Dumb Dads

Now, I don't watch much TV. I have very little time, and to be honest, there isn't much out there worth watching. However, with three kids, I do try to watch at least some of what they want to watch. For one thing, I want to have an idea of what they are talking about, and for another I want to be able to determine if a show is suitable.
I have decided that I hate sitcoms, especially family-based sitcoms. It seems that fathers in sitcoms have to be boobs, and are not allowed to be competent. In fact, most of them seem to be just shy of drooling on their shirts. Any time a competent man is featured in one of these sorts of shows, he is either a jerk, or gay. Just watch "Malcom in the Middle" "The War at Home" or pretty much any other family-based sitcom (Yes, "Hope and Faith" is an exception, but it kinda proves the rule.)
Of course, given that I've watched about 1.5 episodes of these shows, in 10-20 minutes segments, I could be wrong. But as that's all I can stomach, it'll have to do.
Is it so hard to have both father and mother be capable, and yet funny? Make them have dumb, single friends, or play off the generation gap with the kids.

2320AD, Again

Well, it looks like 2320AD is actually going to see the light of day. The publisher has returned from his lengthy hiatus, and things seem to be moving forward again. Now, I'm still a little skeptical, having not heard from the gentleman in question for the better part of a year, but I am hopeful. We'll just have to wait and see how this pans out.

In prepartion for this, Ted Lindsey and I have been working on 2320AD Lite, a sort of freebie version of the full 2320AD. We hope to have that ready within a few weeks. Along with that, I'll have a short freebie adventure, which complements the material in the Lite book. All will be available first in PDF format.

More information will show up here as I get it.

2320AD

Three years ago, I received a contract from QuikLink Interactive to write a revision of the old 2300AD RPG. 2320AD was to be based on QLI's Traveller D20 Rules, and update the timeline a bit to add something new to the proceedings. It was largely finished two years ago, then underwent another year of revision/rewriting. During that time, the publisher was experiencing personal trouble, and the deadline kept getting pushed back. Then, for the next year, things just sort of... languished. I was finally paid in September of last year. Then the publisher dropped of the face of the Earth. He briefly resurfaced in May, but then vanished again.
The upshot now is, I've been paid, so I no longer have any rights to the material I wrote, nor the maps I made. However, the book has yet to be published, and it now looks like it never will. Which sucks. The money is all well and good, but seeing it in print is a large part of the reason I did it. It may have been better for me to have not been paid, and thus been able to self-publish the thing myself.
I'm hoping for the best, but things do not look promising. On the one hand, I've been paid, so the only way the publisher can recoup that money is to publish the book. On the other hand, he's dropped off the face ofthe planet. I haven't heard from him since September 2005, when I got paid. On the gripping hand, given the situation, even if he does publish the book, it might not be in a format that I would like (PDF rather then print, little or no illustrations, that sort of thing).
I've tried to approach both the publisher and the holder of the IP for 2300AD to see if we could make arrangements for me to bring it forward, but I have not received any responses.
The best that I may be able to do is produce a vanity copy for myself. Yay.

How do you start this thing?

Well, since all the cool kids have a blog, I figured that I would start my own. Online journal, if you prefer. The thing is, much of my life is either too boring, or too private, to post in a blog. I could tell goat stories, but people might get the wrong idea.

Hmm. That's all I really have for the moment. Like I said, boring.