A few weeks ago, I got to try a demo of Epic, and I was rather impressed. It looks like a fun and interesting game. I’m going to be judging at the $5000 tournament this Saturday.

There’s an article in today’s Telegram about town moderators.

Charter apparently just added WSBK-DT (channel 38, in digital form) to their wires, meaning that I can now view high-definition Jeopardy without needing to add a UHF antenna as big as a cell tower to my house. It’s not on the lineup on their web site or on TV listings services yet, but it’s on the wire at clear-QAM 114-10. Presumably their cable boxes will map that to 788, but since I don’t use a cable box, I care about the actual frequency that the digital stream is on.

Has anybody heard of or played Epic?

“There are 10¹¹ stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.” — Richard Feynman

“It is almost like a breakup via Facebook.” — Tom Ogden, on how Konover Associates has dealt with the town after deciding not to go through with the project for a large shopping center in Charlton, as quoted in this week’s Charlton Villager (7.5MB PDF, p. 9).

Today’s Telegram & Gazette reports that a business wants to move into the Southbridge Industrial Park, and wants the access road completed as soon as possible. The access road they’re referring to is the one from Rte. 169 (not going near our land), and has a pending appeal to MassDEP that may be resolved within the month.

Best case for us would be that the appeal causes the people wanting the access road to consider the alternative that comes from Rte. 20 and through our land. I find that scenario unlikely, but one can always hope.

• On Saturday, we went to TJ Collectibles for the Prerelease. I say “we” as Jessi and Hannah came along, and Jessi got to play Magic for the first time since Hannah was born. Wizards changed how prereleases work significantly starting a few months ago, so that the focus of prereleases is on local stores rather than large convention-like events. While I appreciate their efforts at constantly bringing players into local stores, prereleases used to be the main chance for all of the TJ’s judges to get together, whereas now we’re all apart at various places, and I was basically alone for most of the event. And when your event only has 20 players, there’s really little need for more than one judge.
• When we left for church on Sunday morning, my car didn’t want to leave. Pressing the accelerator caused the engine to rev, but the wheels didn’t turn. It works in Reverse, 1st, and 2nd gears, but not in 3rd or Drive. It seemed rather sudden, as it worked fine on Saturday, but seemed to break overnight. My dad managed for me to borrow my grandmother’s car for a few days so that I could get to the Rising Phoenix prerelease and to work for a few days while the car gets looked at. It may end up being that the car will cost more to fix than it’s worth, though.
• While I did get to Rising Phoenix to run their prerelease, the event was a bit of a disappointment. Only 4 players showed up, and we needed 8 in order to run the event.

• Apparently, the newspaper got it wrong that Mr. Singer would attempt to appoint a successor for Town Moderator if he were elected to the Board of Selectmen. It’s still not clear to me who would. The Board of Selectmen would be a possibility, although I would think that it could be Town Meeting. However, it’s possible that the Town Meeting has delegated that authority to the Board of Selectmen via their annual vote to let them fill appointments. But Mr. Singer would need to get elected, first, anyway.
• Making the Selectmen’s race more interesting is that there’s a Bay Path senior who plans on running.
• I’ve basically gotten the custodian of Jessi’s former 457 plan to admit that they gave us an incorrect 1099-R, but that they won’t send a corrected one. I may call the IRS and try to get them involved in correcting the situation.
• I made enough money judging last year that I’m claiming it on my taxes. I hope they accept my assertion that it’s “hobby income” and not “self-employment income” and thus not subject to self-employment tax. Especially as I consider it a hobby and not employment.
• I’ll be judging this weekend at the Conflux prerelease, on Saturday at TJ Collectibles and on Sunday at Rising Phoenix Games.