speaker_to_customers

This is a repeat of a big bundle of material for the TinyD6 system from Gallant Knight Games:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025TinyMega

This covers a lot of genres with a minimalist rules set. Last time I said (edited slightly) "This is an interesting offer because it covers such a wide range of genres, but it isn't especially cheap and whether you actually need all of them may be another matter. If you're already using this system and don't need to buy a lot of it, or already have systems you like for some of the genres and don't want to change, it may be a better idea to cherry-pick and just buy the bits you need.... ...a lot of this material was in two bundles offered in September 2020 - Tiny Dungeon, itself a repeat, and TinyD6 Worlds, and if you've already bought either or both you may find a lot of this offer redundant. Again, the best advice I can give is to cherry-pick!

ffutures

Anyone here use Freeoffice for Mac? I need a decent word processor etc. for my Macbook Pro (2015), apparently Libre Office is no longer compatible, and I'd prefer not to get involved in the Microsoft morass. My Windows box is my main platform for word processing etc., and Libre Office is fine on that, I just need something compatible for occasional use on the laptop.

Freeoffice appears to be free, but I'm worried that there might be snags or hidden costs that aren't mentioned on their site. Anyone know anything?

https://www.freeoffice.com/en/

Later - seems OK if a bit limited - no spreadsheet or drawing app - but it'll do for basic word processing.

Later later - I forgot to say that FreeOffice also says 10.15 as the minimum, but unlike LibreOffice it installed and seems to work properly on 10.13.

ozma914

Chances are good that I'm about to disappear.

I'm having surgery on my hand, thanks to a non-dangerous affliction called Dupuytren's contracture. This was named after a scientist named Guillotine Dupuytren, and I hope he's happy. I'd give him the middle finger, but it won't bend that way.

Over time, a patient's fingers can bend toward his palm until he--that would be me--can't use them anymore. In my case it's the two middle fingers on the left hand, where tissue under the skin hardens and draws them in.

I know what you're thinking: "Mark, how did you get Kleenex under your skin?"

No, no, it's not facial tissue, I think. It's one of those medical terms, like when they call a person who draws blood a phlebotomist, instead of the obvious title of "blood sucker". A phlebotomist sounds like someone who collects spit. Thank goodness for knowing terminology, because the medical establishment classifies Dupuytren's contracture as a "tumor".

Think of it more like paper towels when they get squeezed together while wet, then dry into a hard mass you can't break with a hammer. My sewer once got blocked that way. Unrelated to my hand.

In the United Kingdom, where many of my ancestors come from, about 20% of men over 65 have, as the drug commercials would put it, D.C. I'm not that old yet, but you gotta start somewhere. My Grandmother had it, and her maiden name was Welch, which is Welsh. But you knew that.

It's often painless, although it's started to hurt me--and hurt way more after the ortho doctor poked and prodded at it for half an hour. There's also the time he tried to ease the pain by sticking a five foot long needle through my hand, but never mind.


Proof: the needle mark

The man ran an iron bar through my palm--to make the pain go away! It did eventually, but I broke my other hand while punching the wall.

It wasn't the pain that worried me: It was the fact that I keyboard for my fulltime job and for my part time job, and now that I'm no longer an active firefighter, I keyboard for the Fire Department. You older people, that means typing. Typing with one hand clenched into a fist would cause issues.

So the doctor's going to put me under, then use a fork and steak knife to dig the tumor/tissue out. Then I won't be able to use my left hand for about two weeks.

You see where I'm going with this.

I once had a boss who had one hand, and he could do just about anything a two-handed person could do, out of necessity. I'm not that kind of person. I've been practicing, and it's no go. I'll have to wear sweatpants and zippered hoodies I can't zip up. Cooking will be even more dangerous than before.

Okay, usually Emily cooks, but as for doing the dishes, we'll have to stock up on paper and plastic. Mowing the lawn will be up to my grandkids. (I actually like mowing, when it's not so humid you have to shoo fish out of the way.) I have to take two weeks off work, which is fine, but everything I do at home involves a keyboard, too.

"No, you type with your left hand--oh, let's just watch Expedition Unknown."

Which brings me to the internet.

Some would say I spend too much time on the internet, and they'd be right. I submit that some of that time is necessary, both to keep up with friends and family and to promote my writing. I also submit that I can't type well one handed. I'll try some speech to text writing, but based on experience with my phone, I'd have to type that much more to correct mistakes.

So I declare late August to be a vacation from the internet, and if you see a long piece of writing from me it was probably prescheduled. Once the pain and pain meds have subsided enough for me to think straight, I want to catch up on my reading.

But what I'll probably do is watch TV.

Just because I'm not around doesn't mean you can't find our books--including the newest, Haunted Noble County, Indiana:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: You only need one hand to turn the pages.

elisi

“This is our last hope”: Bisan Owda issues urgent call on x to stop occupation of Gaza city

Watch on YouTube

slaymesoftly

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

kazzy_cee

On Friday, Mr Cee took the day off, and we headed to the V&A in London to see their Cartier Exhibition. The exhibition has been sold out for weeks (and it doesn't finish until November!), but as I have a Membership card (for me plus a guest), we could just walk in to see it without booking (the Membership is really worth it!).

This is how the curators Helen Molesworth and Rachel Garrahan describe the exhibition:

"Cartier is one of the most famous jewellery houses in the world. This exhibition explores how Louis, Pierre and Jacques Cartier, together with their father Alfred, adopted a strategy of original design, exceptional craftsmanship and international expansion that transformed the Parisian family jeweller into a household name."

Established in 1847 by Louis-François Cartier, the business expanded once his grandsons joined the firm, and by 1909 they had expanded their branches to Paris, London and New York.

It's a large exhibition (more than 350 items of jewellery, clocks and watches) and they have divided it into sections covering the influences in design, and custom works for patrons of Cartier, the jewellers. Under the cut for lots of sparkly things that caught my eye (there are quite a few)!

( Read more... )

We spent a couple of hours at the exhibition, and I'm tempted to go back again as it's a bit overwhelming to see so much bling!

kazzy_cee

Yesterday I braved the 30º/86ºF heat in London to meet up with Youngest Cee's fiancée's mum, L in Hoxton in East London. We went to The Museum of the Home (formerly known as The Geffrye Museum). The museum is situated in a 18th-century former almshouses built on the site in 1714. They were built at the bequest of Sir Robert Geffrye to house the widows of ironmongers - up to 56 pensioners were given homes in the almshouses and had access to a chapel and a garden.

Sir Robert Geffrye was a merchant and trader in tobacco, which means he had part ownership of a slave ship, and his fortune was largely built on the Atlantic slave trade. Rather than remove all references to him, the museum has explained his history very sensitively for today's visitors without trivialising the links. He has no connection to the museum, only to the former almshouses.

I have visited the museum a couple of times before, but in 2018, they closed it completely to refurbish it, so I was interested to see how different it was. I was pleasantly surprised as they have looked more deeply into the meaning of 'home' and how different aspects change how we decorate and furnish our living spaces.

The exterior of the former almshouses is still very impressive (not my photo):

Some more photos under this cut:
( Read more... )

We found a very nice place to have a healthy lunch (and a glass of wine!) and spent a couple of hours chatting about all kinds of things, which was lovely!. It was a good outing.

ffutures

Two repeat bundles for Girl Genius comics, which are RPG-adjacent due to the existence of GURPS Girl Genius and the long association of the authors with the RPG industry.

GIRL GENIUS 1 (previously offered Oct 2020)
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025Genius

GIRL GENIUS 2 (May 2023)
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2ndGenius2025

This is pretty much a no brainer, as I've said before. It's great value and a fantastic read. But I should probably point out that if you've previously bought either bundle no new material is added.

ozma914

Yes, today is the release date for Haunted Noble County, Indiana. It's hit the bookseller websites (although not as an ebook yet), and I just received a box of what may or may not be copies of the book, although I've been too busy to actually open it. In my defense I was going to take a video of me opening it, and Emily and I haven't been in one place long enough to do it.

I don't know, maybe it's something else.

Things started going right immediately, starting with a flood of people wanting a signed copy straight from us. That was also something that went wrong because--despite me constantly talking about it online--the date sneaked up on us. As of when I write this, I haven't made arrangements for a local author appearance where I can distribute copies before late September, and there are way more people wanting them than I have time to deliver to.

Which is good, if you think about it. I always worry about whether anyone will want our newest book. This is the twelfth published, and I still have imposter syndrome.

On a related note, I should have gotten another book out earlier, so the book about ghosts and hauntings would be our 13th.

I even went around taking spooky photos to promote the book with. The irony is that the Old Jail Museum--arguably the spookiest looking structure in Albion--has no ghost stories associated with it.

So, what went wrong? There were some personal and family related things that I can't talk about here. I can talk about the prep for my upcoming hand surgery, which will happen on August 18th, and I just realized the joke: I really can't hand deliver the copies.

It's minor surgery, but starting last week I had to stop taking any form of certain pain medicines. Due to the wording on the pre-op papers I was led to believe that meant all pain medicines, including acetomenoph ... aceta ... ac ... Tylenol. Specifically the paper said I couldn't take paracetamol, which is another word for, yes, acetaminophen.

As all fourteen of my regular readers now, I have chronic pain issues. I stopped all meds on the 8th, and the following weekend was really, really rough. On Monday I called the ortho doctor, because all our internet overlords said taking Tylenol was just fine. He said, "taking Tylenol is just fine!"

So I took six, then crushed a bottle full and spread them over my body, then emptied a case full into the bathtub and soaked in it for six hours.

Where were we? Oh, yeah, the book.

Long before all this started, Emily set about updating our https://www.markrhunter.com/ website, so the new book would be there along with links to buy it. You people who want it mailed to you, that's where you can go to make the order and give me your mailing address.

Except Emily realized the entire website had to be completely redone. At exactly the same time her seasonal job is at its busiest. After working on it every spare hour, she punched the domain name transfer request with one day to spare.

Except the domain name transfer doesn't happen in one day. It may, in fact, take several days, and there's no way to rush it. So I don't know when you'll be able to order it, I don't know where I'll be passing copies out, and I have to work this weekend ahead of the surgery.

And there you have it. Both an apology and a sob story, and an epic fail. Whoever knows where I live is welcome to stop by, of course, if you don't mind the clutter, and I'll update things as we go along. But in the end I can only blame myself and my hand, and my back, and sometimes my head.

I WILL keep you updated!

If you can't find it on one of these sites now, you will soon:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: Ghosts can’t read, so you may have to read for them.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: various doctor offices

ffutures

Leisure Games will be running a one day games con in Finchley, London on September 6th to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital and celebrate their 40th anniversary. I'm not going to be able to make it due to family stuff, but the details are on line here

https://leisuregames.com/pages/saturday-6th-september-ruby-con-our-40th-anniversary-celebration

Entry is free, they'll be selling goody bags to raise money for the charity, and I assume other fund-raising things will be happening.

ffutures

This bundle presents Ironsworn, Starforged, and Sundered Isles from Tomkin Press, which use Powered by the Apocalypse for solo and refereed games, with SF and fantasy settings included:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Ironsworn

So far I've only had a good look at the Starforged rules, which is a very nicely presented game although it does fall into a few common SF tropes - most notably the "jungle planet", "desert planet" idea where an entire world has only one type of environment, which seems just a little unlikely. The rules are more complicated than I like, but that's pretty common for games based on the Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics. Art is very good - I suspect that some AI is involved given the sheer quantity, but it's a lot less obtrusive than some I've seen, and the characters depicted rarely fall too deeply into the uncanny valley. Characters seem to be dressed appropriately for safety and the environment, and there are no chaos spiky shoulder pads which is generally a good sign.

Overall, this is surprisingly cheap for what you're getting, and I think it's well worth a look.

ffutures

This is a crossover between the Harry Potter books, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series, and the film Bedazzled (1967, not the 2000 remake), with some other crossovers and Easter eggs, so far including Dogma (1999). All characters belong to their respective creators / owners / megacorporations of doom and not to me, please don't sue...

( IV - His Master's Voice )

Comments please before I post to archives. For previous parts see:

On Twisting the Hellmouth - https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-34251/MarcusRowland+Harry+Potter+Undazzled.htm
On Fanfiction.net - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14336114/1/Harry-Potter-Undazzled
On Archive of Our Own - https://archiveofourown.org/works/54407350

ozma914

Okay, a few quick writerly things:

Haunted Noble County, Indiana is still up for pre-order at a price of $21.99, and will be officially released August 12th. If you want a signed copy from us let us know. I'm starting to get the idea that we didn't order enough, but we can get more sent fairly quickly. If you buy it elsewhere and want it signed--have a pen with you! (Kidding--we'll have a pen.)

We hope to plan some book signings for the rest of the year, and I'll post them as soon as they're confirmed. At the moment there's a slight and not dangerous medical thing to take care of, before the schedule is set.

We do plan for an author appearance September 20th at the Fall Celebration in downtown Albion (Indiana). We ordered more copies of Storm Squalls and The Notorious Ian Grant, so there should be enough of all our books.

Speaking of author appearances, I've contacted the Noble County Library about doing one sometime this month. I haven't heard back yet, but we've been up to the main branch in Albion twice before, and they've treated us very well. One was, sadly, disrupted by a sleet storm, but we don't get those often in August.

Remember Radio Red? You can be forgiven if you don't. It's a romantic comedy, published by Torrid Books in 2017. They were taken over by Start Romance, and since then the book has languished from a lack of promotion (which after eight years is understandable) and a lack of ever having its price reduced (which in my opinion is not understandable).

Our attempts to get the rights back to the Storm Chaser books took many months. To my shock, my request for a reversion of rights in this case got a response in only a couple of weeks. So one of our fall and winter projects will be editing, reformatting, and re-releasing Radio Red independently, with a new cover.

Not that there's anything wrong with the old cover; it just doesn't belong to us.

Our other fall and winter writing projects include a Storm Chaser prequel, a Hoosier Hysterical sequel, and (finally!) finishing our photo book about the Albion Fire Department, as well as continuing to submit to publishers and literary agents. I'm betting there'll be a blog, too. Like this one.

You can preorder, order, and generally make contact here:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf

Remember: If you support your local author, it's a good mark in your book.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Haunted Noble County
Current Music: Scooby Doo theme

edenfalling

Hello!

So since I last posted, I reached the gathering site in Alberta (a very swanky "cabin" in the Canadian Rockies, and I will not be any more specific than that, thank you very much). The get-together was WONDERFUL, which is unsurprising, but alas all good things must end so the vast majority of people left Sunday morning (July 20) in order to fly home (or in one case catch a bus to Banff). I drove northeast to Drumheller, leaving around 11ish, and that was the only day where I had to stop on the side of the road to pee in a ditch because Google Maps decided to route me via county roads through the middle of nowhere so I had no chance to find a gas station.

The Royal Tyrell Museum was EXCELLENT and I highly recommend a visit to anyone who has the chance. If you have the time, arrive in the morning to take a badlands hiking tour (this obviously did not work with my schedule), but the museum itself is still damn cool. I then spent the night in a "hotel" that was 7 rooms above an Indian restaurant. The room was fine! It was just kind of a surprise. But on the bright side, I bought a double order of garlic naan for an evening snack and proceeded to munch on that as car snacks for the next two days.

I also bought a t-shirt, a pair of socks, and a travel mug (no handle, has a tea-and-dinosaurs pun) from the museum gift shop. No regrets!

Monday the 21st I drove back south into the US and then took the Going-To-The-Sun Road from east to west through Glacier National Park. (I had previously acquired an America The Beautiful pass which gets you into ALL national parks, plus any sites managed by the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA Forest Service, and US Army Corps of Engineers that charge an entrance fee.) Glacier is fucking BEAUTIFUL. Due to time constraints (and also weather; it was gray and drizzly during most of my visit) I didn't do any proper hiking, but I did get to walk upstream along Siyeh Creek for a little way.

I spent Monday night at a motel in Kalispell, west of Glacier, where I was able to wash a load of laundry. And I will post about the rest of my trip another day.

-----

In non-trip news, I am currently staying at Vicky's house while she is off on her own two-week road trip. She is circling through Chicago, Pittsburgh, NJ, DC, South Carolina, Tennessee, and then Chicago again on her way home to Minnesota. Meanwhile I am dogsitting Alfie, bringing in her mail, and generally making her house look lived-in rather than vacant.

What I get out of this is A) some distance from our parents, which is nice (I love them but it's still fundamentally awkward to live in their basement as a middle-aged adult); B) BETTER INTERNET (my parents' wifi works fine for anything word-based but is frankly tragic about images, gifs, and videos); and C) the company of one of the world's most adorable dogs. <3

In job search news, I have applied to two Not The IRS offices in the Twin Cities area (annoyingly you can't apply for a region -- you have to apply to each office individually). I have also updated my resume and tomorrow I am going to poke at LinkedIn until I can figure out how best to upload it and start refining my job search terms.

Also I may have fallen down a rabbit hole reading Ask A Manager columns, but shhh, we'll keep that as our little secret. ;)

Current Mood: gently tipsy
Current Location: minneapolis, mn

ffutures

This is a short-term offer of the RPG Fight With Spirit from Storybrewers (Good Society), an RPG about competitive sports teams:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/FightWithSpirit

As anyone who knows me could tell you, this isn't really my sort of subject - I'm REALLY not a fan of sports of any sort, unless someone comes up with rules for competitive sloth - I went to great lengths to get out of them when I was at school. Having said that, the rules are nicely presented and (amazingly considered the topic) there is virtually no semi-nudity in the illustrations - the nearest thing to cheesecake is a (male) member of a swimming(?) team illustrated in the index and on one of the game cards. It's cheap and if you want to try something a little different from your usual RPG it may be worth a look. Meanwhile, I'll be skiving off in the library complaining about how my flat feet keep me from playing...

ffutures

Profile

speaker_to_customers

Speaker's Corner

February 2022

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28

Page Summary

Style Credit

Base style: Refried Tablet by zvi and Aaron B. Russell
Theme: Blue Tuesday by forthwritten

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Aug. 19th, 2025 04:15 pm

Customers speak to me

Reading

And another Bundle - Tiny D6

Freeoffice?

Give Me a Hand ... For Surgery

I hate this timeline

Meme!

Diamonds are a girl's best friend....

An outing to see an assortment of homes

Another Two Repeat Bundles - Girl Genius Comics

It's Release Day! Sort Of.

Another one-day Games Con - Ruby Con

Another RPG Bundle - Ironsworn-Starforged

Fanfic - Harry Potter / Buffy / Bedazzled - Harry Potter: Undazzled - IV

Book Notes. No, There's No Music In Them

a bit more trip reporting, plus a current life update

Another short-term bundle - Fight With Spirit

(no subject)

Profile

February 2022

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags