Patrick Stewart on Twitter, iPhone, and the Internet

This is just an awesome video my friend Alex shared with me. You can really tell that that Patrick Stewart is a real ‘Less Is More” man.

The video was posted on Gizmodo

Productivity In 11 Words

It’s Friday and I am finding trouble being motivated. I found a great quote that I think just rocks. I am such a huge fan of the GTD system and this is just a great quote to go alone with it’s methodology.

One thing at a time.

Most important thing first.

Start now.

This quote was found on http://www.skelliewag.org/

How To Organize Your D&D Miniatures

My Table of D&D Minis

I had a need to organize my D&D minis. I was finding that just to  locate a particular one for D&D night had become a chore. I was always sifting through a box or bag of them just to find one in particular. Not to mention storing minis in a box or bag is not the best thing for them.  Parts get bent or broken if your not careful. So I have come up with a way to organize your Minis. For the most part your only going to need 3 things.

1. Sterilite Draws (You can find them most retail stores)
2. A Label Maker
3. Apple’s iPhoto (mac only) or Google’s Picasa (Mac or Windows) Software

STEP 1: LABEL THE DRAWERS

The first thing I did was to label my drawers. I printed labels from my label maker saying “Drawer 1″, “Drawer 2″, “Drawer 3″, and so on and stuck them to the front of each drawer. The drawers I am using I picked up from Wal-Mart and they are called “Sterilite“. Just little plastic drawer storage units big enough to hold my minis.

STEP 2: LOOK UP EACH MINI ONLINE

I layed out all my D&D minis on the kitchen table. I then proceeded to look up each one online. I would use a site like Alter Reality Games to search for each mini individually. When the search would come back I would be presented with an image of the mini and some text including the mini’s name and the set it came from.

iPhoto D&D Mini Collection

STEP 3: PUT THE INFO INTO IPHOTO

Save the mini’s picture to iPhoto (or Picasa).

SIDE NOTE: You can create a brand new iPhoto library so as not to add a bunch of pictures of minis to your personal photos by holding down the option key and launching iPhoto. The program will ask you if you want to create a new library or open an existing one. I created a new library and saved it in my computer’s D&D directory.

Next I created an album for each drawer. So I have one album named “Drawer 1″, “Drawer 2″ and so on. As I copied pictures of minis into iPhoto’s album named “drawer 1″  I would select the image and paste in text related to the mini that I found from the website.

In both the iPhoto and Picasa programs you have the option to enter text information about the image. Here is where I enter the mini’s name and the set it came from. (See the image on the right)

D&D Mini Drawer

STEP 4: PLACE THE MINI IN THE DRAWER

After all the all the information about the mini was entered into iPhoto I then put the mini in the corresponding drawer. Repeat steps 2 through 4 till your whole mini collection has been cataloged in iPhoto.

So now If your looking for a green dragon all you have to is type in “Green Dragon” In your search field and iphoto or Picasa and it will tell you what draw the mini is located in.

SOME HISTORY

I have almost been playing Dungeons & Dragons for a year now. For less time then that I have started collected D&D minis. My collection has grown quickly and I needed a way to store then. Rather then reinvent the wheel I turned to Google for help. I figured I was not the only one with this question and someone else must have come up with a solution that I could use.

Well sure enough I found a hand full for websites selling products for miniature storage. But I was not finding a lot of end user experience. Since I was not satisfied with what I found on a few Google searches I turned to Twitter and asked the following question of some DM’s I Follow.

@theodudek, @SlyFlourish, @newbiedm I need a way to store my growing #DnD miniatures collection. Do you guys have any suggestions?

NewbieDM sent me the following response:

@Nicap (thats me)  I buy these plastic drawer storagethings at Wal-Mart. keep them there, sorted by undead, PC’s, creatures, etc…

Right off the bat that sounded like a good idea to me. I went to the store and picked up a couple of these plastic drawer storage things and tossed my minis in them and life was good. Life was good till my collection of minis grew to the point that finding ones needed for a particular game was becoming a chore.

After some time thinking about the problem I am up with the solution above that has been working out for me very well. I hope you all find it useful.

5 Dungeon Masters

Wizards of the Coast recently posted three videos about 5 Dungeon Masters located either in Seattle or New York. The following videos are from that page. I like to post videos about Dungeons & Dragons because I think it helps people who have not played the game get a better idea of what all the fuss is about. So enjoy!

Dungeons & Dragons Introduction Video

Yesterday I was looking at the Wizards of the Cost website and discover a new link “New To D&D Videos“. They have a great YouTube video on that page called “Introduction to D&D”. It is one of the better videos for people who are just learning about Dungeons & Dragons. So if your new to D&D, have never played, or just want to understand why i keep writing about it on my site here, Take a minute and watch this video. Hopefully it will answer some questions.

To Be Continued…

The iPod Dice Tower

I have no clue what the HELL came over me or what possessed me to do this. I feel like I had a real ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind‘ moment. You know the scene where Richard Dreyfuss is eating diner with his family, and he uncontrollably starts sculpting the Devils Tower from his mashed potatoes? That’s how I felt! I just saw these two Apple iPod Touch boxes lying around and I uncontrollably starting building a dice tower out of them with a rubber band, an exact-o knife, and some super glue. It took me about 45 minutes.

I have had dice towers on my mind. They seem like a good idea and a sure fire way to increase the randomness of ones dice roll.

After building the iPod Dice Tower and showing it to my weekly Dungeons and Dragons group, the response was not what I hoped for. Everyone seemed very impressed for the first round of game play, but after that everyone switched back to just rolling their dice on the game table.

Here is how you can make an iPod Touch Box Dice Tower

1.) You need to iPod Touch boxes. Not just a top and a bottom but two complete boxes. You will also need an exact-o knife (modeling knife) and Super Glue

2.) You can see how the top iPod Touch box holds the bottom iPod Touch box insides it’s self. The bottom of the box has a layer of foam attached to it which makes for a soft landing for your dice.

3.) Next we are going to be prepping the hard plastic case that held the iPod Touch still in the it’s box.

4.) Being very careful with the knife your going to want to cut the top 3rd of the plastic case off. This will be used as one of the “Shelfs” that the dice will bounce off inside your iPod dice tower.

5.) Here you can see how I have attached the 2 cut off sections of the plastic case and super glued them inside the bottoms of 2 the iPod Touch boxes. One close tot he top and one close to the bottom.

6.) Carefully using the exact-o knife I cut out a square on the top of the box. I also cut and exit hole on the bottom of the same box. Here I am using a rubber band to hold the to bottom boxes together and placed them inside the top of the foam filled iPod Box

7.) Using super glue I attached the last 3rd of the plastic case to the top of the new iPod Dice tower. The whole in the plastic case just happens to the right size for a standard set of gaming dice.

To Be Continued…

Make Things Smarter

I often find myself thinking about how things could be improved in the world. How to make life easier, and more time efficient. Let me give you an example.

Have you ever been in a public restroom having to look under each stall to find an empty one? Why don’t they put the little “occupied” or “not occupied” sign on the door handle of public restrooms like they do on air planes? You lock the door be hind you and the sign switches from un-occupied to occupied. It just seems like it would make sense and save time doing it that way.

ATMs are kind of the same way. Up until I switched to my latest bank, just about every ATM I have ever used spits your money out before giving you your card back. I can’t tell you how often I have walked away from an ATM after taking my money and realizing all  to late that I forgot my ATM card. My latest bank spits out the ATM card before the money. I am not going to leave an ATM with out my money. That’s why I went there in the first place. But I will leave without my card because that is not where my mind is.

Paper Block

The paper block is just that, a block of scratch paper that you can terror off. Like a 3M sticky note, but no sticky side. Just paper. The paper block has become a key part of my GTD dump process. Someone storms into my office with something for me to do while I am already working on a project. I jott it down on my paper block, rip of the page and put it in my inbox. Then continue on what I was originally working on. Someone calls while I am in the middle of an office memo e-mail, I write it down on my paper block, rip it off and put it in my inbox.

I find it so much better then using sticky notes. It’s so simple and easy.

Why I Love Dungeons & Dragons

In the mid-1970’s parents were nervous about RPGs. Concerns were fuelled by inaccurate and sensational media reports that re-branded D&D as a cult. This may have increased sales of D&D at the time but it also left tabletop RPGs with a reputation of begin a bit ‘out there’ or ‘niche’. Any school or library that tried to encourage RPGs risked complaints from parents.

Thirty years on most parents would be delighted to see their kids unplugging themselves from super violent console titles to read rules books, meet up face to face with real friends and enjoy imaginative storytelling.

What do I love about Dungeons & Dragons? It has to be the socializing. The funny banter between friends. That is by far the best thing about Dungeons & Dragons. Getting together on a lazy Saturday afternoon to hang out and talk with friends. Maybe having a BBQ. It’s just all in all good times. That aspect alone makes up why I love playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Drawing D&D Maps Outside

I find that the week or two I have to prepare for a game as a DM (Dungeon Master) is a great creative outlet for me. I draw and plan out maps, encounters, battles, and wars. I even find myself sometimes picking out the background music I would like to have playing when the game actually starts. If the weather permits I will try and sit outside with a couple of rule books, some colored pencils, graph paper, my iPod and just go to town.

Since Hannah and I started playing Dungeons & Dragons it has become one of the big highlights of our weekend. It will be a great distraction for us here in Juneau when the weather turns cold and we enter the darker months.

To Be Continued…

Battlemat Review

Ever since I have been getting into Dungeons and Dragons I have been researching battlemat options. Battlemats can be used to help display combat aspects of a D&D game. Some people like to use them, and some don’t. I do like to use them.

Since I have started researching battlemat options I have been very disappointed with the reviews I have see on other websites and blogs. There seems to be one cream of the crop option when it comes to battlemat choices for D&D gamers. That would be Dwarven Forge sets. (Check them out on youtube) But I do find the Dwarven Forge option a little price prohibitive for me.

Now after Dwarven Forge, the choices for battlemats are a little less clear. A friend of mine got the Paizo GameMastery Flip-Mat which is a double sided laminated mat with 1 inch by 1 inch squares drawn on it. Because it is laminated you can use just about any kind of marker on it and wipe it off when your done playing. But this battlemat does come to you folded, and you can fold it away for easy storage when your not using it. However it dose not lay down very flat as a result. Which I do find annoying.

Another option (and the one I went with) is the Chessex Battlemat. This is a vinyl mat with an overlying black 1 inch square grid on it. It came with some short directions on how to keep it clean. It lays down flatter then the Paizo mat. But you do have to take a little bit better care of it. You only want to roll it up for storage as folding it will cause creases. You only want to use water based markers on it. Like the kind you would use on an over head projector. You also want to stay away from red and purple, and orange markers as the ink used in these colors to stain the mat.

The Chessex Battlemat came with some short and simple care instructions with it which I have found helpful. They also shipped to me here in Juneau Alaska very well. Using good post office packaging and peanuts to unsure the product came to be undamaged.

I have used this battlemat a couple of times now and it has gone over really well. I am glad I chose it. These pictures don’t show it very well but after a few minutes the mat dose lay down flat.

To be continued…