Category Archives: miscellaneous

On a completely unrelated topic…

Just wanted to take a moment to recognize that July 1st marks a new cultural era in the state of Utah. Those of you familiar with Utah know that this place has long been known (and ridiculed) for its arcane and often bizarre alcohol laws. I should emphasize the word “arcane,” in the sense of, “understood by few.” I have lived in this state for 12 years, and to this day I’m not sure I understand half of the laws regarding the purchase and serving of alcohol in public establishments. Trying to explain these laws to out-of-state visitors was always frustrating, and usually ended with something like, “I’m not sure anyone really knows.”

The most well-known and understood of these [More...] Read the rest

I was a child of the late 70s and early 80s, and personally I think it was a great time to grow up. I was 10 years old when Star Wars was released. Could that have been timed any better? Plus, even though I had to be subjected to disco, I wouldn’t actually start developing a taste for music until the fad had long passed. I didn’t think I watched that much TV back then, but looking back at the top shows of 1978 (Laverne and Shirley, Three’s Company, Mork and Mindy, Happy Days, and What’s Happening!), I guess I did considering I knew them all, and many more, pretty well. (Speaking of which, you mean to tell me “Soap” never got higher than #13? [More...] Read the rest

So as it turns out, I’m looking through my older blog posts and I realize that today marks one year since beginning The Monk’s Brew.

Although I had written a number of blogs about the development of Vespers over on GarageGames.com prior to starting this blog, I remember feeling apprehensive about doing this given the extra commitment it would require. Time is valuable these days, and I’m not a fast writer. Ideas abound, but I often find I lack the clarity of thought to put them into meaningful words. The last thing I wanted was to start a blog, and then let it die out because I couldn’t keep up.

There have definitely been times when it was hard to keep up, and times [More...] Read the rest

And now for something completely different.

This has nothing to do with the IF Comp. Nor does this have anything to do with adventure games, interactive fiction, or indie game development. It does, however, concern a medieval European abbey and the intersection between monks, manuscripts, and modern technology, and if you haven’t noticed I just can’t help but be drawn to juicy stuff like that.

I caught this story in the NY Times while traveling on a cross-country flight, and thanks to the miracle of the web you, too, can partake. John Tagliabue reports that a vast collection of handwritten medieval books and manuscripts, one of the oldest and most valuable collections in the world, is going online with the support of a grant from [More...] Read the rest