I like my job and my life here, but the biggest downside is definitely the hours. While I appreciate being able to sleep as late as I need to in order to have energy during the day, as far as energy after work, there’s very little left. I get home around 9:30, and by the time I get changed, make and eat dinner, and begin to unwind it’s already 10:30… and while it’s physically possible to squeeze in a half hour or so of painting every now and then, it’s not possible to find the inspiration to start something new in such a small time window.

I’ve been working on one painting since January — and actually I haven’t worked on it very much since January. I can take solace in the fact that it’s a lot more complex than many of my other paintings, but honestly it’s mostly been an energy thing. These months have been a lot busier than before New Year’s.

Complaining won’t help of course, but sometimes you need to put your thoughts into writing before you get off your ass to do something about it.

“May a ninja use a gnome battle cloak without penalty, or will they still lose their AC bonuses?”

This was the latest question posted on Wizards of the Coast’s D&D article “Ask Wizards,” and it represents everything that is wrong with D&D and fantasy gaming these days. What is fantastic about Fantasy when everything becomes common? Does the fact that this question made it to Sage Advice mean that enough people asked this question that they felt they had to answer it? If so, I weep for the future of the entire fantasy genre.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine to game like this, and if you really like to merge every single fantasy element ever invented into one big cartoon world, that’s fine. But that shouldn’t be the standard of fantasy. The whole reason that fantasy is enjoyable is the element wonder that springs out of the ordinary world. When there is no ordinary world, and when everything fantastic has become mundane, you don’t have Fantasy anymore…