Those of you that follow me on Twitter (and if you are interested you can find me as @sunglar, but be forewarned I do ramble on) will know that besides RPGs I work way too much, been called a workaholic, and literature. Currently I’m participating in the second book club I’ve belonged to and loving every minute of it. I think books clubs are great opportunities to share ideas, discuss topics and engage in social interaction sometimes with people close to you, other times stretching your wings and making new friendships.
Book Clubs are certainly more prominent in popular culture, from being the butt of jokes like in the recent comedy Date Night, to appearing in the first episode of the third season of LOST. I recall somebody telling me they did not know of the concept of a book club until they watched that episode of LOST. I belonged to a book club in 2004 and we read some bestsellers, literary classics and lesser known books, but the composition of the club was mostly “lay people”, i.e. not role players. The current book club has only been together for a couple of months and we’ve read various popular books (Shutter Island, Wicked, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl who Played with Fire) but this time around the mix includes fellow role-players, geeks and scientists so our reading options are certainly more varied!
If you have never participated in a Book Club group I greatly encourage it. To me role playing games are first and foremost a social activity, the interaction, sharing fun times with friends, are amongst the highlights of gaming. All that being said, the idea of an RPG themed book club has been buzzing around in my head; I’ve thought of the possibility of selecting books of interest to role-players or maybe even selecting an RPG rulebook and discussing it. It could be via a message board, a chat room or even an actual conversation using the communication services out there in the internet.
There are virtual Book Clubs out there, and I know there was even an RPG book club in EN World at some point. So the question is; are any of you out there interested in a Stargazer’s World RPG Book Club? Would you rather we read a novel of interest to gamers or a rulebook and discuss it? If there is interest we could organize something…
This post has nothing to with roleplaying games, but with something happening on Twitter right now. Please don’t stop reading, because I need your help!
Some hours ago some person started tweeting to @daneofwar’s Followers (and people he followed) and accused him of scamming money from him. I doubt there’s any truth to that accusation, especially because this person soon started impersonating people @daneofwar was connected with through Twitter. He also started posting personal attacks against not only @daneofwar but also other people as well, like @highmoon, @madbrewlabs and me.
The community is usually pretty quick in reporting the fake accounts as soon as they appear and Twitter promptly closes them, but there must be some way to stop this person posting slander and misinformation all over Twitter. If you know someone who can help or get in touch with the people from Twitter, please do so!
Any help is highly appreciated!
P.S.: I protected my Twitter updates for now and changed my avatar picture. That will not stop the person impersonating me, but it helps me to feel a bit better. If you get any strange tweets that look like they were sent from my account, please double-check the username.
Inspired by what Berin Kinsman wrote some hours ago on Facebook, I added the WP Likes 2.0 plugin to my blog. It allows readers to “like” posts on the fly if they find them interesting.
I’ve also added a “Top Liked Posts” widget on the sidebar on the right. I hope you like the new feature!
Some of you may have noticed that I removed the Odiogo plugin from my blog. It added those buttons that allowed you to listen to an audio version of the post read by a computer-generated voice. But alas this plugin caused some issues, so I disabled it. The main problem was that it interfered with Windows Life Writer which I intended to use to write and edit posts in the future. If you are interested to learn more about Writer, check out my post at Stargazer’s Tech Blog.
I hope some self-advertisement is in order, because today I want you to tell you about my brand new and shiny blog Stargazer’s Tech Blog. Ok, the name is not very creative but you probably know already what it’s about. Some of you probably already know that I am not only an avid roleplayer but also a total tech geek. I love all kinds of electronic gadgets, I always browse the internet to find the newest and coolest software and I just have to try out every new web service.
A first look at my new blog
But alas Stargazer’s World is not the right place to write about those things, so I just created a new blog. Instead of hosting it myself I decided to use WordPress.com. That has several reasons: a) I just don’t know how the blog will turn out and b) I wanted to try out the latest features there. But don’t fear, my friends, my focus is still on Stargazer’s World, I just need a place to write about some of my other interests.
Those of you that follow me on Twitter (and if you are interested you can find me as @sunglar, but be forewarned I do ramble on) will know that besides RPGs I work way too much, been called a workaholic, and literature. Currently I’m participating in the second book club I’ve belonged to and loving every minute of it. I think books clubs are great opportunities to share ideas, discuss topics and engage in social interaction sometimes with people close to you, other times stretching your wings and making new friendships.
