Friday Unrelated Information

Taking (stealing) a cue from Better Living, I will reserve Friday posts for random bits of news, info, game talk, and stories that bear little or no relation to one another.

1. Warhammer 40,000 "Planetstrike". So GW came out with a new "expansion" for 40k, "Planetstrike", detailing invasions of planets from space. While that sounds awesome...I just don't know if it merits an entire new book. Also, and I might be wrong, I can't see there being a whole lot of new material in there. We already have drop pods, orbital bombardments, and deep-strike. Are there going to be rules for all sorts of *NEW* drop pods, orbital bombardments, and deep-striking? I guess I can see this sort of as the 40k version of Warhammer Fantasy castle sieges. Which are cool. But I'll bet there won't be, say, cauldrons of boiling oil for your Marines to pour down on the invading Tau. If they are going to put out this product, I would hope for it to have detailed rules/scenarios for sieges, boarding actions on enemy ships, amphibious assaults from the oceans, etc. We'll see.

2. Peoples' Market is in the lead! Apparently, someone nominated the Peoples' Market for a "Nickelodeon Parents' Pick Award" (I am assuming some parent). Now, anyone can vote online for best farmers market in salt lake city...and Peoples' Market has currently edged out the behemoth Downtown Farmers Market for the #1 spot! We're ahead 36% to 32%. So come on, you one or two people who read this, click the link and vote for Peoples' Market! You can vote multiple times; once per day.

3. North Temple / TRAX Community Planning. Last night I attended a "community planning workshop" addressing the TRAX line going in on the the west end of North Temple street going out to the airport. The Mayor and his crew have expressed their desire to turn this stretch of North Temple, home to the power plant, trailer parks, the famed Red Iguana, and some blight, into a "Grand Boulevard". So there we probably about 200 people in attendance, some of whom I knew (thank God), and we listened to different people talk about the TRAX project. It is expected to open late 2011 or early 2012 if I am remembering correctly. Then, we broke up into dozens of little "work groups", where we actually drew on nice big maps of the street what we would like to see. I was pushing for lots of greenspace, community gardens, a community supported agriculture urban farm, and of course several large, impressive 5-15 story office/residential buildings. Let us expand downtown to the West, across I-15, only instead of the empty lots and surface parking that plague the current downtown zone, we'll have green space and parks and gardens and farms. Sounds good to me anyway.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend. I won't get any gaming in, although I will probably have some painting time.

Valentine, signing off.