The Matinee of Pain starts in about an hour and a half

At 1pm Central time, I’ll be watching … The Giant Spider Invasion. It’s good, right? It’s one of the ones you guys recommended, so I’m sure it’ll be terrific. The description says,

A black hole hits North Wisconsin and opens a door to other dimensions. Giant 15 meter spiders emerge from it, who have an appetite for human flesh! Dr. Jenny Langer and Dr. Vance from the NASA try to save the world.

Totally scientifically plausible, sure.

Well, not ever gonna play Fall Guys now

Fall Guys is a popular video game. I’m not much into video games, so I probably wasn’t going to play it anyway, but now this illustration of the hypothetical anatomy of the creatures in it has totally turned me off.

What is the jaw connected to?

I understand some of you are repelled by spiders, but they at least have a logical structure. This is the kind of content that sends my brain screaming into the void.

Big busy day today!

I just finished dumping a load of stuff on my cell biology students — the answer keys for a previous quiz and a set of practice problems, and most horrendous of all, another take-home exam that will be due Sunday night. Yes, I have just ruined their weekend. Class today is a review session, and an opportunity for them to get me to clarify anything on the exam they’re finding difficult to understand. That’s my struggle today, and theirs for the next few days.

My weekend is going to be spent wrangling our grand fundraiser, the Carnival of Curiosity, which starts this evening. I’m still quarantined for another week, so it’s not like I have anything else I can do. Take a look at the schedule!

Tonight, 5pm PT-8pm ET, 1am BST, we’re doing introductions of people on the West side of the Atlantic. Meet some of our bloggers! Ask questions!

Because that’s a ridiculous hour for everyone East of the Atlantic, we’ll resume at 7am PT-10am ET, 3pm BST. Same thing! Meet the bloggers and socialize!

This is a fundraiser, so please do donate to our various buckets we’re putting out on the sidewalk.

It is an optional donation, though, so please do stop by even if your pockets are empty (no one can blame you in this particular moment in history). We’re also hoping to expose you to the breadth of cool authors here on FtB, so just having any audience at all is a win for us.

Halloween cancelled!

Bad news, everyone: Minnesota has cancelled Halloween.

Like many things in the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Halloween might have to be virtual this year — or at least celebrated at a safe distance.

That’s the recommendation from the Minnesota Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

What’s out? Trick-or-treating, Halloween parties and haunted houses are all considered high risk by health officials.

This virus is ruining everything.

You call them monsters?

Someone sent me a link to this page about using spiders in Dungeons & Dragons…as monsters. I am offended!

That’s right those creepy crawly bitey little buggers with all the legs and all the eyes. I hate them IRL [OFFENDED!], and will terminate any that cross over the agreed upon barrier into my home [<gasp> OFFENDED!]. Its a feeling alot of folks the world over share and that is easily exploited for your tabletop game. Which I suggest doing. Its amazing. So here we go – using spiders to torture your players in the best and most memorable ways.

First we have to establish a few things, the biggest of which are the types of spiders found in the game that can be used. Most people assume we mean either the tiny version or the giant version. There is however so~ many spiders that are all canon in 5e so don’t be afraid to mix and match them up to create more diverse encounters. For this blog we will just be talking about spiders not Drieders or spider demons, though I think those are also great things to add to the mix to spice it up. Below is just a quick list of those that can be found in the books. These are create starting points for an easy mix up to the normal spider.

  • Spider Swarm
  • Spider
  • Giant Spider
  • Giant Wolf Spider
  • Phase Spider

All right, if ever I were a Dungeon Master, first thing I’d do is replace all the player character races with that list. That’ll torture the players! Then I’d expand the list with more species of arachnids, and replace the Monster Manual with the Player’s Handbook.

And the test results are in!

No COVID-19 detected!

COVID-19/SARS-CoV, PCR
Undetected
SARS-CoV-2 RNA absent. This result does not rule out
COVID-19 in the patient, as the sensitivity of the test
depends on the timing of the specimen collection and
quality of the specimen. Result should be correlated with
patient’s history and clinical presentation.

I have been a very good boy about masking up and avoiding people, and I will continue to do so.

Meanwhile, at the Twin Cities branch campus of the University of Minnesota…

You would hope that the bright young minds attending an excellent university would be smarter than this, but apparently there was an opportunity to party in a courtyard at the university, so everyone shed their masks and abandoned all pretense of social distancing to mill about and swap viruses.

I guess the campus police broke up the party (FASCISTS!) shortly after the photo was taken, but still…

I wonder if this kind of thing has anything to do with the Fall Surge in coronavirus cases we’re seeing?

How awkward

I got into the doctor’s office today. I was hoping for strep throat (what a thing to hope for!), and they ruled that out fast. Out came the inevitable COVID-19 test, and I got the stick up the nose and my olfactory lobe scrambled, and that’s being sent off for testing, which will take a few days.

Then, surprise surprise, the doctor informs me that while my test results are pending, I’m quarantined! And I’m supposed to teach a lab tomorrow! Frantic backtracking and trying to figure out alternatives ensues.

I really, really wanted this to be strep. I could clear that up pretty quickly.

Getting worse!

This throat thing I’ve got made for an unpleasant weekend, and this morning I woke up with a mild headache and fatigue on top of a grisly meat tube that is oozing slime and sending rude signals to my brain. It better have cleared up by this weekend, and I’ve got enough of a challenge in having to give a one hour lecture this afternoon with a voice that wobbles in and out of the void.

I’m hoping to go in and get tested for the ‘rona this morning, just to get that possibility out of my mind. Also, Mary wants me to do a salt water gargle. This does not sound fun.