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Cool tools really work.
A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.
A Confederacy of Dunces. A faded and dog-eared Black Cat edition of John Kennedy Toole's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, "A Confederacy of Dunces". Why? It got me a wife. We met on match.com almost two decades ago, and in her first email to me, she mentioned the watch I was wearing in my photo had "theology and geometry", and I nearly fell out of my seat. I wrote back immediately and accused her of using a phrase from one of my favorite novels. She doubled down and told me it was one of hers as well. We've been together 16 years this October, thanks to Ignatius J. Reilly.
Call of Cthulhu. The 1981 edition of Chaosium's role playing game, "The Call of Cthulhu". It was the first tabletop game that I purchased. Everyone else was into Dungeons and Dragons, but I wanted to play regular humans, forming a team and fighting the good fight against cosmic, eldritch Lovecraftian evil. My original boxed set got lost during my many moves while serving in the Air Force, but this reproduction scratches that nostalgic itch of many, many hours with good friends at The Fandom Zone comic book store in Tampa, Florida.
Chessex Vortex Green gaming dice. When one is taking on evil cultists bent on taking over the world, and the accompanying Elder Gods trying to destroy said world, you really need a good set of dice, and I am irrationally attracted to this one set. The green is so bright it almost glows, the black high contrast numbers for these 65 year old eyes! My favorite among the hundreds of dice I own.
DIGITAL
FocusWriter. A distraction free, minimalist word processing program. Sure, I plan my novels, stories, podcasts and gaming sessions in Scrivener, but this one also scratches my need for simplicity and functionality. It's no longer supported for Mac, so I hold on to it for dear life. Bonus points that I can skin it to look like WordStar, my very first word processing program that I wrote my first novel on while attending San Francisco State University.
Owlbear Rodeo. A simple to use, free Virtual Tabletop. Most of the games I play and run now are online, via Discord, after COVID killed my local, long running table, and most games use what is called "Theater of the Mind", which is a fancy term for "Just use your imagination", but sometimes you need to show your players a map, a photo, a handout, or something that is going to be used to evoke fear and terror, or just can't be easily described. Open up Owlbear Rodeo, create a table, create a scene, throw the image up there and share it, and you're golden. The site also has a very inexpensive paid plan which is well, well worth it for both one shot games and long term campaigns.
INVISIBLE
Christian D. Larson's “The Optimist's Creed”:
After drifting away from Christianity about 40 years ago, I found myself influenced by New Thought and Positive Thinking authors. “The Optimist’s Creed” was written by Christian D. Larson, a prolific writer of the time, back in 1912, in his book “Your Forces and How To Use Them”. The Optimist International club adopted the creed in 1922. I try to read it at least a few times a week, and use it as a counterweight and something to remember as I now make my way back to Christ.
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