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In my ongoing quest to discover new and fun ways to make my new D&D 4E campaign run as smoothly as possible, I've run the range from amazing free fan-made supplements to store-bought purchases from my FLGS

After investing a little hard-earned scratch on some of these fun toys, I've found a few products that have a permanent place at our gaming table. After just a single session with some of these things, I realized that I'd never go back to playing without 'em.

Check out Geekdad for the full article.

(Miniatures photo credit to infelix)

Posted by Michael Harrison at 2:36 PM |
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Nice, simple, one page.

Memo Graphic Design Firm

Posted by Michael Harrison at 10:31 AM |
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Spring has sprung for most of the country, and here in North Carolina, that means it's time for camping. Time to pull the tents and backpacks out of the attic, dust them off and air them out. And since Father's Day is only a month away, it means dropping hints so that you can weigh your pack down with the coolest new camping gadgets available.

Let's look at some great additions to any outdoors-geek's arsenal, and some toys to help introduce kids to the art of the bivouac.

• Black Diamond Wiz Headlamps. What kid doesn't want a headlamp? These are safe, they have an automatic shut-off to save battery power, and they come in kid-friendly color palettes. Finding your way to the toilet in the middle of the night is so much easier when your light source is hands-free.
• SolLight Water Bottle. If you're hiking in to your campsite, you want your load to be as light as possible. Multi-taskers are key, and the SolLight Bottle has a built-in, solar-powered LED Light. It lasts for twelve hours with four hours of solar charge, which means that any geeklets that might be afraid of the dark don't have to worry about draining the batteries in their headlamp.
• Garmin Colorado 400C Handheld GPS. It's a little pricey, sure, but it has everything that a hiker might need in a GPS: topo maps, aerial photography, U.S. marine charts, 65K color display, compass, altimeter, thermometer, and ANT. It's marketed to the marine crowd, but would surely come just as handy on a long hike as it would on the open sea.
• Swiss-Spice Salt and Pepper Dispenser. When we go camping, part of the fun is coming up with new and tasty recipes that can be prepared at the campfire. With a little salt and pepper (and the thrill of eating by a campfire), that freeze-dried beef stroganoff will be one of the best meals you've ever tasted.
• Swiss Army Knife. Say what you will about Leathermans (Leathermen?), when I was a Boy Scout, Swiss Army knives were our tools of choice. Through Father's Day, Amazon is having a sale on Victorinox Swiss Army products. $10 off a $50 Swiss Army purchase, so get a matching pair for you and the geeklet... but only if they've got their Whittling Chip, of course.

What tools are in your pack? Which toys are you looking forward to trying out for the first time this Father's Day? Leave a comment.

Posted by Michael Harrison at 11:04 AM |
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This is mainly a list for myself, so I know what to download the next time I need to reformat. I'll be adding to this, I'm sure.

• Perian: Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats.

Posted by Michael Harrison at 9:34 PM |
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Gag me with a (disposable) spoon.

Posted by Michael Harrison at 10:11 AM |
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Fantastic talk by Michael Pollan, the author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.

Direct link to YouTube

Posted by Michael Harrison at 8:28 PM |
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Children's literature is big business these days. Just go to any mega-chain bookstore and check out the square footage devoted to the kids. It's fantastic that there are so many options for young readers, but the popularity of children's literature is hardly a new phenomenon.

The bookn3rd blog, which focuses on book history, has some great links and commentary for rare children's book scans from the early 20th century. My favorite is Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book For Girls & Boys, from 1893. The color plates (see the thumbnail to the right) by noted illustrator Walter Crane are absolutely amazing.

Rare Children's Books at the Library of Congress (from bookn3rd.com)

Also see: Children's Book Online: The Rosetta Project

Cross-posted from Geekdad

Posted by Michael Harrison at 12:15 PM |
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