Steve Cole -- President of Amarillo Design Bureau, publishers of Star Fleet Battles -- just announced that ADB has inked a deal with Steve Jackson Games to use the GURPS engine in Prime Directive 2, the SFB role-playing game. This is important for a couple of reasons. One, it's as close as we're going to get to GURPS Star Trek because the Star Trek license is too expensive and restrictive for SJG. Two, it's also the first non-GURPS RPG that will use the GURPS rules, a so-called "Powered by GURPS" license that maybe other companies will use.

The second point is significant because up until now, Steve Jackson has been relunctant to license GURPS to other companies. Well, it's not so much that as that the license restrictions are too onerous. Basically SJG would rather have control of production rather than the other way around. Hence why there haven't been any other GURPS RPGs and precious few third-party GURPS products. Maybe other small publishers will follow suit and license the GURPS engine for their games, moving GURPS closer and closer to TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION!!! Mu ha ha ha!!!

In particular this is important to me since most everything I own and collect has to be somehow tied to GURPS; with a few exceptions, Star Trek being one of them. Now I can move SFB to the category of Tier 1 GURPS Association, which means I'll have some rearranging to do as I need to move the SFB stuff to the Tier 1 closet. I'm so pathetic, and yet quite excited by the news...

I stepped on my glasses this morning (foolish of me to leave it on the floor) and bent the frame a bit. Was able to bend it back almost the same, but it sits on mt face a bit differently now. The problem is that I've been a bit dizzy all day as my brain adjusts to the new visual input. Kind of like getting a new prescription...

Once again my Angband character has died and I have to start again. Got him to character level 30 and dungeon level 27. Three artifacts, lots of stats and I was getting the hang of some of the new monsters. Then I get killed by a bunch of Air Hounds, which breath poison gas at you. I was in a big room sort of ignoring them and not paying attention to my hit points and the next you know I'm dead. Aargh!!! Back to a level 1 character...

The big question for the Sacramento Kings is whether Chris Webber will return to the team next season. They traded Jason Williams for Mike Bibby, gaining a more consistent point guard who will be expensive to resign next year when his contract expires. Now, whether a better team and more money and a great fan base is enough to convince Webber, or whether he will be lured to a bigger city or a team where he has good friends, that's the question.

In any case, even if Webber leaves the Kings have a good team. They picked up a good player with the 25th pick of the NBA draft, though the guy is only a college freshman so he has a lot of learning to do still. If they resign Doug Christie then they'll have a capable team, though not one that will have a chance in the playoffs. They'll still need a superstar if Webber is not around, someone you can build a team around since they're a couple of years away from being able to depend on Stojakovic and Turkoglu as their stars.

It's exciting to have a good team to root for. There will always be people who say that spectator sports are not worth the trouble. Nowadays you have to practically build them a stadium and subsidize them because most teams are not really money-making machines. But a good team gives a city pride and imbues a good self-image. Even a bad team can do the same if they're bad in the right way. To me it's all worth it. A hometown team is great, especially when you're home town is not famous for anything else...