatment of cows). Later I remembered that there’s also an Indian Red, which Crayola makes in crayon form, though they changed the name to Chestnut almost a decade ago.

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I should go in with Photoshop and put a little salt in that beard.

For those of you who don’t read Making Light, I just posted the sketchnotes I took at Worldcon. Here’s the background, and here are the sketchnotes on Flickr.

Had fun. Met people. Am tired. Pants bankrupt.

More tomorrow.

Did some sketching today at the Tea Lounge, which has become one of my regular hangouts. (The one on Union St, not the soon-to-be-closing 7th Ave branch.)

The guy on the left is Howard Bloom. I’ve no idea who the woman on the right is.

Wow, it felt good to do that. It’s like a muscle in my neck has been tense, and now it’s relaxed.

Hey, everybody! The MoCCA Art Fest is this coming weekend, Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 6pm, at the Puck Building, on Houston St a block east of Broadway. Admission is $10/day or $15 for the weekend. Who else is going?

I had a rockin’ time seeing the season opener of Battlestar Galactica at trinityvixen’s and feiran’s place Friday night. (I’ve got neither TiVO nor a VCR, so BSG is likely to interfere with my Games Club attendance for a bit.) Pizza and margaritas enhanced the experience.

It wasn’t till the next day that I noticed the episode’s title: “He That Believeth In Me”

For some reason, I really want the next ep to be titled “I Knoweth Not Just What He Seeseth In Me”. (No, not seeeth.)

More doodling in that pocket Winsor-Newton. I’m using Inktense pencils for the colors, and mostly they make me want to try real watercolors again. Well, that and seeing Enrico Casarosa work on the cover to his new book. And the juicy colors in this cute little Miyazaki sketch of an island.

I was digging through a box of still-not-unpacked art supplies, and I found that pocket-sized Winsor-Newton watercolor sketchbook I was so into a couple years back. Flipping through it, I found this doodle, which I apparently hadn’t bothered to scan. I probably drew it while still living in Jersey City.

This page, on the other hand, is from my hand•book sketchbook that I generally carry around with me nowadays. Both these were drawn at Prospect Perk, one of the very many coffee shops to be found in Brooklyn’s North Slope. The woman in the coat was done a few weeks ago; the ink drawing of the seated man a few days ago.