When I was in the 5th grade, I invented a turn-based pen&paper game based on what I’d read of the Tunnels of Củ Chi during the Vietnam war. Both players would draw their own tunnel system on graphpaper, complete with booby traps, guard sentries etc. and when you were satisfied with your tunnel network, the game began. Basically you played an American tunnelrat armed only with a revolver and a crookneck flashlight. The batteries in your flashlight were quick to die so the rule was that the Vietcong had to stash weapon/supply caches. Of course you needed the flashlight to advance through the tunnel system safety. A sheet of paper covered the tunnel system map and you revealed a little bit each turn. Needless to say, the G.I. always lost, usually falling to his death (punji stick pit, topped off with snakes and excrement).
I also invented a tank game that was sort of like Scorched Earth meets Battleship. I had one paper that showed all the different ammunition you could buy and the damage radius each would cause. They also dealt damage in different ways; some were perfect circle radius blasts, others were a hail of artillery that pockmarked the battlefield. Your tank could only carry so much so you had to choose wisely. You’d plot where all your tanks would be on your island and so would you opponent; separated by a bridge and ocean. You’d take turns flicking your pencil in an arc to see if you’d hit your target or not. There were different armor classes.
Broadsword next to the Wells Fargo ATM. Wanted to grab it and swing it around Conan the Barbarian style, but decided against it as it’s probably haunted. Also, cameras. (Taken with instagram)
Was really racking my brain trying to figure out what the supervillain collective was called. Finally caved in and called my friend, who subsequently asked his boss, who successfully Googled the answer. LEGION OF DOOM!
Pictured are the most sinister villains to grace the tv screen including Braniac, Bizarro, Lex Luthor, Sinestro, Giganta, Cheetah, Solomon Grundy, Grodd, Toy Man, Captain Cold, Scarecrow, the Riddler, and Black Manta.
A newly translated Russian novel retells Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" from the perspective of the bad guys 
In Yeskov’s retelling, the wizard Gandalf is a war-monger intent on crushing the scientific and technological initiative of Mordor and its southern allies because science “destroys the harmony of the world and dries up the souls of men!” He’s in cahoots with the elves, who aim to become “masters of the world,” and turn Middle-earth into a “bad copy” of their magical homeland across the sea. Barad-dur, also known as the Dark Tower and Sauron’s citadel, is, by contrast, described as “that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic.” Because Gandalf refers to Mordor as the “Evil Empire” and is accused of crafting a “Final Solution to the Mordorian problem” by rival wizard Saruman, he obviously serves as an avatar for Russia’s 20th-century foes. But the juxtaposition of the willfully feudal and backward “West,” happy with “picking lice in its log ‘castles’” while Mordor cultivates learning and embraces change, also recalls the clash between Europe in the early Middle Ages and the more sophisticated and learned Muslim empires to the east and south. Sauron passes a “universal literacy law,” while the shield maiden Eowyn has been raised illiterate, “like most of Rohan’s elite” — good guys Tolkien based on his beloved Anglo-Saxons. The protagonist of “The Last Ringbearer” is a field medic from Umbar (a southern land), who is ably assisted by an Orocuen — that is, orc — scout, who is not a demonic creature like the orcs in “The Lord of the Rings,” but an ordinary man. They’re given the task of destroying a mirror in the elf stronghold of Lorien before the elves can further use it to infect Middle-earth with their alien magic. Meanwhile, the remnants of Mordor’s civilization fight a rear-guard guerrilla campaign to sustain the “green shoots of reason and progress,” in opposition to the “static” and “tidy” pseudo-paradise of Middle-earth under the elven regime.
“Magic user baby, wut” (Editor’s note: Yesteryear’s DnD players grow up to become creative directors. Ask me how I know.)
You know the first time you fall in love? and you feel all those things you’ve never felt before? That’s the peak of a wave. When you break up, it feels awful and you think you’ll never love again. But you do and maybe its even better than the first time. So your dynamic range grows again, but it grows in both directions so you have more risk.
More to lose, but more to love.
