I’m not very good at publicity.

I’d like to say that this is because I’m a humble man. But I suspect the truth is that I’m egotistical enough that I believe everyone should recognize my brilliance without me having to tell them about it. (I kid… or do I?)

Seriously, though, the reality is that I just don’t like dealing with bureaucracy, busywork, or paperwork. Publicity lies somewhere in the interstice between the three, and if I can figure out some way to procrastinate it, then I’ll end up procrastinating it.

This is why Hervé Jeune had to spend about 5 years trying to get me to send him a biography so that he could put it up on the Guide du roliste, a French roleplaying/gaming site. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that: Every 45 days he would send me an e-mail like clockwork, asking me very politely to send him a biography. And every time I got the e-mail I would dutifully think to myself, “Yup, I should definitely do that.”

And then it would sit in my Inbox until it would expire and disappear (Hervé had the AOL address I’ve had for a decade and a half). And then, a few days later, the new e-mail would pop up and I would think, “Yup, I should definitely do that.”

Well, several months ago I finally got around to doing it. A couple of weeks later, Hervé sent me an e-mail telling me that the whole thing had been translated and that it could be found here. I can’t read a word of it, but it looks pretty nifty. In fact, the whole site looks nifty.

Of course, Hervé sent me that e-mail more than two months ago and I’m only getting around to mentioning it here on the site now.

Which, I suppose, goes to show that I’m no better about publicity now than I’ve ever been.

Ah well…

Another minor update: With the announcement of 4th Edition, I’ve decided to set aside further development work on the advanced Diplomacy rules I was working on. I may, or may not, return to these when I pick up development on Rule Supplement 4: Advanced Skills. If I do, they’ll be posted here.

For the moment, however, I have gathered together the design notes and the final fix for the Diplomacy skill in the Advanced Rules section of the Creations page. As with my the other Advanced Rules, these rules have been placed under the OGL.

Enjoy!

As some of you may already be aware, the 35W Interstate bridge across the Mississippi in Minneapolis collapsed last night at around 6 o’clock p.m. I am posting this around 1 a.m. to let everyone know that I am safe, and — as far as I can tell — everyone I know in the area is safe. I have, however, been forced to turn off my phone, because I am exhausted and I must sleep. Thank you for your concern, however. And my own thoughts and best wishes lie with all those who are still awake tonight with doubt or fear or grief in their hearts.

The reason I’m so exhausted at the moment? We finished the tech period for John & Abigail today. With the exception of mending a few buttons on our costumes and tucking away a few other odds and ends, we are as ready as we’ll ever for our opening at 6 p.m., August 3rd at the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater (810 West Lake Street). We’re essentially taking tomorrow off to give everyone involved a chance to recuperate and rest, so that we can explode onto the stage Friday night with the best play you’ll see at this year’s Minnesota Fringe Festival.

Frustration.

A little over three years ago I recorded an audio book edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu. It was designed to be the inaugural entry in the Mythos Audio Library, to be followed by the much larger and more complex project of At the Mountains of Madness. Unfortunately, the original distribution plans for the audio book (and the Mythos Audio Library) as a whole fell apart completely before it could be released.

So I was quite excited, when prepping City Supplement 1: Dweredell for release, to discover the Lulu.com also offers an audio CD service. I quickly went in, converted the audio files to the proper format, and started uploading them to Lulu. (A process which took a not-inconsiderable amount of time. Uploading 700MB takes awhile.) While the upload was proceeding apace, I was preparing a cover and CD label for the project.

But when it came time for the project to be completed, I received only an error from Lulu’s web interface: “Cannot create ISO.” After spending several days trying to get in touch with customer service, I finally succeeded and discovered what the problem was: For some reason, Lulu can’t produce CDs with a length longer than 70 minutes (whereas the typical CD has a maximum length of 74 or 80 minutes.)

The length of Call of Cthulhu? 72 minutes.

Gah.

I’m not sure what to do about this. I want the Mythos Audio Library to feature unabridged versions of the stories, so simply excising two minutes of audio is essentially impossible. I could simply split the audio book across two discs, but Lulu doesn’t offer CD bundling. So not only would you have to pay nearly twice as much, you’d also have to order essentially two separate products just to get 2 extra minutes of audio. Plus the story is dramatically designed to be absorbed in a single gulp — there’s no good place to put an intermission.

(Obviously I would split the audio down the middle of the story if I did this, not just tack 2 minutes onto a second CD all by themselves.)

The other option is to convert the files to MP3 and offer the audio book as a download-only. I’d probably do that in any case, but I really want to make the CD version work somehow.

Sigh.

Welcome to the new lay-out of the Alexandrian. With the advent of Dream Machine Productions, the Minnesota Fringe Festival production of John and Abigail and the near-future advent of several other projects, I felt it was necessary to make it a little easier to navigate around the site.

You’ll also notice that, as promised earlier this week, Google ads have arrived. I know, I know. I’m a capitalistic whore. Hopefully you will find that I have been successful in integrating them tastefully into the site’s new design.

Sales have been very brisk for City Supplement 1: Dweredell. If you haven’t checked it out, yet, I think you should! (Of course, I might have a slight bias in this matter.) It remains unavailable on RPGNow and the ENWorld Download shop due to continued technical difficulties on the part of OneBookShelf, but you can still find it at Lulu.com and DriveThruRPG.

Tomorrow: Actual content.