And so it begins.
Toinght I lit the fuse on the adventure I started working on several years ago. It's happening... here we go...
Next step: New web site coming soon!!
i don't do bad sauce passes
Cosimo Galluzzi
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Peter Solarz

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Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her

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Not today Justin
tumblr dot com

tannertan36

PR's Tumblrdome
AnasAbdin
One Nice Bug Per Day
trying on a metaphor

Origami Around

Love Begins
will byers stan first human second
ojovivo
occasionally subtle

#extradirty

seen from Belgium
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@johnkaufeld
And so it begins.
Toinght I lit the fuse on the adventure I started working on several years ago. It's happening... here we go...
Next step: New web site coming soon!!
Hi John, I have made an app for calculating your score in Ticket to Ride. Is this something you can use in the tournament? The app is called TTR calculator:)
Thanks for the offer! Days of Wonder provided a pretty wicked spreadsheet for calculating tournament scores, so I'm good there, but the app sounds useful for home games.
Is it iOS or Android?
The prize shipments keep rolling in... the translucent custom train sets and winner's medallion for the Ticket to Ride Regional Qualifier, plus the Space Penguin and promo card packs for the King of Tokyo tournament!
Will I see you playing at PentaCon in Fort Wayne?
If you attend on November 9 (Saturday), you can play in BOTH tourneys! (Or come for November 8-9 for two chances to win your way into the Ticket to Ride semi-finals & finals on Saturday night.)
Download convention registration forms and event lists at www.pentacongames.com/downloads.shtml. (Yes, it's old-school pen-and-paper registration this year, but think of it as "retro" instead... it helps.)
Ticket to Ride Regional Qualifier Tournament
Ticket to Ride North American Regional Qualifier tournament November 8-9, 2013 PentaCon Game Convention Grand Wayne Convention Center Fort Wayne, Indiana
It's true! Thanks to the generous folks at Days of Wonder, I will be running a North American Regional Qualifier tournament at this year's PentaCon in beautiful Fort Wayne. It's your chance to be part of the 10th anniversary festivities for everybody's favorite train game!!
LET'S TALK PRIZES!
Thanks to the incredible generosity of Days of Wonder, the North American Regional Qualifier is a prize-laden extravaganza of goodness:
All participants receive a single color set of translucent trains to use with their home games! (One set per player.)
The tournament winner receives a medal, a complete set of translucent trains, a pass to Gen Con 2014, and, most importantly, a seat at the 2014 Ticket To Ride North American Regional Tournament!
TOURNAMENT TIMES
The Ticket to Ride Regional Qualifier Tournament will be played in two preliminary rounds plus a semi-finals/finals round during PentaCon:
November 8, 7:30-11:30pm First preliminary round (seating 30 players)
November 9, 1-5pm Second preliminary round (seating 30 players)
November 9, 7:30-11:30pm Semi-finals and Finals
The tournament begins with two preliminary rounds. Each preliminary round can seat 30 players maximum, and will include a mixture of Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride Europe. Please familiarize yourself with them because you'll be playing both games 2-3 times during the preliminaries.
Depending on the total number of players in the preliminary rounds, between 8-12 people will advance from the preliminary rounds into the Semi-finals. In the semi-finals, players will challenge each other in two games of Ticket to Ride USA 1910 (one game with Big Cities rules, one game with the Mega Game rules).
The top two players from the semi-finals go into the championship match. The 3rd and 4th ranked players go into a consolation match. This round is the best two out of three matches using original Ticket to Ride.
Final places will be:
Tournament winner: Winner of the championship round.
First Alternate: Other player in the championship round.
Second Alternate: Winner of the consolation round.
Third Alternate: Other player in the consolation round.
WHO CAN PLAY?
All players must be a citizen or resident of the United States.
Players must be 18 years of age or older on the day of the tournament to qualify for the Gen Con badge and a seat at the North American Regional Tournament.
Players younger than 18 may play in this Qualifier tournament, but if they win, they will not advance to the North American Regional Tournament. They will receive the other prizes for winning the tournament. If this happens, then the highest-placing alternate who is at least 18 years old will receive the badge for Gen Con 2014 and the opportunity to play in the North American Regional Tournament.
HOW DO YOU SIGN UP?
To play in the tournament, you must purchase a badge for the PentaCon Game Convention. Badges are $15 for one day (the best deal for the tourney) or $25 for two days (lets you play in both of the preliminary events).
You can download a ready-to-use registration form in Adobe PDF format with the information about the Ticket to Ride preliminary events already filled in. Complete the form with Adobe PDF Reader, then follow the pre-registration instructions at the bottom of the form. (Mac users: do not use Preview to fill out the form because it can't do math right on the form's calculated fields Just sayin'.) If you only want to play in the Saturday preliminary tournament, delete the information for the Friday tournament.
For complete registration details, see the PentaCon web site.
QUESTIONS?
I have answers! Email your questions to [email protected] or reach out on Twitter at @johnkaufeld.
Facebook Scam -"Free tickets from Disney Celebrations"
A new variation on an old Disney scam is going around right now, this time through a Facebook page called "Disney Celebrations."
There are NO free tickets. Please DO NOT share their contest post.
Here are some clues to look for to avoid these scams:
Call to action is "like and share" -- It's impossible to run a large-scale contest this way (can't see all entries), plus it violates Facebook's rules.
The page was launched five days ago -- Click the page's About link and check the Joined Facebook entry.
Incorrect spelling -- There's no space in "Disneyland"
Here's the text from the scam
"Celebratıng $3 Bıllion in revenue in 2013 we at Dısney have decıded to start your summer vacatıon off with a bang by gıving away 500 Tıckets To Dısney Land or Dısney World to YOU, our fans!
To be entered to wın all you have to do is the followıng:
1. LIKE and SHARE thıs photo!
2. Comment how many tıckets you want!
and that's it!
The wınner's will be notifıed on August 14th 2013 via an INBOX message!
Good Luck, Dısney!"
I'm proud to announce that The Dad Game, my column about the parenting power of board games, is now a regular feature in The News-Sentinel!
It appears every other week in both the print and online editions of the paper.
Here's to reaching more parents and helping them connect with their kids by playing awesome games together!
If your job involves pitching and interacting with members the media, this movie is a must-watch. It's a great primer on how journalists think, ask questions, and find the heart of a story.
I don't think I could survive in that environment, but I'm glad I get to support it in my own way.
This started my day right.
Hey John - Are you still connected with usually.me? If so, would you be able to tell me who created the video presentation for the company's pitch? Thanks in advance, Valerie (vstjohn@discern.)
Hi, Valerie! No, I'm not connected with usually.me. Good luck with your search for the video developer. Sorry!
This may or may not be Eric Jones, and I may or may not be following you now. Your blog seems reasonably active, so I'm going to assume you'll see this.
Howdy, Eric! Yes, I try to keep things moving out here, although sometimes I'm better at it than others. Thanks for the follow!
Facebook "graphic app" scam going around... again
In honor of Facebook rolling out the new Graph Search technology, an old, debunked fake privacy warning post started going around again.
Here's a sample of the post so you know what you're looking for:
Hello to all of you who are on my list of contacts of Facebook. I would like to ask a favor of you ... You may not know that Facebook has changed its privacy configuration once again. Thanks to the new “Graphic app,” any person in Facebook anywhere in the world can see our photos, our “likes” and our “comments.” During the next two weeks, I am going to keep this message posted and I ask you to do the following and comment “DONE.”
The instructions are a long-debunked item that started in 2011 but just won't die. Every time Facebook makes a change to anything even vaguely privacy-related, someone resurrects the scam and starts the wheel turning again.
XKCD often makes me laugh or think, and sometimes sends me off to check in with my son at Ball State to explain the joke that I'm obviously missing.
Tonight it made me think, marvel, and reflect.
Now I want to write a letter by hand on my favorite exotic banana leaf paper, with blue-black ink coursing through the nib of a dark blue Namiki fountain pen.
I'm such a rebel tonight.
Few people get things done in as consistent and impressive a fashion as Joss Whedon. His Avengers was the rare superhero movie to break box office records as it garnered critical acclaim. And while he was editing that Marvel-Disney monster, he secretly shot a version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at his own house with friends from many of his previous movie and TV projects, including Clark Gregg (The Avengers), Nathan Fillion (Firefly), Amy Acker (Dollhouse), Fran Kranz (A Cabin in the Woods), and Alexis Denisof (Buffy).
It's interesting that Joss camps on David Allen's concept of "next actions" as being a key thing that keeps him moving forward. I concur with him on that -- if I don't know what I'm supposed to do next, I'll spin my wheels like crazy.
It's also funny that Joss confesses he never made it all the way through "Getting Things Done" system but relies one of the system's key concepts.
For some reason, it gives me hope for success... provided I stop talking and start writing!
Smack talk, social media, and Indiana's new 'threat' law
We took another scary big step in the balance between security and freedom of speech today. You can now be arrested in Indiana for making "threats" through social media posts. The changes were part of Senate Enrolled Act 361 (for those who want to look up the law itself). What you need to know as an adult:
Don't write joking posts about anything that even vaguely involves explosives, fire, weapons, death, or dismemberment taking place in schools, hospitals, government buildings, city busses, ocean liners, airplanes, or even on the back of a scooter.
Stupid, thoughtless, off-hand, and dark-humored posts can now land you in jail, even if you meant them as playful banter.
Do not assume that typing "j/k" or "LOL" after a post will mean anything to a police officer or prosecutor. (I sincerely hope it will, but I don't have much faith in that.)
Make your common sense more common. Much more common.
What you need to know as a parent:
Everything I said above about what adults need to know applies twice as much for tweens, teens, and college students -- especially teens.
Your social media-using kids need to know that "sh*t just got real" when it comes to what they post online. (And if that's the phrasing it takes to get their attention, then you have my permission to use it).
Posting on social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram is now treated the same as yelling in the middle of the mall. If they wouldn't scream it at the top of their lungs in the mall in front of an audience of strangers, don't post it on social media.
This is doubly true for online conversations when, in their minds, they're just "screwing around and saying stupid stuff" between friends.
"Smack talk" posts don't go on social media any more. Period. Your kids and their friends may understand that it's just talk, but police may not.
Adding "j/k" (for 'joke') or "LOL" after a comment like "I'm going to burn your school and kill you dead!" may or may not mean anything to a police officer, prosecutor, or judge. More likely, they'll stop reading after 'dead.'
Key parts of the law:
Broadens the definition of "communicates" to specifically include "social media" (which is defined elsewhere in IC 35-42-4-12(d))
Adds the ability to be arrested for making threats via social media against a structure or vehicle, if you cause a structure or vehicle to be evacuated, or if you interfere with the occupancy of a structure or vehicle
Increases penalties if you post a threat against an employee of a hospital, church, or religious organization
increased penalties if the threat is against a judge, bailiff, prosecuting attorney or deputy prosecuting attorney.
Examples already in the news
18 year-old Justin Carter is in jail because of online smack-talk with another player after an online game session.
18 year-old aspiring rapper Cameron Dambrosio was charged with making terrorist threats in a rap video he posted. The charges were dropped after a grand jury refused to indict him.
How embarrassing!
I could tell you that I was just decorating for Halloween. That all of the cobwebs in here are just there for a spooky effect. That I really didn't ignore you all for the last couple of months.
But that wouldn't be true.
Okay, I definitely wasn't ignoring everybody, but I was off doing other stuff. Mostly, I was working on my Master's degree (in communication, humorously enough...) and launching The Dad Game, my new parenting blog at fortwayne.com.
That doesn't mean I stopped loving you, though.
Look for updates here in the coming weeks about board games, marketing, communication and life -- all of the things you know (well,knew) and loved. They'll all return, I promise.
Out of curiosity, any requests for posts? Anything? Bueller?
This week in The Dad Game, we reveal the secret super-knowledge behind picking board games that your family will love.
The first of the four secrets is competition...
Gen Con appointment time
I'm on the hunt for new games to put into my review que for the holiday season.
If you're exhibiting at Gen Con next week, I want to hear about your games and see them in action!
Games I'm most interested in:
board, card, or dice games, with occasional forays into miniatures games.
good for kids and adults to play together (not necessarily a "kid's game").
Eurogame-style play and production values.
10 to 60 minutes playing time.
available in specialty and hobby retail (FLGS), not mass market.
I write about family games for several outlets:
The Dad Game blog, weekly on fortwayne.com (Fort Wayne Newspapers)
Model Retailer magazine (trade magazine targeting hobby store owners)
Greater Games Industry Catalog (trade magazine targeting game store owners)
my upcoming book on better parenting through board games, Dadopoly
Want an appointment? Email me at [email protected] and we'll work out the details.