I can see clearly now..

After an hour or so of insomnia-driven cleaning & clearing, I once again see the floor of the Man-Cave.

It is a fetching shade of salmon.

That is all I have to report.

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What?  Look, some days are just slow news days.  You want me to make up some filler-story about a skateboarding duck?  Deal with it, OK?

*sigh* Oh OK maybe there is a little more to talk about.  Last year saw the birth of a new gamer-friendly channel on YouTube called Geek & Sundry.  One of the runaway hits on there was a series called Tabletop, hosted by Wil Wheaton (former child actor, annoying Star Trek brat and re-invented 21st century geek icon).  Each week Wheaton and  his guests (usually actors or writers from TV shows that he and/or co-creator Felicia Day had appeared in, or other YouTube video "stars") sit down and play a game on camera.  Usually these were fairly lightweight board or card games (Ticket To Ride, Castle Panic, Chez Geek), on two occasions they branched out and did roleplaying games (the indie darling "FIASCO" and the "Dragon Age RPG" based on the hit computer games) but never really did anything recognisable as a war game (although "Small World" a fantasy world conquest game was probably the closest)

Now I'm not really a massive fan of casual board games, but as lightweight social events they're OK as an excuse to roll dice with friends.  Watching Tabletop has introduced me to a couple of games that I've really enjoyed playing (espcially "Pandemic", in which the players co-operate to try to save the world from virulent diseases), and game industry analysts have observed what's been called the "Tabletop Effect", in which sales of games featured in the show experience a significant spike in sales shortly afterwards.

So to celebrate the show's success (and as a marketing gimmick to generate hype, of course) co-creator Felicia Day has announced March 30th to be "Tabletop Day", in which gamers are encouraged to make an event of sitting down to play games, streaming them to the internet.  I'm going to try to arrange something for that day - possibly dusting off my copy of "War! In the Age of Imperialism" a massive 19th century "Axis & Allies" type game which I got a few years ago but have never gotten around to playing.

More on that when we firm up the plans.  In the meantime I'm planning on getting a couple of wargames tables setup in the back room, getting some figures and terrain on them and getting a god-damned wargame played, by hook or by crook.  Nothing fancy, just get figures on the table and the dice rolling.  At the end of the day that's all it takes to break a wargaming drought.