The two most vital and memorable incidents in early California history are the Donner Party and the ’49er Gold Rush. I don’t even have to tell you what those are about. If you’re like most Americans, especially Californians, you’ll know.

I happen to be a member of the family known in California as “The Donner Party” and I have a number of Donner Party memorabilia that could well be instrumental in discovering what actually happened at Donner Pass.

This collection of the UNPUBLISHED LONG-LOST DONNER PARTY PAPERS is perhaps the most important historical discovery related to early California history in this century, and is now available for sale to some lucky person. Continue reading →

One BIG secret of storytelling is to actually have a story to tell. It’s not that you can’t fabricate something without direct experience — you can make it up.

But what if you could make it up and at the same time draw from direct experience?

That’s the idea behind the storytelling training device I call Direct Experience. What you do is, you go into a Diablo 2 Resurrected game and you tell what happened.

This can manifest on several different levels. Continue reading →

I got an order for CQR ammies in 14k gold, something I haven’t done in years. First off, I went to my bezel-maker — on zoom, of course — and we discussed the present situation. Gold is very expensive, as you know, almost $2,000 an ounce, and it isn’t getting any cheaper.

On top of that, you don’t pay the melt-price for fashioned gold, like bezels, and the fancier the bezels are, the more you pay an expert to do it. There is no assembly-line for fine jewelry like this, and I won’t be able to make it much longer — the hands are tired. Continue reading →

Yep, I’ve finished the levels for Exploding Lips, and they’ll be ready for testing in a day or two, after they’ve been trouble-shooted (shot? maimed? merely nicked?) for problems, like blowing up all of a sudden when you least expect it. Happens in all engines, but you want to keep that sort of stuff to a minimum.

The levels are adapted directly from the godd wars starter kit that I posted for you on etsy — actually, there are several, and they’ll all work to help you get started to make things like this.

Don’t forget, I used exactly what you have available in your building kits, but I’ve added the lips, which are a product of Claude’s models plus Dick’s Exponential Particle Accelerator, contained in this special engine, just for the exploding things. Continue reading →

Sure, everyone knows it’s coming, but nobody can do anything to stop it from happening, and that’s a direct result of the MoveAct Code that governs all NPCs and Zombies.

Players have reality and volition, but flatties can’t do anything but what they do — just a few lines of code and that’s it: “Go to the beach. Go to parties. Go to weddings, funerals, baseball, football and soccer games, fight with friends, argue about who likes whom, sit around and guzzle beer and watch something on the giant video screen.” Continue reading →