Fucking implausible, man, fucking implausible…

Anyway, woot! Issue #2 of the Shady Dealer is out, and awesome, and available at http://shadydealer.rh.uchicago.edu . It’s truly a work of genius. And I only had to print, collate, and staple the first 300 copies myself. But we seem to have found a way to get free printing, though it is of… debatable… legitimacy. Wheee!

And in the process of delivering some of our copies, I got into a game of Mao. Mao is an incredible game, the rules of which I cannot possibly reveal. Especially not Darwin Fish. Except to say that Darwin Fish is meta-Mao.

Speaking of fish, Zach and I recently delivered a headless rubber fish to a member of a competing publication, with whom we have been having a bit of a spat. Some of our overzealous writers started putting the Dealer in the Chicago Weekly, and feathers were ruffled, but it seems mostly worked out now.

Oh, what a year. Now that I have a brief period without work, there is a distinct temptation to become retrospective. It’s been an amazing year. In the broad sense, I have no regrets. Fucking implausible year, though. Not actually bad overall, but frustrating at times, in a way that combines frustrating with absolutely incredibly fantastic. Yeah. So my themes are “fucking implausible” and “frustratingly fantastic.” But that’s the way it goes. But emphasis on fantastic: Shady Dealer, ScavHunt, Fencing team, dozens of crazy incidents which I’ve related here, and so forth. And some incredible friends. I’m just not sure I could explain how it all happened this way. It just doesn't make sense. Then again, I usually don't either, on a matter of principle.

Also, further update: The Shins are pretty damn good.