Cohost of the TransMissions Podcast. Writer, Blogger, Musician.
Wizards of the Coast recently posted three videos about 5 Dungeon Masters located either in Seattle or New York. The following videos are from that page. I like to post videos about Dungeons & Dragons because I think it helps people who have not played the game get a better idea of what all the fuss is about. So enjoy!
Yesterday I was looking at the Wizards of the Cost website and discover a new link “New To D&D Videos“. They have a great YouTube video on that page called “Introduction to D&D”. It is one of the better videos for people who are just learning about Dungeons & Dragons. So if your new to D&D, have never played, or just want to understand why i keep writing about it on my site here, Take a minute and watch this video. Hopefully it will answer some questions.
To Be Continued…
I have no clue what the HELL came over me or what possessed me to do this. I feel like I had a real ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind‘ moment. You know the scene where Richard Dreyfuss is eating diner with his family, and he uncontrollably starts sculpting the Devils Tower from his mashed potatoes? That’s how I felt! I just saw these two Apple iPod Touch boxes lying around and I uncontrollably starting building a dice tower out of them with a rubber band, an exact-o knife, and some super glue. It took me about 45 minutes.
I have had dice towers on my mind. They seem like a good idea and a sure fire way to increase the randomness of ones dice roll.
After building the iPod Dice Tower and showing it to my weekly Dungeons and Dragons group, the response was not what I hoped for. Everyone seemed very impressed for the first round of game play, but after that everyone switched back to just rolling their dice on the game table.
Here is how you can make an iPod Touch Box Dice Tower
1.) You need to iPod Touch boxes. Not just a top and a bottom but two complete boxes. You will also need an exact-o knife (modeling knife) and Super Glue
2.) You can see how the top iPod Touch box holds the bottom iPod Touch box insides it’s self. The bottom of the box has a layer of foam attached to it which makes for a soft landing for your dice.
3.) Next we are going to be prepping the hard plastic case that held the iPod Touch still in the it’s box.
4.) Being very careful with the knife your going to want to cut the top 3rd of the plastic case off. This will be used as one of the “Shelfs” that the dice will bounce off inside your iPod dice tower.
5.) Here you can see how I have attached the 2 cut off sections of the plastic case and super glued them inside the bottoms of 2 the iPod Touch boxes. One close tot he top and one close to the bottom.
6.) Carefully using the exact-o knife I cut out a square on the top of the box. I also cut and exit hole on the bottom of the same box. Here I am using a rubber band to hold the to bottom boxes together and placed them inside the top of the foam filled iPod Box
7.) Using super glue I attached the last 3rd of the plastic case to the top of the new iPod Dice tower. The whole in the plastic case just happens to the right size for a standard set of gaming dice.
I often find myself thinking about how things could be improved in the world. How to make life easier, and more time efficient. Let me give you an example.
Have you ever been in a public restroom having to look under each stall to find an empty one? Why don’t they put the little “occupied” or “not occupied” sign on the door handle of public restrooms like they do on air planes? You lock the door be hind you and the sign switches from un-occupied to occupied. It just seems like it would make sense and save time doing it that way.
ATMs are kind of the same way. Up until I switched to my latest bank, just about every ATM I have ever used spits your money out before giving you your card back. I can’t tell you how often I have walked away from an ATM after taking my money and realizing all to late that I forgot my ATM card. My latest bank spits out the ATM card before the money. I am not going to leave an ATM with out my money. That’s why I went there in the first place. But I will leave without my card because that is not where my mind is.
The paper block is just that, a block of scratch paper that you can terror off. Like a 3M sticky note, but no sticky side. Just paper. The paper block has become a key part of my GTD dump process. Someone storms into my office with something for me to do while I am already working on a project. I jott it down on my paper block, rip of the page and put it in my inbox. Then continue on what I was originally working on. Someone calls while I am in the middle of an office memo e-mail, I write it down on my paper block, rip it off and put it in my inbox.
I find it so much better then using sticky notes. It’s so simple and easy.