My geeking summer #2: True North

A hot time in the old town: Games Hub Edinburgh

This post could also be subtitled ‘fB strikes again’ because, exactly as with last month’s encounter with Mark Millar at Plan B Books, this story all began on Facebook. If I recall correctly, what happened this time was that a couple of months ago I followed through on a link that a friend had liked and lo, there it was: the Games Hub Edinburgh, a fB group for an upcoming games cafe in Edinburgh. Frankly, I was gob-smacked. What an awesome idea! What a risk to take. Just WTF! More seriously though: the Games Hub Edinburgh strikes me as an idea whose time has come, and as the most important thing to happen in the Scottish gaming community since I don’t know when. OK, starting G3 back in 1998 was totally exciting, and no small achievement for all concerned, but what we have here strikes me as being different by a whole order of magnitude. GHE, after all, won’t be a club meeting weekly for some 4/5 hours. It’ll be open 12 hours/day, 7 days/week. See what I meant about awesome, and the risk?

My geeking summer #1: "Oop north"

Land of the White Rose

England, York, &
the White Rose

I mentioned last time that I was holidaying with family in York after a trip to Bradford. I’m back home now and reality has finally reasserted itself, so it’s back to the old bloggery. Where better then to begin than with a geek’s eye tour of my wee visit to the legendary county of Yorkshire (no prizes to readers who offer suggestions, constructive or otherwise!- NB, that’s no prizes, not ‘No Prizes’, OK?)?

Blast-off in Bradford

The geeks

The expanding Hive

The convention I attended in Bradford wasn’t a geek-con as such, but it was hoaching with geeks of all kinds. I’d been hoping to get some gaming in (I even took along a few cardgames for that very purpose) but the gaming area wasn’t very well organised, so that turned out to be a bogey. Still, I had fun handing out my card, which turned out to be a great way of smoking out the other games geeks (not that they needed much encouragement). Among the highlights of those encounters were:

This is not a blogparty…

A last gasp?

Today is RD/KA!'s 7th birthday, one I honestly barely expected to celebrate after the fiasco that was the 5th birthday blogparty. But here I am, although it’s just a quiet night in this time.

The past couple of weeks have been crazy busy for me, what with 3 games sessions, another foray into the hustle and bustle of Glasgow’s thriving indie comics scene, a visit to the hottest happening in the Scottish gaming scene in longer than I can remember- plus another Claymore; on top of all of which I’ve just landed with family after a whirlwind of a long weekend at a convention in Bradford, where I met a host of new fellow games and comics geeks.

So I’ve got loads of material and a lot to celebrate, but I’m totally exhausted and on holiday to boot. No promises then to those who’re wondering when promised articles will appear, other than that they will appear, and as soon as possible.

The usual suspects?

I had all sorts of things in mind for today's celebration post. Frankly though I'm so tired I just can't be arsed. So I'll just say this: as proud as I am to be celebrating 7 years in the blogosphere, this really isn’t about me, it’s about you- my readers. Cheesy? No doubt, but it’s the knowing that you’re out there- each and every one of you, that picks me up and keeps me going. Thank you all, my dear readers, from your ‘humble’ scribe. ;)

The 2012 ENnies

In the nick of time…

Not just D&D anymore

Voting closed a few days ago in the 2012 ENnie RPG Awards. I don’t play D&D in any of its variants and Gen Con Indy is a bit off my patch, so the build up to this year’s voting had completely passed me by (yeah, yeah, I know that this information would’ve been spread far and wide across the adventure-gaming internets, but all that somehow passed me by too!). Still, I did pick up on the announcement of the opening of voting on July 20th. Why not, I thought? At the very least I’d get some material for an article here at RD/KA!. It turned out that I got that and a whole lot more to boot. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

“Awards, what are they good for?”
It’s fairly easy to assemble a self-appointed panel of judges to pronounce on the year’s output of a sector of the adventure-gaming industry via a set of awards; easier still, in this internet day-and-age, to establish fan-based awards; and easier even than that to scorn any and all such exercises as piss-pot ego-stroking on the part of hole-in-the-wall special interest groups. So, what are the ENnies actually worth?