In an effort to get back into blogging while also focusing the positive things in my life, I’m trying something I think of as “One Good Thing” where I share a good thing out of my day.
This is one of those things:
* * *
Today I was hanging out with my boys, and I said, utterly unironically, “Jeepers Cripes.”
(I honestly don’t know why. As a lot of you know, especially if you’ve seen me in person or watched me livestream, I curse like a sailor with a broken leg an will happily shout “Motherfucker!” at the slightest provocation.
That said, I do tend to use different language around the boys, so maybe this isn’t that odd.)
Okay. So. As I said, I was hanging out with my boys, and I said, “Jeepers Cripes.”
Cutie: That would be funny if you said, “Jeepers Crepes.”
Oot: Delicious.
Cutie: That would be a curse word in the Candy Kingdom.
Cutie preparing something for Experimental Sandwich Night using a tortilla, peanut butter, raspberry jam, and what is known in our house as “garbage cheese.” It could be fairly said that this is about as close to a “Jeepers Crepes” as you are ever likely to see in this world.
* * *
Internet went out at my house last night, so I wasn’t able to livestream, tweet, or write a blog to promote the fundraiser or talk about the new items we have going up.
That said, things are going well. We’ve raised over $80,000 so far, which I feel is pretty good given, well, covid and the general state of the world.
That said, we have posted up a *bunch* of new things today, most of them limited in quantity, some of them purely digital (for those of you who live overseas and don’t want to pay crazy shipping), many of them severely discounted…
So if you’re interested in grabbing stuff, keep in mind that there’s only 3 days left before it’s over.
It’s been a while since I told a story about my kids here on the blog. And over the last couple days, my kids have been *particularly* fucking cute. So I figured this was as good a time as any to break my dry spell…
My little boys are, despite my best efforts, getting older. Oot is ten, and just a little while back, Cutie (also known as Cutie Snoo) turned an almost incomprehensible six years old.
(Here they are at Gamehole Con, dressed up as squids.)
Now some of you might think that the costumes they’re wearing look suspiciously like those costumes people buy for their dogs at Target. And some of you would be right. But my kids don’t know that. And I don’t plan on telling them. And also they were super cheap. Also shut up. Also, I’m an awesome dad.
Also also, just because it’s been a while since I’ve talked about the boys here on the blog, I should make it clear that Oot and Cutie Snoo aren’t their real names. I keep their real names private because I talk about them and share pictures of them on the internet. Using public names gives them a bit of privacy and safety. If they really want to be internet famous, they can make that decision for themselves when they grow up. I don’t want to make it for them.
Anyway, as I was saying, I’ve been wanting to tell a cute kid story for a while now, and for a similar amount of while, I thought that that story was going to involve the time that I heard them playing in their room together.
“What are you guys doing?” I asked.
“We were playing M&M!” Cutie chirrups.
“What’s that?” says me, the very good dad who would never dress his kids in dog costumes unless, of course, they were super cheap and his kids looked amazingly adorable in them.
“It’s kinda like D&D,” says Oot. “Except without the dice.”
Which is to say that what they were *really* doing was telling stories together.
I hope I don’t need to stress to you how ebullient that makes me feel. I’ve been telling them stories for years now. Little adventure tales where they are characters and they solve problems or make choices that shape the narrative. It’s like role playing without the roll, if you catch my meaning.
And now, apparently, they’re doing it with each other….
I’ll be honest with y’all. I wish I had that story on tape. Partly so *I* would get to listen to it all, but also so I could share it with you. All I really caught from listening in the hallway was that someone had stolen someone else’s socks. Further inquiry informed me that Cutie was originally going to be a Frost Gecko who would eventually transform into an Ice Dragon. But then he became a Flame Raven. But now he was a human because he needed to have a backpack because… honestly. I don’t remember why. Probably just Because Backpacks, I’m guessing.
(Also, I think he had a shock toad as a pet? And it ate battery flies? I don’t have any more context than that for you, sorry.)
But that story, sadly, will have to wait for another time. Maybe I can get lucky and get them to continue it on tape at some point.
For now, as I was saying, my boys = cute and awesome. Also, my littler, Codename Cutie, just recently had a birthday.
So. Cue the music. Cute story time.
* * *
The other day, I had a remarkably large amount of fun going shopping for Cutie’s birthday presents with Oot. This didn’t used to be the case, as little kids, by and large, are more interested in getting presents than giving them. And taking a kid to a toy store and telling them over and over, “Yes, I know YOU like that Frozen 2 Drum Set (TM) and the Farting Kermit the Frog plushy with RealStinq technology, but we’re shopping for your brother, remember…?”
But this year, shopping was such a delight. Oot had ideas of his own. Things *he* wanted to shop for. Even picked out his own card, which is one of the best I’ve ever seen:
But wait, it gets better.
One of the things I struggle with a lot as a parent is *not* doing things for my boys. Especially when we’re in a hurry. Especially when I can see my boys are struggling.
This may not make sense to a lot of y’all, but I think one of my main jobs as a dad is to let my children struggle. They need to try things, fail, be frustrated, fail again, get irritated, try again, then eventually get something done and be generally disappointed in the fact that it hasn’t turned out as well as they’d hoped.
But it’s HARD. I’m a fixer. I’m a helper. I want to make their lives easy. I want to offer assistance, give advice, and help them *avoid* disappointment.
Still, I strive to leave them be and force them to do things themselves even when they’re bad at it. Because doing things yourself is the only way you get better.
I’ve done this for years with Oot, one of my earliest memories of this was him around 2 years old. We’re in the kitchen, and I’m watching him try to cut a potato with a butter knife for AGES while my fingers twitch with the almost overwhelming desire to step forward and say, “Here, let me help….”
Fast forward to now. He’s 10. He’s picked out his own presents. He knew exactly the wrapping paper he wanted. Picked out the bow he wanted, too.
We were a little late for the party. Time was tight. He didn’t want to be late. I asked him if he wanted me to help him cut the wrapping paper… and he said no, thanks anyway, he’d rather wrap it himself…
Then he wrapped this:
I am going to be completely honest here. This is more fastidiously wrapped than anything I’ve done in my whole life. This will probably shock none of you, but when I wrap things… pretty isn’t the word that leaps to mind.
Here, for example, is a prize package that I wrapped for the Worldbuilders lottery years and years ago…
(Click to embiggen.)
Needless to say, they don’t let me help with that anymore.
But here’s my boy, age 10, doing this:
Then this:
Whatever gene governs this ability must be recessive, because it certainly didn’t manifest in me.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love how beautiful my boy’s presents turned out. I love that he cared about making something beautiful for his brother. And I love seeing him be better at something with me.
But that wasn’t the really excellent part.
This was:
Then:
And finally:
The final result: a present that looks like it was wrapped by an angry badger. It looks like Oot either didn’t care at all, or that he really couldn’t use tape to save his life. We spent so much time strategizing about how to make it look crappy, laughing and laughing. It was 15 minutes of pure joy. Joy the likes of which I rarely experience these days. Quite literally the most raw and perfect happiness I’ve had in a week.
As we were getting ready to take him to the party, I looked at the package and started to laugh.
“It’s such crappy wrapping!” I said.
“Crapping,” Oot corrected me, making a portmanteau of the words. (I should teach him that term, now that I think of it.)
“You did a good job crapping that present,” I said.
“We crapped it together,” he said, grinning like a maniac.
And we continued like that, back and forth, all the way to the party.
* * *
It’s been too long since I shared something like this with y’all. It feels nice.
As an interesting side-note for those of you who are interested in my writing process, I wrote this blog live on my Twitch Stream as part of the daily livestreaming that I do to promote our yearly fundraiser.
In other news, the Worldbuilders Auctions are in their final day. If you haven’t wandered over there to take a look at what’s being offered, you’re really missing out. There’s some truly unique items there, and all the proceeds go to charity.
And lastly but not leastly, tomorrow (Sunday the 15th) I’m doing a special livestream where I talk about the upcoming liveplay podcast I’m doing set in my world with the One Shot Podcast Network.
That’s all for now, but stay tuned. The fundraiser is over in just a couple days, and we’re going to have cool things happening every day until the end…
As I write this, the fundraiser is closing in fast on three-quarters of a million dollars and there are only three days left.
I’ve been working pretty solid 12-16 hour days for a while, and I’m starting to feel it. So today I’m going to keep it simple and share a video of my little boy: Codename Oot.
For the last couple years, Oot has had his own team page for the fundraiser because he wants to raise money for cows. This year, he had the bright idea of painting some pictures he’s going to give away on that team page, to encourage people to donate.
This is “Cow in the Morning.”
This is “Cow in space.” (I didn’t do a good job of catching the gold painted stars on this one. But they’re pretty great in better light.)
Here’s a third one: “Red Cow in the Desert.”
When I asked him if the red cow had a sunburn because it was in the desert, he just looked at me for a while as if he were confused. Then he said in a slightly exasperated tone, as if he really couldn’t believe I’d asked the question, “Is the cow in space blue just because it’s in space?”
So yeah. That’s fair. I’m obviously overthinking it. I didn’t question the blue cow. Why should I question the red one?
You’re also eligible for the $170,000 worth of books and games we’re giving away, too.
My younger boy, Cutie, has painted some pictures, as well. Including quite a nice one of a duck. We’ll be putting those up on Oot’s change jar page soon too. (I’d do that myself right now, but it’s three in the morning and I need to be up in less than five hours.)
If you’d like a graphic that would help you promote the fundraiser on social media, here you go:
I’m going to be doing a livestream with Oot later on tonight (Friday from 5:00-8:00 CST.) We’ll be playing games together, answering questions from the chat, and talking about cows. You can watch us or follow the channel here to get notifications whenever I stream….
As I type this, Worldbuilders has raised more than $279,000 dollars.
It’s also Giving Tuesday. And I’m going to be honest with you. Part of me really wants to be snarky about that. This year someone used the term “Thanksgiving Eve” around me, and I went on a tirade because no. No there is no such thing as that. We started with Thanksgiving. Then we got Black Friday and that was fine. Then there was small business Saturday and that was kinda okay. Because yay, small businesses…
But then there was Cyber Monday too, and you know what? Not everything has to have a day. Sometimes it’s just Wednesday. So no, thank you very much, it’s not Thanksgiving Eve.
So I’m going to be honest with you. I feel a little bit the same about Giving Tuesday. That cussed, contrary part of me *really* wants to have a problem with it. It feels kinda… artificial.
Boy, this isn’t the best way to start off a charity blog, is it? I’m doing this all wrong.
Here’s the thing. No matter how I happen to feel right now, today is still Giving Tuesday. It’s a day when a lot of people feel moved to donate to charity. And even at my most curmudgeonly, I think that’s pretty great.
I’ve written those blogs in the past. Typically about halfway through the fundraiser I get caught up in the excitement, write something passionate, and y’all warm my bitter heart & stomp out to donate. This has happened ever year so far, and it reinforces my belief that humanity is good. And that geeks in particular are lovely, empathetic, large-hearted individuals.
But this year… I don’t really have a great idea for a blog. I… honestly? I just feel so tired. Every day the news beats me down a little more. Every day it seems like the world is a little more on fire. Every day it seems like we’re just a little closer to the brink.
And we just had my dad’s funeral this weekend. I’m not bouncing back from that as quickly as I thought I would.
But the fact remains that it’s Giving Tuesday. And I’m the only one who can write this blog. So I’m writing a blog. And, apparently, I’m determined to make a mess of it. This really isn’t how it’s supposed to go….
* * *
I just got up from the computer and had a walk, pretty convinced that when I sat down again, I’d have to erase what I’d written and start over.
But instead, I found this on my dining room table.
(Click to embiggen)
This is a box my son brought over to my house a couple weeks ago at the beginning of our fundraiser. It’s full of change he’s been collecting all year. He *really* wants to get enough to buy a cow for a family through for Heifer International.
If you want to know why, here’s the video from a couple years ago:
My boy knows a cow costs $500, and he’s been working at it tirelessly. He scrounges the house for change, going through our pants pockets and couch cushions. He has emptied both his own piggy bank and his brother’s. He opened a store after Halloween, selling his candy haul piece by piece to anyone who came over to the house….
Sometimes he just straight-up shakes people down for money, explaining how helpful a cow can be to a family that doesn’t have much food or money. In fact, just this weekend at my dad’s visitation, I found out he was offering funeral home mints to people for a quarter. I explained, gently, that this might not be the best place for that. But not before he brought me a check a kind soul had written out to Worldbuilders.
Somehow I don’t think my dad would mind. Especially not given what I found in the box just now.
I think this must have come from a letter they exchanged over the last year. My dad wasn’t an easy man to persuade, but he had a soft spot for my little boy….
I don’t know if I have a real point to sharing this with you except to say that finding this box made me feel… happy. I feel proud of my boy. And right now, when my own enthusiasm is at a little bit of a low ebb, it’s nice to be able to borrow a little bit of excitement.
If you want to be excited about what a cow can do for a family, you should watch this video. It’s not even two minutes long.
Tomorrow, I think I’m going to show my boy that video. We’ll count his change and we’ll talk about cows.
In fact, I’m going to invite him to come livestream with me tomorrow, too. (For the next two weeks, I’m streaming to raise awareness of our fundraiser 4-7 CST every day.) Tomorrow, he and I will do it as a team. We’ll play some video games and talk about cows.
That seems like a nice way to spend Giving Tuesday.
[edit: Amanda here! We’ve made a team page to support Oot and his change jar, so if you want to help him raise enough for a cow, you can donate here.]
* * *
Just to be clear, Heifer International doesn’t just deal in cows. It works with people around the world to improve their lives in the long term. They don’t give people a loaf of bread or a sack of rice. They provide animals and materials sometimes. But more importantly they provide education. They provide the training and tools to become better, more efficient farmers and business people.
Take Félix Octavio Rosales for example. He’d been farming for many years before he received Heifer training as a part of the Healthy and Sovereign Land project.
Félix and his wife, Mrs. Gómez, had been using chemical fertilizers and pesticides without understanding what they were doing and the harm they were causing to not just their farm, but their health.
They attended multiple workshops and training sessions with the Healthy and Sovereign Land project and were educated in how to make their own fertilizers and pesticides naturally. Instead of spending money on agricultural chemicals, they made their own out of the rabbit and guinea pig manure they already had at hand. Their soil has become nutrient rich, and the produce yield has increased significantly.
Mrs. Gómez has been able to sell the additional produce at the weekly market fair, empowering her to contribute income to her family.
“Another change is in my health,” Félix said. “I see this reflected in the way I feel when I work and when I have to walk long distances; I feel better. I see these changes because the food we eat is natural, without chemicals.”
And all of this was through education alone, provided by Heifer International.
The projects that involve gifts like chickens require training too, like Ndiolle Faye went through.
For many years, Faye’s family lived in poverty, struggling to get two meals a day during the off-season on their farm, and eating mostly millet the rest of the year. Faye was unable to go to school as a child, and though she tried to make it a priority to send her children to school, there was never enough money.
Then Faye joined the Wax Bakh Self-Help Group as a part of a Heifer project.
“Assistance started with a series of trainings, building a hen house and the placement of four hens and an improved breed rooster,” she said. “There was great joy in my family and in the community. I saw this as an opportunity to move ahead in life.”
She received the gift of a flock of chickens, which quickly grew from 5 birds to 155. Her family’s income greatly increased, and she was able to run a business as she’d always hoped to do.
Less than two years later, she had sold more than 100 chickens. She used that money to buy 2 young rams for the purpose of fattening them up and re-selling them, providing more income and further diversifying her farm. Now she buys and sells rams three times a year, and invests the money into her poultry farm as well as saving more for her family.
She no longer worries about paying for her children’s education. If she doesn’t have the money, she can simply sell some of her chickens at the beginning of the semester to pay for school fees, new clothes, and supplies.
By integrating livestock and agriculture, she increased her income while improving her family’s food security and nutrition. Growing the flock increased the quantity of manure available, which she used to replenish the soil. As a result, her farm yield has increased by 20 percent. She keeps a portion of the harvested produce to add nutritional diversity to their meals.
Now, two years after receiving her flock of chickens, her family eats three nutritious and diverse meals daily, all year long.
Faye has also participated in the Heifer Cornerstone of Passing on the Gift, where she shares her training and a starter flock of birds to families who are in need.
And get this: As of today, she has Passed on the Gift to 11 different families.
“I am a happy woman. I meet my needs, and support my family. I own a poultry farm and we eat well. I can sell poultry anytime we face any challenge. We eat eggs and chicken as we want. And I have basic livestock husbandry skills – all thanks to the Smallholder Income and Nutrition Project.”
***
Okay. Now I’m into it again. I’m excited. Are you feeling it? Because I’m feeling it….
This is what we’re doing with our fundraiser, folks. This is what Heifer International does, and everything you donate to the fundraiser goes to help programs like this.
The gift of Bountiful Harvest training costs $72.
The gift of a flock of chickens, and the training necessary to raise them, is only $20.
If the world is getting you down, try joining us here at Worldbuilders. You can give a family the chance to be self-reliant. You can help parents feed their children. You can literally change someone’s life forever. Seriously.
We’re four days into this year’s Geeks Doing Good fundraiser. I hope you’ve been enjoying it as much as I have. I’ll admit that I spend a lot of this week refreshing the fundraiser page to see how much we’ve raised.
(Hint – right now we’re at just over $90,000 dollars. Which is pretty good for four days….)
Today I’m going to talk about one of the items we’re trying out for the first time this year: Change Jars.
I’ve talked on the blog before about my own change jar. For the lion’s share of my life, you could tell a lot about my financial well being by the state of my change jar. If it had quarters in it, you know that I was doing pretty well for myself. But more often, those were picked out for laundry, or even to pay for food. During the leaner times there weren’t many dimes in there either….
So these days, when I look at my change jar seeing all those quarters is a constant reminder of how well I’m doing.
A couple years ago, I practiced counting with Oot, my young son, and then recorded a video with him where he really suprised me.
Here it is for those of you who haven’t seen it:
I’m sorry about the vertical nature of the video. I was hoping to catch a teachable moment on video with my son, explaining to him that we could use our change to help people. But he beat me to the punch with almost every point I wanted to make. (You can see the unedited version of the video here if you’re possessed with the strong desire to see me break down crying.)
Anyway, ever since then, the change jar in our house has been referred to as a Cow Jar. Whenever Oot would find a coin, that’s where he would put it. If someone gave him some money, he would typically put it there. The enterprising little guy even set up a store in our house, selling the candy he got for Halloween so he could get more money for the Cow Jar.
After two and a half years, Oot was sure we had enough for a cow. So we took my change jar, Sarah’s change jar, the change jar in my office…. pretty much all the change jars in the house, combined them, and we ended up with this video….
We didn’t end up with quite enough for a cow. And while Oot was a little disappointed, he has redoubled his efforts to save enough money for a cow by Christmas time.
I was thinking about this when we were developing our product ideas for this year. Every couple days when I put my change into a bowl by the door, I smile and think about buying a cow. What’s more, I think about how much fun it will be to count out the change with my little boys. It’s a good way to sneak a little math into a project, while getting them to think about giving to people less fortunate than themselves.
I thought it might be fun to share this family tradition with you.
Back in December, we worked with some local Wisconsinites to make Eolian Mugs. Those worked out so well that they’re making stone Eolian coasters for this year’s fundraiser…
So I asked them if they could come up some change jars, for those of you who… I don’t know, really. Maybe for those of you who have kids and would like to show them that thinking about helping others can be part of your everyday life. Or maybe you’re a fan of Worldbuilders, and putting saving up for a goat will make you happy. Maybe you’re more high-class than I am, and you want something more attractive for your loose change than the cereal bowl I’m currently using.
Or maybe you’d just like to join Oot in his quest to gather change and make the world a better place. I think we might have a “Oot’s Change Jar” team this year during our holiday fundraiser, where everyone who has been saving their pocket change can join forces and be awesome together.
And here’s some jars you can use if you want to do it with some style….
We’ve got three different sizes. My people did some unlikely maths to figure out how big each jar had to be in order to fit approximately the right amount of change for each of these. But in the end, we have:
A smaller jar that fits around $20. Enough for a flock of chicks. That means eggs for eating and selling every day. To say nothing of the fact that chickens themselves improve crop yields, as they eat bugs that cause problems in gardens and small farms.
There’s a medium sized jar that should hold $60 for some tree seedlings. Trees can provide fruit and nuts that a family can eat or sell to gain financial security. Trees also provide shade, and greatly improve sustainable agriculture by preventing soil erosion.
There’s also a large jar that hold enough for a goat: $120.
I’m not shy about the fact that I love goats as a Heifer gift. A goat can easily produce more than a gallon of milk a day, enough to supply a family with some left over to sell. They’re known for having twins when they give birth, so the families are that much better at Passing on the Gift of a baby goat to other families in need.
If you already have a beloved change jar, (or if you’re just not that into pottery) you can still join Oot on his quest to turn pocket change into cows…
We’ve designed a sticker to affix to your existing jars at home for those of you who would prefer more of a low-impact way. It’s just a couple bucks over at the fundraiser….
Here’s another link to the fundraiser if you’d like to pick up a change jar, or look at some of the other things we have available there. Like signed books, cheap games, and new types of tak pieces we weren’t able to produce for the Kickstarter. (Stone and metal pieces, specifically.)
And you can also pre-order a signed copy of the 10th anniversary edition of The Name of the Wind, too. If you’re into that sort of thing.
There’s also t-shirts and… well… kind of a lot of stuff. Too much to describe here.
I just peeked over there and saw that the total is over $93,000 now. I’m hoping we can make it to $250,000 like we did last year.
But remember, there’s only a few days left to get on board…
Oot is 7 years old now, if you can believe it. He is my heart’s delight. And despite my failings, he has grown up sweet and kind and loving and full of empathy.
So. A couple months ago, we were having a little shindig at our house. Except this wasn’t an event of the sort that I would organize, not a couple people coming over for games. Sarah’s family is huge, and there are roughly eleven billionty children in it. So this isn’t a cozy little gathering. It’s going to be an event. It’s going to be a happening.
The complication? We have a relatively small house. Only about 1400 square feet, and one of the two bathrooms is only accessible through a bedroom.
And here’s the thing. It’s *my* bedroom. Which means it a fucking mess. I’ve got piles of books and detritus everywhere. You can’t hardly see the floor. Plus I have a lot of stuff on my shelves is dangerous at best, and at worst just straight-up deadly. Picture it as a more cramped version of a wizard’s lab, except instead of having a stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling, there’s a mattress on the floor.
Simply said: I do not want people wandering through my bedroom. For real. I’ve mentioned this many, many times to Sarah when she has family over.
So. Anyway. We’re getting ready for the party, and I come back from an errand to discover Oot has written up some helpful signs and stuck them to my door.
(Click to Embiggen. Seriselee.)
Please, *please* click the above image and try to puzzle out what it says on your own. Oot has my genes both for penmanship and spelling, but if you click on it, you should be able to make it out with a little work. And it’s *so* much better if you read it in the original.
For those of you who can’t quite make it out, the signs say:
“Do. not. Entre.”
“i. Will. Kil. You. if. You. Trn.”
“This. Nob. (Arrow pointing to doorknob.)”
“Seriselee. Stae. The. Fukc. Out.”
Now when I see this, I am absolutely fucking delighted. I am over the moon. I could not possibly enjoy it more.
First and foremost, this is a very thoughtful thing he’s done. I ask Sarah if she put him up to it, and she said she hasn’t. All on his own, my little boy has decided to help me keep my room private because he knows it bothers me when guests wander in there. He’s heard me talk about it, and he’s trying to help.
As for the rest…. well… I’m probably reading it a little differently than you, because I know more of the backstory. (It might surprise none of you to know that I consider backstory to be pretty important.)
You see, years ago, when I discovered that here in small town Wisconsin, a mortgage is actually cheaper than renting an office. So I bought a grotty old student rental house to use as a disturbance-free writing space.
In that house, I have a writing room which nobody is allowed to enter. Because it’s my fucking writing room.
But I also use the house as a guest house where friends can stay when they’re in town. And my friends are curious people. So years and years ago I put up some signs on the door:
Oot comes to visit me at the Workhouse sometimes. And I put these signs up *years* ago. Long before he could read.
But the world keeps spinning. And things change. And our children absorb so much more than we are ever ready for. And no matter how careful we are, we are never careful enough….
So I come home from my errand to see my sweet child has carefully labeled my door. I read these signs and I laugh. And I thank Oot for being so helpful and considerate. And I tell him that I am really impressed that he has done such a good job of writing everything out. And it’s true. I am impressed.
“But I’m wondering,” I say. “We’re inviting these people over to our house for a party. Do you think it might be a little rude to threaten to kill them?” (I’m going to leave the discussion of the word ‘fuck’ for another day.)
Oot looks thoughtful, he narrows his eyes a little and nods. “You’re right,” he says, as if he’s really kind of impressed that I’d figured that out. “I’ll make a new sign.”
So I wander away, happy that I’ve so deftly fixed the problem.
Ten minutes later, I come back to see this:
I would like to point out that I’ve never heard Oot say, “Fuck.” But obviously the sign at the workhouse has made a deep and lasting impression. It occurs to me that in his mind, this might actually just be the natural way you ask people to stay out of a room. This is just a regular warning sign: “Wet Paint.” “Do not park.” “Stay the fuck out.”
So we talk again. And I tell him that he’s done a good job by getting rid of threatening to kill people… “But it’s still not really *polite* yet, is it?”
So he takes another run at it:
And these notes are still on my door to this day. I cannot think of a reason I would ever want to take them down….
(Dear Andrew, I’d like you to be the official Tak spokesmodel. And I’m not just saying that because you’re way *way* pretty. It’s because your presentation here is absolutely flawless.)
The vast majority of you who backed the kickstarter have your goodies now. And while a few of you might not yet, that’s mostly due to international shipping, or because some people never answered their Kickstarter surveys. (Imagine me giving you a disappointed-but-still-loving dad look here.)
But yeah. The big news is that games have been showing up at people’s houses for months. It’s exciting for me to see people finally getting to have their own copies. And not just playing it, but really kinda loving it.
I’d always assumed that Oot (age 7) would be too young to play. But hearing that Sabba’s kid and others had been successfully learning the game, I thought I thought I’d try him out…
We started on the 3×3 and he eagerly moved up into a 4×4 game. Then he wanted to play the 5×5….
Everything said, he took to it pretty well. He’s no mastermind, but… well… neither am I. And he won fair and square one game when I wasn’t paying proper attention.
Most importantly though, we had a good time. And I’m looking forward to playing more with him in the future.
(I have to say, the companion book turned out pretty nice as well.)
If you’ve been enjoying Tak, feel free to share your pictures and stories in the comments below. You can also review the game on BoardGameGeek. It’s the biggest game review website out there, so a good rating there will do a lot to help get the word about Tak out to people.
So… yeah. I’m glad you guys have been enjoying it. And if you missed out on the Kickstarter, feel free to swing by the Tinker’s Packs and pick one up. Or more than that. Don’t worry. I won’t judge.
(Click to Embiggen. Seriselee.)
