Good Morning Campers!  Welcome to another edition of your favorite e-zine!  Or is it a blog?  Or something else entirely?  You know, that’s a really good question.  What exactly are we?  Well, we are a font of information, a plethora of laughter, a tidal wave of obfuscation, and damn great read at an excellent price.  So, without further ado, …

Dungeons and Dragons was invented 39 years ago, tomorrow…can you believe that?  I used to live for this game.  The group I was with on one of the bases I lived on at the time (no, I won’t mention the base, nor the people for fear that the statute of limitations may not be up yet.) would start playing Friday Night after work and usually stop playing sometime early Sunday morning.  We did that every weekend, except those that I had weekend duty.  We had a LOT of fun.

Here’s a little history about this great game.  Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy, role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and first published in 1974 by TSR (which I only recently found out stood for Tactical Studies Rules, Inc.)  The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997.  D&D has been widely regarded as the mother of all other modern RPGs and the entire RPG industry.
D&D departs from traditional war gaming and assigns each player a specific character to play instead of a military formation.  These characters embark upon imaginary adventures within a fantasy setting.  A Dungeon Master serves as the games referee, creator, storyteller, god and handles the role of most of the other people the characters may run into (called NPGs or Non-Player Characters).

The Player Characters form a party to interact with each other, these NPGs (anything from weapon-smith to drunken townsperson) and the Dungeon Master (DM) himself to solve problems, engage in battles, gather treasure, slay monsters, rescue damsels in distress, learn knowledge and anything else the devious DM can come up with.

In 1977, the game was split into two versions: the relatively rules-light game system of Dungeons & Dragons and the more structured, rules-heavy game system of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. AD&D 2nd Edition was published in 1989. In 2000, the original version of the game was discontinued and the AD&D version was renamed Dungeons & Dragons with the release of its 3rd edition. These rules formed the basis of the d20 System that is available under the Open Game License for use by other publishers. Dungeons & Dragons version 3.5 was released in June 2003, with a 4th edition in June 2008.

As of 2006, Dungeons & Dragons remained the best-known and best-selling role-playing game, with an estimated 20 million people having played the game and more than $1 billion in book and equipment sales. The game has been supplemented by many pre-made adventures as well as commercial campaign settings suitable for use by regular gaming groups. Dungeons & Dragons is known beyond the game for other D&D-branded products, references in popular culture and some of the controversies that have surrounded it, particularly a moral panic in the 1980s falsely linking it to Satanism and suicide. The game has won multiple awards and has been translated into many languages beyond the original English.

Even as youngsters, Impish Dragon and Lethal Leprechaun got in more than their fair share of trouble.  Usually with Lethal (seen here on the left) forcing Impish (the one with his ass hanging half out of the doggie door) into some sort of trouble.

One of the absolute worst things about this Sequestration and the subsequent furloughs is that I’ve had to give up my HBO and therefore my beloved Game of Thrones.  Sniff!  I know that I’ll eventually catch  up with them…someday…but it still hurts.  My plan, such that it is, is that next year, when things are (hopefully) back to normal, HBO usually shows all the previous seasons shows on HBO on demand prior to the start of the newest season.  At that time I will have the opportunity to watch the entire season at one time, all in a row.  It could be a Game of Thrones weekend! 

This was just sent to me by one of our stalwart contributors and Bill, I have to say…I could indeed see this happening to any one of us.  Anyone of us men, especially if the surveyor was a woman…

I  hate it when people forward bogus warnings…but this one is real, and it’s important. So please send this warning to everyone on your e-mail list:

If someone comes to your front door saying they are conducting a survey on deer ticks and asks you to take your clothes off and dance around with your arms up, DO NOT DO IT!! IT IS A SCAM; they only want to see you naked.

I wish I’d gotten this yesterday.

I feel so stupid now.

True story…how was I supposed to know he was talking about my license and registration?  Lethal?  Can you, um…. come bail me out?  Soon?  I know it’s only been a couple of days, but working on Dragon Laffs while in jail is really hard!

And yet another one from good old Bill.  Bill, buddy, I’m not sure what’s going on with you, but you need to take a deep breath and count to ten or something before you jump into these things with both feet…

 

Wow!  My kind of woman!  I’ll bet SHE plays Dungeons and Dragons!  Probably with real Dungeons and real Dragons.  I definitely volunteer for the role of the dragon!

 

There once was a sheriff who, no matter what the situation, always said, “It could have been worse” after viewing the scene of the crime. It drove his two deputies absolutely crazy.

One day, the two deputies in the Sheriff’s Office answered an emergency call at a farmhouse. When they walked in, they found the nude bodies of a man and a woman in the bedroom. They both had been shot to death. When the deputies went to the living room, they found the body of a man with a gun at his side.

“No doubt about it,” one deputy said to the other. “This was a double murder and suicide. This guy came home and found his wife in bed with somebody else and shot them both. Then he shot himself.”

“You’re right,” the other deputy replied. “Double murder and suicide. But I’ll bet you when the sheriff gets here, he’s going to say ‘It could have been worse’ as he always does!”

“No way. How could it be worse? There are three people in the house, and all of them have been shot to death. It couldn’t be worse. You’re on.” said the first deputy.

About that time, the old sheriff arrived at the scene. He walked into the bedroom and saw the two nude bodies. He then walked into the living room and saw the man on
the floor with the gun by his side. “No doubt about it,” the sheriff said, shaking his head. “It was a double murder and suicide. This guy came home and found his wife in bed with somebody else and shot them both. Then he shot himself.”

After hesitating for a moment, the old sheriff looked his deputies squarely in the eyes. “But, you know,” he said, “it could have been worse.”

The deputy who had lost the bet jumped up and shouted, “Sheriff, how could it have been worse? There are three people in this farmhouse, and all three of them are dead. It couldn’t have been worse!!”

“Yes it could,” the sheriff retorted. “You see that guy there on the floor? If he had come home yesterday, that would be me in there in that bed!”

After being there awhile, he got into the habit of taking his two animal companions to the beach every evening to watch the sunset. One particular evening, the sky was a fiery red with beautiful cirrus clouds. The breeze was warm and gentle – a perfect night for romance.

As they sat there, the sheep started looking better and better to the lonely man. Soon, he leaned over to the sheep and put his arm around it.

But the sheepdog, ever protective of the sheep, growled fiercely until the man took his arm from around the sheep. After that, the three of them continued to enjoy the sunsets together, but there was no more cuddling.

A few weeks passed by and lo and behold, there was another shipwreck. The only survivor was Nancy Pelosi.

Nancy batted her eyelashes and asked if there was anything she could do for him.

He said, “take the dog for a walk.”

Okay, I’ve got to jump in here and say something…I just read that John Kerry declared that he will donate 5% of his Secretary of State salary to charity as a sacrifice for the sequester budget cuts.  What the hell is it with all these damn politicians giving up 5% of their 3 or 4 hundred thousand dollar a year salaries when they are bloody well taking 20% of my $49,000 salary!  Not even counting the overtime that I am no longer allowed to draw.  I have to work the weekend and just adjust my schedule to take additional time off during the week.  Gee, you can’t spend time with your family because we are going to make you work the weekend, but we’re not going to pay you anything special for it.  Plus we’re taking 20% of your regular pay.  Well, Mr. and Mrs. Politician giving up 5% of their huge paycheck, I would just like to say:

 

 

Check out the bling on these guys!!!

North Korean officers… Could be easily defeated with a giant magnet…

 

Since I’m working the whole weekend, I thought we’d finish out today’s issue with some laffs.  Goodness knows I’ll need them when I’m at work, wondering what in the world I’m doing there on the weekend… so let’s wrap it up.

Funny and sad at the same time?  Yup!

That’s it for today my friends.  Have a great weekend and remember to keep those cards and letters coming.