Why I don't play WAB

Someone asked me on TMP if I'd use my Numidians to play Warhammer Ancient Battles and I said no because of a lack of opponents.  I'll put the long answer here.
I live in a small town where the local gaming store is a forty-five minute drive away.  One night a week I make the drive to that store for a quick three-hour RPG session that I run to scratch that itch, but I can't imagine going a second night to do wargaming.  I have a wargaming group here, in my own town, that years before I came along decided to play Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
Now at this point I'll share three of the biggest blessings in my life.  The first is my children which are completely extraneous to this story except that my son is apparently inviting his own miniatures game in the basement using my DDM figs and some cardstock terrain.  But the other two are my very loving wife and a job that pays me a handsome salary.  Between those two I can pick up generally any wargame out there without expecting much in the way of obstacles except my own time and interest.
And of course, opponents.  Every time I've suggested playing something other than WHFB, the response from my gaming club is the same: we invested money in WHFB, and trying to play something different would cause problems at home or at the bank.  And I'm not knocking them.  I know some might criticize them for being "whipped" or something similar (ever notice those comments are only made by single people?) but I think they are just being reasonable.  They know their lives, their marriages, and their fortunes, and playing WAB or WarMachine or Victory Without Quarter or whatever just isn't in the cards.
Sometime I'll give the RPG at the gaming store a rest and try to find an opponent through the HMGS or something.  I've actually considered solo wargaming recently as another venue.  But for now, my Numidians will be transported to the fantastic world of the Empire, suddenly get magical assistance, and battle all sorts of inhuman adversaries much more terrifying than the Romans or their rivals ever were.

The Second Western Ohio Hirst Arts Gathering

So, while my wife and kids are away, rather than descend into some depth of debauchery (read: Chinese food and zombie movies) I decided to host another gather of Hirst Arts enthusiasts at my house.  Unfortunately, it appears that only one of the previous attendees is going to make it, so I decided to open it up to my Friday D&D group (the "FLGS group").  But I'm also wondering about my other group, the "home group."

That means that I could have ten people.  What do with them?  Since they are not HA fans, I thought about doing an RPG session, but ten people is a lot.  Some people have complained that mega-player D&D sessions just seem like "raids" from WoW, and could be cumbersome.

Instead, I'm thinking about a "Battle Royale" style game, where the players try to beat each other.  I don't know how that would work with the 4E rules--it is so hard to kill PC's sometimes.  I'll have to think about it.

Liars, damn liars, and people who talk to their friends

I'm putting this post here rather than at the hobby-related one because it is a bit rantish and doesn't really add blog value to that site.
Over at Wargames Factory there's this thing called the Liberty League where perspective clients can vote on upcoming ranges.  Nice idea, but it has turned into a tiger by the tail as Wargames Factory finds themselves in the unenviable position of having League members push for ranges that realistically have limited sales potential in the outside world (I'm talking to you, 6mm robot enthusiasts.  The idea that WF should've done your range before sci-fi greatcoats puts you in the same category as people who find spoiled milk in the fridge and say to their friends "smell this.")
What's worse, you have on the forums individuals prognosticating the viability of ranges based on statements like "I asked all my friends down at the gaming store, and only one of them was really interested in this."
Okay, time for a little realism.  Mrs. WQRobb is a statistician by education.  Her father worked on JFK's presidential campaign developing the first country-wide polling model to understand people's interests.  So let's say that I have some passing familiarity with the subject of polling.
To get a real grasp of the greater masses' interests or opinions, you literally need to poll hundreds upon hundreds of people before you can rise above statistical abnormalities.  Thousands would really be better, but I get that it is a small hobby.  But asking around your friends, a store, or even the people who a) know Wargames Factory, b) go to their site, and c) bother participating in the oft-histrionic Liberty League doesn't tell you squat.

Why this is probably not a good idea

My mother recently joined Facebook and, sure enough, immediately sent a friend request to me and my wife. Now my FB activity was already pretty low-key because of the number of professional colleagues that I felt uncomfortable denying friendship status, but now I'm really on the short leash.

To make matters even worse, my mother is at home sick with bronchitis and her computer is suffering from its own virus (not bronchitis, but XLG Computer Control somethingoranother) right now. So she calls me at work and says, "hey, can you harvest my crops on Farm Town? Here's my password."

So being the dutiful son, I do in fact harvest her crops. I also rearranged her trees and turned off the terrible music loop, but I wasn't done there. My mother isn't that technologically savvy (see above comment re: computer viruses) and lacks a Facebook photo. So I replaced the Ghost of Alfalfa from the Little Rascals photo with a photo my wife took of her at Long John Silver's. This then got me thinking about what else I could do on her Facebook page. Here are some of my ideas:

• Find out about Shigeru Baru, the architect who made a bridge out of paper
• Become "a fan" of Burlesque Dancing 101
• Write on Ken Blackwell's wall "hey, for all the screw-ups he's made, the GOP would still rather have Michael Steele be their token African-American figurehead."
• Try to befriend all of Norway
• Invest in Gold

Feel free to suggest your own.

The Real Culprit

Sunday morning I showed up at church to discover two disemboweled and partially devoured pigeons on the front stoop. This isn't a really strange occurrence because the church is plagued with pigeons and frequently hawks hunt in the area.

As a joke, I drew two chalk outlines of birds around the bloodstains and scattered feathers, a subtle joke about my wife's former career as a crime scene investigator.

The next day, one of our volunteers comes in and goes, "some kids have engaged in a Satanic ritual on the front of the church!"

"No, I'm pretty sure it was a hawk."

"It can't be! A hawk couldn't have drawn those pictures!"

It's one of my Lenten Disciplines

I have lots of friends who are into Facebook. In fact, I have over a hundred of them apparently. And I go onto Facebook several times a day, on average. But I've noticed that more and more I'm not really looking at Facebook. I'm more glancing at it. In fact what I'm really doing is playing FB games, although I've begun to question the point of that lately too.

My growing issue with Facebook and the ilk is that it despite calling it "social networking" it doesn't really seem to do much of either. A friend of mine recently said she had dropped Facebook for Twitter, and only used it to tell people where she was in hopes that people might agree to meet her at those locations. I also wondered if it could be used to rob her house.

But in any case that seems like social networking, but it isn't the norm. What Facebook seems to be doing is just letting people blurt out whatever is on their mind, free of context or import. It seems analogous to a group of people sitting around a table and each person just sort of shouts whatever they want. "I think the new season of Burn Notice looks excellent." "Go Vikings!" "I'm trying to figure out what Paul meant when he included 'sleepless nights' as things Christians have suffered."

Compare that to how an acquaintance recently used Google Buzz when he asked "what are some ways that I can avoid being confused by changes in editions of rules?" It is an invitation to talk, to communicate. Most of the time people are just "liking" what people post, a sort of affirmation of one's pithiness. I can appreciate someone sharing a link more than I can a person making a cryptic comment about how they may or may not be undoing a mistake they made years ago. Are they getting a divorce? Laser surgery on a tattoo? Selling their Honda?

So for all the inherent lack of value, why am I going there so much? Well, I'm not going to. If I really want to know what someone is up to, I'm going to write them an email. Seeing that they are looking forward to seeing "Wicked" next week doesn't really count as them either talking to me or me talking to them. If I really care, I'll network with them socially.

I should just play Farm Town

One of the things I've noticed since moving from Wordpress is how little I check my blogs anymore. Even with a counter, there isn't that sense of wanting to absorb every little detail about life on my portion of the blogosphere.

I'm now wondering about Facebook, and cutting back on it. I don't mind keeping up with people, but most of the updates aren't really all that update-worthy, my own included. I also have a lot of people I know from work on there, not to mention my own mother. Just today a teenage girl mentioned hating Valentine's Day, and how she might go out and find a guy to "be here Valentine, *wink wink* for a single day." Another teenage girl recommended someone. My brother.

Yeah...I don't need to read that. Really.

So, I've decided to cut back. Check on FB maybe once or twice a day. Only plant crops on Farm Town that take three or four days to grow. Discover what I can do with the time saved, like finally get the Christmas decorations put away.