A Rough Draft for a Gamma World Character Sheet

I was really unhappy with the character sheet included in the new Gamma World game. The new Gamma World is clearly attempting to dummy down a RPG into something that is more akin to a board game, and I support that. However, in their effort to make the game seem easy, they made a character sheet that just doesn’t have room for enough information on it. So I threw this one together. It’s a rough draft right now, because I don’t have time to clean it up until I get back in town from Texas for Christmas. Oh yea, and I’m getting married on New Year’s Eve as well.

Anyway, if anyone’s interesting in evaluation this rough draft character sheet and providing me with any suggestions, feel free to leave comments.

Here’s the sheet.

Sicko Banned in Cuba for Being Misleading

Ok, this is pretty damn funny. Michael Moore’s movie, “Sicko”, was banned in Cuba. I’ve never seen the movie, but apparently it depicts the horrors of American “for profit” healthcare versus socialist healthcare systems in the countries of Cuba, France, and the UK.

Apparently he chose to showcase the best healthcare Cuba had to offer, which is actually not available to just anyone. Instead, you need to be, I’m guessing, fairly well connected in the Communist Party to visit the hospital showcased in Michael Moore’s movie. In fact, the Cubans banned the movie “Sicko” in their country because they feared a popular backlash if the average citizens saw what the level of care to which the privileged were entitled. You can read about it for yourself in the Guardian UK story.

And we know all of this thanks to Wikileaks, which I feel is doing a service to citizens everywhere. For one, it shows you once again how Communist governments manage their citizenry, and secondly it shows you how dishonest Michael Moore was in trying to mislead people in the name of Socialism.

How to Apportion a Larger Portfolio

My brother called a couple of days ago. His wife has $100,000 to invest and he wanted to know where I thought I should put it. I’ve made recommendations in the past and they’ve always made money; which I feel puts a bit of pressure on me because each time I feel I’ve got to live up to my own record.

It’s also tough because the investment market is so screwed up with the recent actions of the Federal Reserve. In the 1800s, investing was pretty simple, you just put your money in bonds and forgot about it. Since consumer prices went down for most of the 1800s (with the notable exception being the war-time inflation of the Greenback fueled Civil War) the return you received on bonds would be in addition to the additional purchasing power the money itself possessed. Few people invested in the stock market in those days; it was seen as a shady place where individuals like Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Nathan Rothschild could use their deep pockets and insider information to force a stock price to be whatever suited them at the time. A stock exchange was more casino than sober investment house. Bonds were where the common man should put his money.

Of course, the advent of the Federal Reserve changed all that. Continue reading How to Apportion a Larger Portfolio