RHoM 2.0! Now With More Shiny!

Sorry for the lateness, everyone. Once again the day is saved by Cassie and her cute dinosaurs. So, enjoy another adventure in the life of Harlan Dinosaur!

SO! I wrote notes for this week’s blog! Aren’t you excited! Here we go!

Check out the new layout! Isn’t it shiny? Personally, I like it. It’s very clean and organized, which I usually am not. So this is fun. Downside to the new layout, however, a wider middle column means I have to blog more so it looks like I’ve written anything at all. You’ll also hopefully notice, if not, you’d better get your eyes checked, that the comic is now hidden behind a full-size one-panel preview. So, put away your magnifying glasses, people who didn’t know you could click on the comic to enlarge it, and click on the comic to reveal its secrets! Wow. Also. Go ahead and hold your cursor over the newest comic preview. Did you do it? Good. Notice how that ANNOYING “snapshotpreviewpieceofcrapthing” doesn’t pop up any more? YOU’RE WELCOME.

Also! Happy birthday to our associate writer/serial commenter Switzerland last weekend. Hope you had a good one, buddy.

Guns make you stupid. Better to fight your wars with duct tape. Duct tape makes you smart.

Phoenix

PS Frak. Going back and creating preview panels has made me want to rewrite entire punchlines and jokes from earlier strips. Gah.

Titles Can Be Hard To Think Of

Sorry for the delayed comic, folks. I had it all ready to go last night, but it was late and I frankly was in no mood to blog. So here we are today! Yay. I’ll maybe think about writing a blog beforehand, but we’ll see. Anyway! Apologies for the SUPER NERDY jokes in this week’s comic, but they were too juicy to resist. Besides, I think you can get the gist of the point of the stuff. Yeah.

So, the Player’s Handbook 2 came out last week. It was pretty exciting, as it marked the return of many classic classes and races to 4th edition, including gnomes, half-orcs, bards, druids, and sorcerers. I was especially looking forward to bards, as they had always been my favorite. I think it must be the “jack of all trades, master of none” aspect that appeals to me. The bard is able step into any of the traditional roles of the party, and temporarily fill it. Of course, the bard can never do the job as well as a class who is designed for it. 4th edition revitalizes the bard somewhat, giving him more usefulness in certain roles, while taking away some of the versatility found in 3rd and 3.5 editions. Also revitalized is the sorcerer, which was always a close second favorite. Basically, to sum up, I really want to play a campaign. Possibly over the summer.

Now that the rest of you have returned from skipping over that long, daunting paragraph, one which Artista will inevitably sum up as “blah blah, bards, versatility, blah blah”, we can get back to reality. Or at least as close to reality as one can achieve over the internets. Stay safe, everyone. I’ll see you next week.

I never thought I’d be happy to hear anything that sounds like Creed,

Phoenix

PS Beware the dread gazebo.

“Free” Is Just Another Word For “Socialist”

Go see Watchmen. Seriously.

No blog or haiku this week. I leave you, instead, with a poem by Rudyard Kipling. This poems reminds me of a dear friend, who just recently has gone home. We’ll miss you dearly, John.

It’s a trap,

Phoenix

“If”
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!
-Rudyard Kipling

Post-It

We’ll be back next week with some real content. The world just didn’t see fit to allow a comic this week. You can thank Cassie for her doodles of boredom this week.
-P

D&D 4.0: Where Charisma Is Actually Useful!

AWKWARD.

This was fun to write. It pretty much wrote itself, in fact. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the decency to attach itself to the email I sent to Artista. Some facepalming and d’ohing later, the problem was rectified. Hope you enjoyed that little look behind the scenes.

Here’s another haiku, cause I’m too lazy to blog:

flashing red button
large white sign says, “do not push”
lots of things go boom

G’night, kids.

I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board,

Phoenix

PS Cassie illustrated last week’s haiku. If y’all are real nice, maybe I’ll scan it and post it.