Where in the world is Anthony's post?

Well, I got sidetracked. I meant to do it as soon as I got home, but I saw something on my bed which dashed all thoughts of LJ updates from my head.

There, sitting on my bed, still in the Amazon.com box it was shipped in, was my Traveller 20 book. I ordered this impressive tome nearly two weeks ago, after cancelling it at another retailer, when I received the dreaded "backorder" E-mail. Leafing through this book, I can say that I am very impressed with it, at least at first glance. I'm sure that I'll notice things that don't jive with my world view when I sit down and read it all the way through, but I definitely feel it was worth the money I paid for it, and then some.

Now that I've gotten the highly exciting tidbits of information out of the way, I can now explain my day...

I was two minutes late this morning, and had a hell of a time gettnig the accounting office counted. I wasn't completely done at 8am, but for some reason, it was okay. I mean, I was annoyed by the fact I wasn't done, but it wasn't affecting me. Weird. I'm mellowing out. Heh. I never thought that would happen. (Or has it really? Hmm...)

Work was pretty much normal. We had a BUNCH of people getting written up for cash shortages and tardiness. Basically, our store has been fairly lax on that kind of stuff (no, really *rolls eyes*), and now it's gotten down to the nitty-gritty. We even had one person suspended for a day. (Basically a slap on the wrist, but also to get the point across that this is serious.)

I finished work, and was still in a suprisingly good mood, even though my day was not the best. My friend Brian, who works in Produce, finally gave me a copy of his band's demo CD. I jammed it on the way home, and I must say, it's damn good. I am suitably impressed by Brian's skill, and wish him tons of luck getting a deal.

I swung by Comics N Collectibles on the way, too, uh, because.. I was.. uh.. forced to go that way by the flow of traffic. Yeah, that's it. Heh. At any rate, I snagged Guide to the Galaxy (Dragonstar), Heart of the Machine (also Dragonstar), and Crown of Shadow (Midnight). I bought the Dragonstar stuff because I want to do something with Dragonstar, and the Guide fleshes out the rules and such. Machine is an adventure, which I figure will be fun in its own right, but also give me an idea for running adventures in Dragonstar. I picked up Shadow simply to see what a module in the setting of Midnight would be like. It's certainly interesting. The module is for 4-6 players, and runs characters from 1st-5th level, yet it calls itself a "campaign", and says on the cover that it's "an epic quest." Sheesh. :) Before I render judgment on Midnight, though, I'm going to read all three books I have from cover to cover.

I go to work tomorrow from 6am-3pm. I hope it goes as smoothly as today did. I really liked today. :)

Wow, can't I wait at least 30 minutes between posts?

Not really, it seems. :) I get ideas about what to post, and just get started. :)

I had an idea this morning that made me giggle with delight, and drop everything to scribble it down. I'll warn those non-geeks now, it's an RPG idea.

I was listening to Sarah Brightman's "Dive" CD, when I heard her singing "A Salty Dog". Specifically, there were two lines that caught me:

Across the straits
Around the horn

I was doing my "I can still be a nerd" bit, and realized that she was talking about the Straits of Magellan (southern tip of South America for you "cool" people), and Cape Horn (southern Africa). I then thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be neat to run a game in which the characters are members of Magellan's crew, and they will have to prevent the mutiny that almost occurred on it." This lead me to thinking, "Oh! They could know what's going to happen!"

But, how could they know what was going to happen? It was at this point I remembered The Shield of Time, by Poul Anderson. Basically, there is an organization that monitors the time continuum, and sends out its members to stop attempts to fuddle with history. I knew immediately that this wasn't going to be a simple cut-and-paste from some rulebook, though. This was going to take work. The hard kind. However, if I can work out the details and pull this off, it will be EXTREMELY rewarding. I started thinking about all of the things throughout history that a nefarious individual would consider messing with. Then, I began thinking about all of the material available to me, and decided I would look at Dragonstar, Midnight, Forgotten Realms, Spycraft, and perhaps even Star Wars, for both material to use, and adventures I can run.

Needless to say, I really like this idea. I've talked to Aron and Alex, and they like the idea, too. (At least, that's the impression I got. I sure hope I'm right. :) )

Oh, and I forgot to mention it, but I was going to be using d20 Modern as a base, although Traveller's system of making all class abilities "Bonus Feats" - some feats are exclusive, though - for maximum customization.

At any rate, I've dug my copies of Neuromancer, Count Zero, The Shield of Time, and The Dark Beyond the Stars out of storage, and I'm reading through the Traveller's Handbook. Nifty idea, though, huh? :)