The Red Sox picked up a pitcher at the trade deadline, to nobody’s surprise. But it’s a really interesting trade — I’m coming to the conclusion that Theo Epstein has some kind of a mind control ray. Follow this one with me: A couple of weeks ago, the Red Sox traded Brandon Lyon and Anastacio Martinez to the Pirates for Scott Sauerbeck and Mike Gonzalez. Sauerbeck and Lyon were the meat of the trade. Sauerbeck is a very good lefthanded reliever, and Lyon is a young guy with promise but a tendency to be wild. Good trade for the Sox. ...

This time, it’s stuff I did at Gen Con. Showed up Thursday afternoon. It’s really nice to have Gen Con within a reasonable distance from where I live; much better than when I lived in California. Not losing two days to travel greatly increases the chances that I’ll go back next year. The cab from the airport to the hotel was quick, checkin was easy, etc. I hit the dealer’s room first. Assume that filled in a lot of the excess time throughout the con, and you’ll be right. Much hellos, hiyas, good to meet you face to face, and so on. The dealer’s room was enormous, but poorly laid out. Upper Deck had a huge chunk of the room, in which they erected some kind of a mini-mountain. Absolutely nobody visited it and they cut off a third of the room, dramatically reducing traffic in that neck of the woods. Ooops. ...

Various and sundry commentators have been making alarmed noises about the new DARPA-organized political stock market. There are a few rational objections. Someone over at CalPundit noted that the system may be very gamable by people who want to conceal the possibility of their own terrorist activity. Kevin Drum notes that there’s the possibility of pissing off allies who would prefer that we not enable a market for futures based on negative events occurring in their country. ...

Adam Tinworth brought me up to date on the David Kelly story, and rather than just rephrase his words I thought I’d simply quote his comment: You might want to note that Dr Kelly has turned out to be much more senior (original) than the Government tried to make out. You might also want to note that one of journalists Kelly spoke with has a tape of the conversation. The story moves on, and it’s swinging back in the BBC’s favour. ...

The BBC is having a Jayson Blair moment of sorts. It’s an interesting, complex story, which may wind up getting Tony Blair out of the tight spot he’s in. On May 29th, Andrew Gilligan said that a British official told him that the government spiced up a dossier which made the case for war. He did not name the official, because he wanted to keep his sources confidential. That’s reasonable journalism. On June 19th, Gilligan told the Foreign Affairs select committee that his source was one of the senior officials who assembled the dossier. The British government promptly accused Gilligan of lying. The BBC Board of Governors backed Gilligan up. ...

The Texas Democrats took off again (original) (via Perverse Access Memory (original)). This time it’s the Senate Democrats, but the effect should be more or less the same. As mentioned earlier, it is not illegal for Texas legislators to hide out for the purposes of breaking quorum. Indeed, it may be illegal to hunt them (original).

I always spend too much money at Gen Con. Dark Inheritance totally tweaked my fondness for Christian mythos modern fantasy. It’s also a very nice piece of work; I concur with the reviews linked to on the Mythic Dreams Studios site. Probably useful for all kinds of D20 Modern games. I think the coolest aspect of the game is that it’s a D20 Modern fantasy game that blows off the D&D tropes. It goes way beyond the suddenly limited-seeming settings that come with D20 Modern. ...

Patchworky commentary ahoy. Um, I guess I’ll talk about indie gaming at Gen Con now. The Forge folks had a shared booth, which looked very busy every time I dropped by. Yay them! I bought some stuff and talked to some people and generally had a good time there. I met Scott Knipe (original) (who wrote Wyrd and Charnel Gods), and he is just about the nicest guy in the world. He insisted in pressing a printed copy of Charnel Gods on me, so I made him autograph it. We had a nice chat about fan sites and upcoming stuff and so on, and he was one of the people I met at Gen Con who I’d love to have a beer with sometime. Stupid busy schedule. Maybe next year. ...

Look, it’s the only place I have where I can put the packing list and be constantly reminded of it. iBook \* charger \* DVDs? \* memory card reader Camera \* Batteries Shadowfist cards Razor, toothbrush, toothpaste, hair bands Wrestling tapes GBA \* Games: AW II, AW, Crash, Yoshi’s Island, p’raps Warioware \* Charger Cell phone charger iPod & headphones

Some reports say that North Korea may carry out a nuclear test on September 9, the anniversary of the country’s founding, if there’s not more progress in the current standoff by then. I’m torn between believing that North Korea is willing to push the boundaries of reasonable behavior and remembering that the North Korean government is not always grounded in reality. In any case, the Washington Post reports that “Bush may give in on non-aggression.” Bush keeps denying that anything like that is on the table. We’ll see. ...