Tho I have to say - reading the other suggestions - a live taped recording of Radio Free Burrito would be the awesomest. Oh Em Gee. I really truly having new episodes of RFB... a sad effect of you being very busy with your other 8 careers (kinda like Kirk in Gilmore Girls except that you're good at what you do)

I heard you read this at Gencon year before last, and it's absolutely one of my favourite stories - its the one about how you and Anne play scrabble. And I love this because my fiancee is nerd-adjacent as well, but usuall when we go head to head in a game, she beats me. Whether it's Boonanza, or Carcasonne, or even the one time I got her to play Battletech with me. It's a great story.

I was at GenCon - went to your panel, bought Chapbook #128 and had a book signed for my friend - but I think the best part for me was giving you that dice at the end.

Wil, I hate to say it.. but I think a solution to your problem may be Ubuntu. I'm also going through writer brain at the moment - the final project of my masters is due this friday (well not really, but I have family here from NZ and... I'm going to GENCON and playing Battletech for four days straight....) Anyways. I know what you're going through - I'm having major issues with my paper :S

I'm listening to RFB 24... did you ever get into Battletech? I find the same things about Battletech that you say about W40K. My friends and I do nerdy things with our minis - like painting companies to look like xmen etc.

Wil, this is an awesome post. I used to play DnD 3.5 in the RPGA Living Greyhawk stuff at my old university, but since LFR came out, and I've started my MA I've run out of time for DnD. I do however play a TON of battletech. While having a ton of models is cool, sometimes I play using megamek, or for tabletop just using slips of paper to mark what kind of mechs I have. It's alot of good fun, with every roll of the D6 giving me D4+1 to my Geek HP. I'm glad people mentioned settlers - At Guelph we used to combine Settlers, Cities and Knights and Seafarers- and play for 18 points or so. Took 4 hours, but it was a ton of fun. One game I don't think anybody's mentioned is Apples to Apples - it's a great party game - it's a word association game- each player has a series of cards in the hands with nouns, and each turn you have to associate it with an adjective, and the judge changes every time. With my friends it usually devolves into who has the biggest + to terrible human being, but it's alot of fun. It's a great party game because it can go on for hours and hours without repeating - first time I played we had 15 people going for over two hours before we moved on. Great game.