Brenlo’s World

As Grimwell mentioned on his esteemed blog, we did indeed get together this weekend for some board game fun.  It was a grand time.  We played games until well after midnight and I am pretty sure they continued after we left.  What Grimwell failed to mention is that I stayed up, for all but 2 hours the night prior, preparing food for our gathering.  I was up pretty much all night cooking pulled pork on my Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker.  I started the pork shoulder at midnight and at 8AM added 3 racks of ribs, all of which I smoked to near perfection (okay not even close but they were good) with passion, spice and patience.  But I digress.

Recently, during a trip to the Bay Area, I was introduced to the fun of smoking BBQ.  My brother treated us to a variety smokey BBQ goodness over the weekend and stirred my passion for good BBQ.  After returning, my Wife and I decided to invest in a smoker of our own.  I did some research on the old interweb thingy and decided on a Weber Smoky Mountain Cooker. 

Now here is where I get to the point of my rambling, I chose this smoker not for its value, nor its rave reviews (which it actually has a few).  I chose this smoker because of its community.

As I visited store page after store page and perused the listings of endless smokers, I stumbled across a little gem of a website, tucked away amongst all the retail and marketing links you inevitably find.  I found The Virtual Weber Bullet.  A fan site of the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker, complete with forums, how to videos even links to items for the smoker discounted at Amazon.com.  I dove into their forums, reading everything from recipes, to critiques, competitions and gatherings and even a New Smoker welcome forum  with tips.  I quickly became a fan.

Working with communities, I am used to seeing communities pop up over all kinds of similar interests and yet still I am often surprised to find little communities nestled away in relative obscurity.  Anytime some folks get together with a common interest, it can grow into a community. 

I often hear colleagues say that Community Relations professionals build communities.  I disagree, communities build themselves.  Passionate people coming together form communities.  Passion, spice and patience help to grow them.  Often we simply need to stay out of the way. 

Damn the ribs and pulled pork were good.  You should have mentioned them Grimwell. I stayed up all freaking night smoking them for you.  =)  But I will make sure to give him lots of crap in person, the next time our little community gets together to play games. 

Well said Coyote. . . Well said.

Ashlanne keeps nagging, update your blog.  So bleh, here is an update.  To keep up with the times and act as though I have not been out of touch, I will jump on the bandwagon and put up a picture of my workspace, which seems to be all the rage.  Yes that is a Mister Potato Head on my desk. . .

*update* Apparently this was not enough for Ashlanne.

Here I sit in my office, without the sweet aroma of the processed, steeped coffee bean wafting lazily from an oversized mug, begging me to embrace it and free its potential.  It is sad really.  Now I can make my own coffee but I must admit I am a but spoiled.  At home, my wife makes my coffee.  She knows the correct amount of creamer and sweetener and each every cup is like liquid utopia.  This past weekend, I attempted to make my own coffee, somehow I did not put a piece in the Mr. Coffee in the correct manner and we had coffee all over the kitchen floor and counter.  My hope had been to bring my wife a cup of steaming ambrosia on the morning of her birthday as a gesture of affection and gratitude for all of the mornings I awaken to the scent of heaven.  Instead, she helped me mop up the mess.   It was a pleasant start to her birthday.  I am now banned from using Mr. Coffee

 Work is much the same, Ashlanne is a coffee artist.  She prepares my coffee with flair and pinache and I savor each cup as though it were the last drops of pure spring water to a man thirsting in the middle of the Serengeti.  Each day she fills my cup with care and brings me the perfectly sweetened creamy concoction.  Mmm, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. 

 Today, I am without coffee and as each second ticks away into minutes, each minute into eternity, I am losing focus, and energy.  I find myself rambling aimlessly in meetings and making bold statements with no point.

I like pie Damnit and I don’t care who knows it!! 

Lions at Play,
originally uploaded by Brenlo.

I wanted to share this photo with you all. I got lucky and caught these two playing late in the afternoon.

The fun and fanciful Yivvits and Mr. Bubble give their take on the recent SOE Summit.  As usual they add lots of fun and frolic.

(when you do listen, pay attention to the short bit when they talk about the luggage . . . Holy crap how much luggage does someone need for two nights.  Movie stars pack less for a 3 month shoot.  These guys were lugging around half of what they owned.  I have gone on trips for 2 weeks and taken less.  Damn guys)

The fun guys at EQ2-Daily have some good brew and other news to share in their latest podcast.  Although Cyanbane has sworn off alcohol . . . How long will that last.  You can also enjoy Val and Rot talking about their experiences at the SOE summit.  They had definately not sworn off alcohol.

Give them a listen and let them know what you think.

An amusing gem that has made its way around before but most recently popped up on the Stratics Forums.  Those of you who frequent forums will get a chuckle out of this.

How many forum members does it take to change a light bulb? (more…)

From GamePolitics we have an article of a new crackdown, from Gamestop/EB Games, on the sale of M rated video games to minors.  While the penalty may seem harsh, this is really where the crackdown needs to take place.  The ESRB and Video game companies can put as many labels on a game as they want, in the end it is up to the retailer to enforce it.  Without the enforcement at retail, the system falls apart.  Ol’ Jack “I am gonna make you regret playing games” Thompson, can cry foul at the ratings boards and the game companies until the break of dawn, but the truth of the matter is, Parents and Retailers have been disregarding the labels. 

Now if we can only work on the parents part. . .

PC Gamer UK has a fun little article on D&D not only being the root of all evil, but also being the root of most modern video games.  (I made up the root of all evil part) I believe this is more true for MMO’s than any other games out there, unless they are actually D&D branded games.  Virtually all MMO’s I have played have elements reminiscent of a D&D system or two, no matter the genre. 

D&D promoted the idea of the game being driven by the players and subsequently created a whole new way of looking at PC and Video gaming.  While gamers at the time were content to simply advance to the next Pac Man maze or dodge more barrels, the creators wanted to bring some of the things they most enjoyed from the pen and paper game to the screens.  Fun concepts such as character development and meaningful story lines, not that Robotron did not have a meaningful storyline mind you, became the new paradigm. (more…)