Usually, Daylight Savings Time spurs me to complain about time. But not today, Satan.* Today I’m feeling like I’ve pretty much mastered time.

Daylight Savings? I never changed my clocks since six months ago, so suddenly all of my clocks are correct again, with no effort on my part.

Leap Year? No problem. I’ve actually managed to acquire a transcript of the meeting that took place at the Time Institute, so my latest column explains why we have Leap Year. There may even be an Easter Egg in the column, if you’re a particularly detail-oriented Lord of Time.

And most excitingly, my poem “Chronomancy” is the featured piece in the latest issue of Red Planet Magazine — the feature rotates every issue, so go read my poem while it’s still available online!

Meanwhile, I hope you all stay healthy, wash your hands, and don’t lick too many doorknobs.

*Why complain about time to Satan? Well, he rules hell, and after Zeus killed the time god Khronos (who was also his dad! but to be fair, if you don’t want your kids to murder you, don’t eat them), he dragged Khronos’s remains to Tartarus, aka the underworld, so technically the remains of the time god are now under Satan’s dominion.

I realize that doing anagrams is precisely the kind of thing that makes people say, “Seth, you have too much time on your hands*”, but in this case it actually paid off for me, since my efforts were recognized by the incomparable Eric Idle. For a kid who grew up watching a lot of Monty Python, that was a pretty great day. The Bitcoin Rap in my previous post also topped 1 million views, making it by far the most popular rap song I’ve ever worked on. I’m currently** working on another rap song on my own time, albeit one which will likely have an audience many orders of magnitude smaller, but I’m still happy with how it’s turning out.

My latest columns are about the Land of the Free, and how Absence Makes the Heart Go Launder.***  And on the boardgaming front, it’s time once again for our annual Alphabetic Boardgaming Challenge, currently in its 12th year. All in all, quite enjoying a lovely fall in the Berkshires, trying to create as much happiness as possible within this tiny bubble to counter the awful world-on-fire-ness writ large about which I can’t do much.

*Technically, as I wear no watch and carry no cellphone, I very rarely have time on my hands.

**Technically, currently I’m blogging, having finally dispatched all freelance work on deadline. But after this, I plan to record some verses before I sleep. In the unlikely event my producer/beatsmith Don Vito is reading this, hey Don, vox coming soon!

***Technically, it’s not actually about absence, just laundry. But I’m a sucker for a pun title. My document default names should be “Pun-titled Document”.

As a freelance writer, I write on a wide variety of projects, ranging from punching up speeches and scripting ad copy, to ghostwriting business thinkpieces and memoirs. Naturally, I prefer* the jobs that require humor or rhyme, but even with those jobs, sometimes ghostwriting means I cannot share my involvement. However, I am pleased to share that sometimes I get hired for the perfect project, where I not only get to put all my talents to use, but I’m allowed to say I worked on it, and am really proud of the result.

Bitcoin Rap Battle

Life otherwise continues apace, with lots of gaming, tasty food, and regular humor columns — here’s my latest:
Course Catalog For Returning Students

*I mean, I prefer being humorous and rhyming, but sometimes I prefer the big ghostwriting jobs because they pay more, and I’ve done enough of them that I’ve gotten pretty good at them. Still hard to beat “write funny raps” though.

So, April was National Poetry Month, and I was so busy writing a poem per day that I forgot to make a post here. Oops. Anyway, here’s a poem I wrote last month:
*************

Everyone knows
A funeral is no place to make jokes
I’ve never liked funerals
I guess I’m just not a mourning person
But everyone also knows
A funeral is no place for violence
So after I make my joke
You settle for murdering me with your eyes
Instead of your hands
Don’t worry, I’ll die eventually
We all do
And I hope at my funeral
There will be laughter

******************************

My latest column is about how you can’t believe every T-shirt you read.

I’ve been doing more ghostwriting lately, which is going quite well*. Everything from speeches and web copy to business articles and books, with the big downside that because it is ghostwriting, I can’t really share any of it with you. However, one of my recent clients was so happy with my work that she was willing to put my name on the children’s book I wrote for her as long as she maintained 100% ownership. So that’s a thing I can share.

Meanwhile I continue putting my name on my own columns, even when they’re about the power of someone else’s name.

In the boardgame world I got to play a few games of the new Endeavor: Age of Sail,** and have some mixed reactions to the various changes they made from the base game. But it’s undeniably pretty, and the overall game is still quite enjoyable. And in videogame land I’ve returned once again to Warframe with their latest Fortuna expansion and super-catchy theme song.

* In quality, although quantity could be higher. Maybe you would like to hire? Or if you know someone in need of writing, then… Hie ‘er! (over to me.) (Okay, that one was a stretch.)

** Not to be confused with the brewing entrepreneurship*** game Endeavor: Sage of Ale

*** or “entreprebrewership”. I’m addicted to mashing words together. I should join a supportmanteau group.

April, as you can read about in my recent column, was National Poetry Month. As per usual, I participated in the 30/30 Challenge through WordxWord and wrote a poem a day. I’ve even thrown one of my daily poems at the end of this blogpost. But of course, poetry isn’t the only thing in April. There’s also taxes, which hopefully you’ve filed by now, but would probably have enjoyed more if you could use my Updated Tax Regulations for 2020.

On the gaming front I’m more than halfway through Mass Effect Andromeda, but between graphic novels and writing poems, didn’t get tons of videogaming in for April. Still plenty of boardgaming though, and I have up a review of Pandemic: Season 2. Also got in a game of Age of Empires III, one of my all-time favorite worker placement games.

Anyway, here’s Wonderwall a poem:

“Tyranny of Manners”

Machines still have some learning to do
In spite of numerous advances over the past few decades
Algorithms that scan and filter text on the Internet
Are much less good at detecting what you are saying
Than detecting how you are saying it
And many of the people running big websites on the Internet
Are no better than machines
Which is why you can get away with saying
“Pardon me, I believe it evident
That your race and/or religion
Is genetically, intellectually, physically, and morally inferior
And members thereof should be expelled or exterminated
Or at the very least denied the rights my race/religion receives”
But if you reply
(As one naturally might)
with
“Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit”
Then your account may be warned and/or suspended
While the person to whom you are replying receives no such admonition
Which goes to prove
In spite of numerous advances over the past few decades
People still have some learning to do

Technically speaking, my newest book won’t be released until this summer (he said, early in 2018). But because we are always living in the future these days, I figured I might as well add it to this page now. After all, it already has an Amazon page, and as we all know, if it exists on the Internet it must be real.

As someone who plays so many modern boardgames on a regular basis, it is perhaps a bit surprising that my first published gaming book is about a classic game like Mahjong, rather than more recent Eurogames like Dominion or Puerto Rico. Well, don’t worry, I’m already working on another gaming book focusing more on Eurogames. (And do not yet have an agent or publisher for it, so if you know anyone who would be a good fit, let me know!) Meanwhile, however, I am excited to finally have published a gaming book. I humbly present to you The Little Book of Mahjong.

One advantage of focusing on a single game instead of many is that I had plenty of space to really dig into everything you need to know about Mahjong. There is a history and origins of Mahjong, comprehensive rules for both International and American Mahjong, in-depth strategies for International and American Mahjong, variants played around the world, advice for finding a game… basically everything you need to know about Mahjong but were afraid to ask. So, don’t be afraid. Heck, you don’t even need to ask, you can just clicky on the book and go to the Amazon page — I hope you enjoy it.

(This is my attempt to publish a post in the past and see what happens; let’s find out!)

Well, the world is filled with terrible things lately, which certainly are more terrible than my own personal terrible things, which in turn have nonetheless been sufficient to keep me from posting for a while. I do have a newish boardgame review up for the highly streamlined Caverna Cave vs. Cave, and here’s a recent column you might enjoy in honor of the late Andy Rooney.

I’ve been doing a few freestyle rap performances at the monthly Downstreet Art festival in town, with my final one coming at the end of this month. Meanwhilst, here is a poem I performed at an open mic tonight, which seems relevant given the numerous hurricanes, fires, and other natural disasters currently underway:

“Everything Happens For A Reason”

That’s what they say
when tragedy strikes
When faced with horrors the likes
of which you’ve never seen
They will try to stay serene
and utter this atrocious treason:
“Everything happens for a reason.”

Pray tell then,
What reason requires the suffering of old men?
What reason requires dead bodies piled in stacks
from natural disasters and terrorist attacks?
What reason requires that a five-year old girl get cancer?
I’m pretty sure your answer
Involves something like “God has a plan”,

But, man,
In that case one of two things must be true:

1) You’ve got an omnipotent deity who
Only helps his flock, while other people feel his wrath.
Which, although biblically supported, makes him sound like a sociopath.

or 2) God had some sort of higher plan we cannot intuit
And giving cancer to a five-year-old girl was the easiest way to do it,
But an omnipotent god really ought to be able to do better.

Either way, please unsubscribe me from your newsletter,
Or at least, next time a tragedy chances to occur,
Please keep in mind that some of us prefer
To accept that some things happen with no reason provided,
Rather than be told, “This girl died because a malevolent deity decided.”

So, that election happened. And I went into hibernation* for the winter, in which I think I’m hardly alone. But, in spite of the snow, Spring is here, and it is a time for renewal** — at the very least, renewal of me posting on this blog occasionally. And while I could provide you with a litany of links to every game I’ve played and every article I’ve written this year, I’m going to stick with favorites. So.

My favorite column I’ve written so far this year was about food, which is totally my favorite thing to eat. As I would tell a chef named after the thing he prepares, “Hey Food, Don’t Make It Bad“. My favorite new boardgame of the year is the mightily epic The Colonists, which is like a worker placement game taken to the next level. And the videogame I’ve been playing most recently is the not-terribly-new Victor Vran, which is a Diablo-esque aRPG, but with nicely smooth combat.

In other news,  you may recall that early last year, I had co-written a musical with my old friend Sam Hammersley (and my new friend Thom Mesrobian). The musical was a Hamilton parody about Trump becoming president, it was the smash hit of the Orlando Fringe Festival last May, and if you’re wondering what such a thing would sound like, I can direct you to this YouTube clip of my favorite song.

Well, Sam and I have now recently finished writing a brand new musical which will be playing this May in Orlando’s Fringe Festival. This one is wholly original, rather than being a parody. But it makes up for it by having more puns than you have ever heard in a musical before. It is called “Punslingers”, I am very proud of it, and I will probably post about it again next month, so if you know anyone who might be near Orlando come May, you should tell them to plan to see our musical.

Meanwhilst, next weekend is the High Mud Comedy Festival here in North Adams, and even if I’m only performing at the aftershow rather than the main stage this year, it still should be a good time.

*Hibernation: For when it’s too much to Bear.

**Because I had nearly a dozen books out from the library, and couldn’t finish them all in 3 weeks.

I think most of us have presidential campaign fatigue by this point. Only a few weeks until the election. A while back, just after the first debate, my friend Samuel Hammersley and I made this rap video exhaustively summarizing all the major points from the debate:

2016 First Presidential Debate Rap-Up

Meanwhile my old house is still for sale (beautiful Victorian, under $65k, because I want to sell it NOW), and I am still quite interested in people paying me money for creativity and/or writing acumen. Need some web content, or a freelance editor, or a house? Ask me. Reasonable rates, 15 years of experience.*

Being funny is more difficult of late because it’s A Tough Time For Clowns. But while my comedy open mics of late may not be as well attended as I’d like, I’m still spending plenty of time gaming. Been playing more Innovation, which remains one of my favorite games ever, and have some new reviews up for games like Agricola: Family Edition and Edo. Video-game-wise, I’ve gotten back into Warframe, a free to play robot ninja game I used to play 2 years ago before quitting due to rampant connection issues. But the connection seems to be better, and the game makes you feel like a badass, which is a pleasant quality**.

Winter seems to be arriving with a vengeance. We’ve already had snow, and it’s not even November. I should probably stock up on instant miso soup.

*At the writing/editing, not at the house. Although I guess technically I moved into the house in 2003 and out in 2016, so I have 13 years of experience with that house.

**Unless you’re attempting to be a good mule or something.