I'd like some help with game theme ideas. Namely I'm looking for about 20 of the biggest, baddest monsters or villains from mythology and the public domain. Any supernatural danger that an elite cadre of monster hunters would go up against.

What are your favorites?

I don't know much about quarks. What i've gradually learned is that there's pretty much two kinds, up and down, which make up every proton and neutron. There's a bunch of other ones which they've theorized and then found in particle accelerators, but up and down (in three 'colors') are the ones that are stable and around.  But when you're just looking into it on wikipedia they don't really let on to this, which makes basic quantum physics more difficult to understand than it should be: "Here's eighteen quarks and their antiquarks and a bunch of leptons and gluons and shit". I realize it's important to gather as much information as you can about the formation of the universe (for the sake of completeness, akin to a chemist discovering if element 118 is a noble gas like it should be), but it would really help if they just had a paragraph of introduction explaining that 90% of it has nothing to do with anything.

That is, unless the field of particle physics is just the world's biggest $600 hammer, and everyone's in on it. I could see that.

Also charm and strange should be high and low for the sake of regularity, but hey. Strange = down-type, I guess I can remember that.
 

Comics: I took advantage of Free Comic Day by spending about fifty bucks on two Angel: After The Fall books and the most recent softcover compilation of The Incredible Hercules. After the fact I realized they were having a 25% off sale. Yay me.

I'm a fan of Angel, and "Season 6" is great. Whereas the Buffy season 8 comic is really entertaining because of fan service and campy glee, the Angel comic is a mix of humor and  "Wow, that's so awesomely sad" moments, i.e., it remains very true to the series, and the plotting is fantastic. If you're at all invested in the characters and wished the series hadn't ended, I heartily recommend it.

I got into the Incredible Herc series right after World War Hulk ended and Herc took the reins. I like Amadeus Cho, seventh-smartest human being (with pup in tow) acting as sidekick and confidant to Herc while they have adventures. The book I picked up comprises the Marvel-wide Secret Invasion. Herc leads a God Squad through the dreamlands to kill an ancient Skrull god. Pretty entertaining.

As for the free comics I got, I liked the Avengers and Spider-Man, as well as Savage Dragon (I remember reading the first handful of issues back in like 1993). The Public Enemy comic, and a copy of Queen and Country (leftover from Free Comic Book Day 2002) were pretty bad.

While I was out having birthday dinner I made another stop at the comic shop and bought the second volume of the Starman omnibus. Simply put, Starman is nothing like the other comics I read. I can't find the words. But it always makes me think of Keith, which is appropriate since I'm finally reading it on his recommendation.

Laura and I visited Minnesota last week. I had a pretty good time. Also the Daewoo is now in Connecticut, which will allow me to drive places if I need to.

Brothers-in-law are camping out here this week. They have been having adventures in NYC. Tomorrow I'm coming along to watch a base-ball tournament or somesuch.

Also I need help with this final Cryptic Crossword clue: Store ad in Essence shows prepared quality (9). I've got the letters R_A_I_T_S; only the T is suspect.

Have you ever created an LJ Poll?

I am glad to be home, though, I'm missing Laura and still won't see her until she's done with work tomorrow. One perk, though, was a bunch of games I had ordered last week that were waiting for me on arrival: Agricola, The Catan Card game (and expansion), Citadels, Lost Cities, Race For the Galaxy (and expansion), Samurai, Trax and Vineta. Mostly games that handle two players, mechance I can contrixt my wife to partinistrate.

Speaking of games, I played Agricola tonight. Seemed fun. I'm excited to come back to Minneapolis this weekend, but kind of missing Laura already.

Watchmen was worse off for being more true to the source material, which at the same time was kind of a plus. These days it's rare to see a movie that strays from Hollywood norms, double especially for a comic book movie. I.e., Watchmen is, and is not, a comic book movie.

So, the long weekend beginning Friday, March 13 is drawing near. Which means it is time to play games and socialize.

Friday, Mike'll be running a one-night GURPS campaign. So far the roster includes me, Matt, and Jason, maybe with a spot open.

Saturday looks like Board Games at Chad and Pam's place.

On Sunday, Jason will be hosting a fantasy movie brunch, after which we can play some new-fashioned D&D. The potential players (however reluctant) besides Jaye and me are Matt, Chad, Tyler, John, The Internet's Dave...  And/or anyone else who wants in. I've created a primer for veteran players listing many of the changes from 3.5 which can be found here.

On Monday I will be around and interested in playing more games of some sort. LAN TF2 or Civ4 could be fun.

How's that going to work for people?