Christmas Update

   I'm presently enjoying a quiet Christmas here at home watching John Wick 3. The first wave of the Dice of Death & Dismemberment (DoD&D) Kickstarter arrived a while back as did the Triple Hex Dice. The original base set the DoD&D had two torso dice and no arm die. I informed the seller and they said they'd correct matters. I thought they would send out the missing die and I would send back the extra torso die. Instead, they sent me two arm dice, a head and a leg die. Now I have two basic sets of DoD&D along with a complete set of stretch goal dice. The second wave is due to be sent out in February.

  The Triple Hex dice sets cover the entire RPG dice range. The d100 Hex Die is just a d100. It came with two identical sets of dice disks along with extra washers. The other two Hex Dice sets have interchangeable dice disks. What dice disks you put inside the frame depends on what die you want to roll. Both of them also came with extra dice disks and washers.

  I've finalized my Orbidice order. I went with a Forge Engine Steampunk RPG set with an Orbitray dice tower. The GoDice pre-production has happened. Some issues were discovered and need to be ironed out before mass production can begin. That being said, progress is being made. The Free Man Game, based on The Prisoner British TV series, is being printed and should be mailed out soon.

  I ran a Chi-squared test on my d4 and d6 Hexacubes. Both passed easily. I won't bore you with a complete layout of the data. At some point, I'll likely test the other dice and see how well they perform. From what James tells me, the d10 and d12 have the least amount of redundancy but both should still perform better than a standard d10 and d12.

  It's one week until New Year's Day. I have New Year's Eve and New Year's Day off. I'm hoping to spend that time playing boardgames with my friends over at Glenn's house but I haven't heard anything yet.

  I'm still working closing shifts at work. Hopefully, they'll hire more people and I'll go back to earlier shifts. All the standing I do at work is hard on my legs. I sometimes get pains behind my right knee. I've been filling out the pension documents the union has been sending me. I'm not sure if I can get my pension now or not. It says that I can receive my pension at either 60, 62 or 65 depending on the plan. I'll have to call the pension office and get some questions answered before I can proceed.

Finally

   My federal refund has finally arrived. It, combined with some money from my Health Savings Account, was used to pay off my bill with Aurora. I no longer own any money to either Aurora or Ascension. To celebrate, I purchased 20 3D printed plastic gates for Cthulhu Wars off of eBay. I've also added the Dreamlands Surface and Underground monster expansions from The Game Steward to my order.

  I've backed a card game called Intel on Kickstarter and plan to back the Orbidice Kickstarter as soon as it starts. Orbidice are spherical dice that have a specially shaped hollow cavity inside. A small metal ball is inside the cavity. The metal ball slows the Orbidice down when you roll it and eventually falls into a pocket of the cavity in order to determine the result of the roll. I want to get a standard 7 Orbidice RPG set plus an Orbidice tower that looks like a curved, circular track with a basin at the bottom. You place the Orbidice in the track and let it roll into the basin. Simple.

  Now that my medical bills are fully paid off, I need to pay down my credit card. I'm getting WAY too close to my limit. I might try to use the two paychecks from the middle of the month to pay it down faster. I won't be going to Gen Con this year. If my finances improve between now and next year, I'll consider going in 2022.