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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 13, 2022 9:58:03 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure I passed that actor Joe Manganiello in the hallway at the Grand Geneva the first day I was there. He's very tall, taller than me. I've seen online that he has an awesome game room set up in his home. I'm always glad to see someone from Pittsburgh hit the big time and become successful.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 13, 2022 10:41:47 GMT -5
Honestly? It would have been a million times easier to have just been there the whole time. I could not really relax enough with all the waiting in the cold, now that I've become accustomed to this subtropical living here in Florida again, I really froze my ass. However, that lady who came into the wargame area dressed as a Playboy bunny really threw me for a real loop. I hope there is no hedonistic underbelly to Gary Con...
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 14, 2022 5:50:30 GMT -5
I forgot to mention Pickens talked with me quite a lot about my problems with the MARVEL SUPERHEROES RPG which was surreal having someone on the other side of that address my problems. He was saying that I should have forced the characters to play new heroes that they rolled up and he had been playing a campaign for a long time. He had very humor-filled adventures.
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Post by GRWelsh on Apr 14, 2022 6:55:34 GMT -5
I definitely want to stay at the Grand Geneva next time I go to Gary Con. Seven Oaks was nice, but I overpaid on my rental car. That is fine, since for my first time in Lake Geneva I did want to drive around and explore a bit. Also, I did want to visit the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum. But having to use Event Parking each day was annoying as it was so rainy and then later windy and cold. I didn't get any Playboy vibe from the Grand Geneva, but I did know about its history... I think it was GEN CON X that they started having it at the Playboy Club!
I'd like to go to Lake Geneva again when it isn't Gary Con to walk around and explore the area in nicer weather, and maybe catch a game with Ernie and visit the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum again... I really liked that place!
The MARVEL SUPERHEROES RPG isn't perfect but I always had a lot of fun with it. We played rolled up, original heroes, so maybe that is why it worked better for us. Our games were always humor filled as well, as some of the power combinations and random rolls made for odd results that were just inherently funny. They were always replacement heroes or trying out for the "Midwest Avengers" or something like that. Actually, I remember there was a team in the comics called the "Great Lakes Avengers" and they came across exactly as the sort of misfit characters we were running in our games... It made me wonder if the RPG had any influence on John Byrne in creating those characters. Even the cease-and-desist letter ("You can't call yourselves the Avengers!") seemed reminiscent of something that came out of game play.
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Post by geneweigel on Apr 14, 2022 9:47:53 GMT -5
Pickens was saying they were sending them massive collections of comics to get the backstories on the characters but I didn't get the feeling that they were in direct contact with the writers at all. I was never able to find the reference in my Top Secret books to the angry Gary story about the plastic explosives/plastique/C-4. Maybe it was never published?
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Post by GRWelsh on May 2, 2022 11:58:35 GMT -5
Speaking of experiences with artists, I had such positive experiences with the artists and designers I spoke to at GARY CON. I framed the prints I bought off of Larry Elmore and Darlene and they now hang in my dining room where we game every other Saturday. The painting by Larry Elmore is a 16x20 of a party of adventurers comforting a dying companion on a mountainside after they successfully slew a dragon. Larry was nice and signed it for me and told me the humorous story of the commission, which involved a patron who kept wanting him to add more details when it was nearly completed ("Can you add another character? Can you put a town in the background? Can you add in another dragon?"). The print from Darlene is 9x12 and is the "Ice Barbarian" from the World of Greyhawk that she did in 1980 for a TSR Calendar. Darlene was also very nice and I got to tell her I enjoyed having some of the game art be from a female perspective. These works of art are perfect for the "D&D room" and are great memories from GARY CON 2022!
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Post by geneweigel on May 2, 2022 13:18:25 GMT -5
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Post by geneweigel on May 2, 2022 13:22:04 GMT -5
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Post by GRWelsh on May 3, 2022 7:13:06 GMT -5
Correct on both. I was thinking about Elmore's art and how there often seems to be a formula: a beautiful landscape with human or human-like figures in the foreground -- often attractive females -- and then optionally a dragon or some other monster or monsters. Most of his human figures are attractive with not a lot of variation in that regard. If there is something he is not as good at, I would say it is in drawing grotesques or truly ugly humanoid monsters. I told him his landscapes and in particular his skies are so beautiful that they often steal the show. He could certainly be a straight up landscape painter if he wanted.
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Post by geneweigel on May 3, 2022 8:02:36 GMT -5
I thought that he was alright just the content that he was given was bland. Like all the DRAGONLANCE absence of D&D sensations. That pic does give a sense of D&D in that its immediately correlated with the 1983 Basic Set advertising which was the literal height of pop D&D. where it seems like a follow up scene. You've got a cleric, magic-user, 3 or 4 fighters (Maybe an assassin with the leather and bow?). That seems to convey the party mentality pretty good. And the mountains of Elmore remind me of Tsojcanth even though he didn't do it the adventure seemed to fit into that landscape.
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Post by GRWelsh on May 3, 2022 8:27:07 GMT -5
He does have the strong Dragonlance association which is a slight negative for me, although I’m happy for him that it gave him lots of work and fame. Other people like Dragonlance and I’m okay with that, it’s just not for me. It never felt like "my D&D" either. But my first memories of Elmore art come from his appearances in DRAGON magazine and his cover to issue #62 is one of my all time favorites.
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Post by geneweigel on May 3, 2022 9:35:21 GMT -5
Another Elmore plus is that Gary mentioned him as a good artist which was rare. Otus he seemed off of. I thought Otus was great but I recall reiterating to Gary about his "Otus bad DM" comment and getting a dodge there. There was probably a major "you're fired" factor there that as fans we do not care about. As far as my "fandom", if it wasn't for Erol Otus I might not have even tried D&D. Thats the facts. However, I still look at Gary as an analogy of a stolen and abused friend who ultimately was open-minded so there has to be something to his remark. In general about Gary, too kindly that was his fucking problem! I should have put him in headlock at LGGC. Talk dammit! Seriously, I mean Gary told me a lot so I have to give him a lot of respect. I think that I spent too much time on the deep end (metaphysical, etc) when I really wanted to be on the shallow end (Details of Wasp's Nest, etc). In regards to Elmore's comic SNARFQUEST first installment DRAGON #75 (JUL 1983 with the fantasy beach cover) Trying to remember what I was doing at the time, I was already in full swing moving to Connecticut with that issue. I remember ordering the subscription with that issue as well. I wish that I saved all the paper covers. Some of those copies would still have the covers attached. Going to malls and toy stores looking for miniatures for the biggest D&D game of all time was where my head was. In contrast, the last Snarf featured Elmore saying that he had enough but continued this long for the fans in DRAGON #145 (MAY 1989 evil castle with a knight in front). So I guess he didn't like the shift in TSR either at least that what it seems like. <<<Note: DRAGON #132 (APR 1988) was Trampier's last "WORMY" and it had a Snarfquest cover. Connection? >>> It was around that time that it was the end of all my D&D hoedowns in Connecticut and bills piled up to my neck... I think the biggest negative art thing regarding Elmore is the bonnet helmet and I have a few TSR Miniatures that reflected it in 3d. My theory is that the girls he was modeling he didn't want to give helmet hair to.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 4, 2022 11:24:11 GMT -5
They changed to up to date vaccines only. It would have been tight but this makes it impossible for a second trip. So that is definitely out for me for sure.
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 4, 2022 15:41:28 GMT -5
Why impossible?
Edit: I just made my appointment to get my second booster shot tomorrow, as 50+ aged people are eligible.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 4, 2022 18:51:32 GMT -5
Definitely not taking gene therapy because it's too dangerous. I used to work with it and laugh about how they were going to finally make orcs. So that's right out for me. My daughter dates "Felix Unger" so she had to take it or "it's over".
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 5, 2022 9:14:30 GMT -5
Maybe you could draw a graphic novel detailing your experience: OMEGA DUDE: The Last Unvaccinated Dude on Earth... Starring Gene Weigel doing his best Charlton Heston impression... In world of Cronenberged zombie orcs, only one unmodified human still exists, living in his urban fortress. He can still hear the voices outside...
"Come on, dude, just get vaxxed..." "Hey, isn't your wife a nurse?" "I'm going to send you a link about how vaccines aren't really 'gene therapy'..."
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 5, 2022 11:32:30 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't want to take it at all.
On a flat level, its a body mod that keeps your body from living in the world of immunity. All it takes is an "accidental" reverse mod and its doomsday for all who didn't jump into the world's "river of disease".
Then there is the cancer level, this can technically be called "fun with cancer" technology. If the mod goes off then cancer growth.
On my level, its witnessing research from 20 years ago deliberately modifying animals into higher thinking levels using that very same tech. That was then so I don't even know what they've been up to since that time but there was a heavy danger from contamination that no one seems to be talking about.
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Post by GRWelsh on Aug 5, 2022 13:48:57 GMT -5
Seriously, I'm sympathetic to skeptics since skepticism is a good thing -- it is always smart to ask questions and understand medicine before taking it. And I value personal freedom. But those things need to be balanced against public health, so it's often a tough call for the people in charge. There is more disinformation than ever, so that is a factor as well. Personally, from what I can tell from reading the vaccines are safe and have saved a lot of lives. When the vaccines became available, I couldn't get mine fast enough. I'm grateful to be living in an era when our technology makes vaccines possible. www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210719/covid-19-vaccines-not-gene-therapy
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 5, 2022 16:56:23 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't want to convince anyone not to take it. This political meets medical era is too hot that you can trust no one.
I'm going to tell you though its definitely gene therapy renamed as a "vaccine". This is in no form, way or shape a vaccine. Are they lying? Not really, its just medicine isn't what it used to be so they'll dub this as a "non-classical vaccine" and keep giving "boosters" that are in no way boosters to adjust the manipulations of your body's building blocks as it goes. If you trust a doctor with your life to okay it then good luck.
My real down to brass tacks opinion? Its mass hysteria and good people are hoping that it is not Russian roulette disguised as an EZ-Pass but I got a bad feeling that they have us in a corner.
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Post by geneweigel on Aug 9, 2022 13:18:52 GMT -5
This is way too political, I have to stay away from the politics in general as its reached a level that I just don't swallow.
It was nice but I have as much "say" in how conventions go as a devil in Asgard so I have to respect it and just step off.
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