I’m feeling a bit like crap today but I must soldier on. I’m going to do something I haven’t done since I lived in NYC: go to two punk shows back to back. Several months ago I noticed that the Street Dogs and the Tossers were playing together and I made plans to go. The new Street Dogs album is really good, and I’ve wanted to see the Tossers again for a long time. They were through here maybe a year and a half ago and that was first exposure to them. I enjoyed that show quite a bit and since then I’ve picked up four of their albums and they’ve become a favorite. They too have an excellent new record, “Agony,” so there was no chance I’d miss this show.

Then just a couple of weeks ago my old band mate Amanda told me that Christ on Parade, a political punk band from San Fran that I really liked, had started doing gigs again. I had introduced Amanda to Christ on Parade in the early 90s and our band used to cover their “Landlord Song.” In one of those odd twists of fate, Amanda ended up not only moving to San Francisco, but also working with Noah, one of the members of Christ on Parade. I was glad she tipped me off because I went to their MySpace page and discovered they were playing Seattle. At fist I was bummed because I already had a ticket to the other show. Then I realized that the Christ on Parade show was at 4 at the Funhouse and the Street Dogs/Tossers show was at 7 at El Corazon. The clubs are fairly close and I can get between them easily by bus. In short the stars are right for a punk rock day.

Discussion of some licensing stuff in the works for GR led to hours of heavy game design talk instead of actually gaming last night. At one point Tim brought up Traveller and soon I was hauling down a copy of Traveller: The New Era from my office for reference. It reminded me of an incident from almost 10 years ago that I had almost completely forgotten about.

I had just moved to Seattle and I was trying to get by as a full time freelancer (note: do not try this at home). I was in contact with Last Unicorn Games because I was going to do a bit of work on the Star Trek: Next Generation RPG. One day Christian Moore called me and asked me if I’d be interested in moving to LA and taking a job as a line developer. He went on to tell me that they were negotiating a deal to take over the Traveller RPG. There was supposedly a TV show in the works (through the same guy who did the horrible D&D; movies) and they were going to take on the line and revitalize it. I would shepherd the line and to keep costs down I’d have to write six books a year. I told him I was potentially interested and we left it at that until such a time that deals were signed.

A couple of months went by and I waffled back and forth on whether taking the job would be a good idea if it was offered. Moving again didn’t thrill me, particularly to LA, and it would complicate things with Nicole. It had taken a lot of doing just to get us in the same city as it was. Ultimately, I never had to make the choice because two things happened. First, I applied and got hired at WoTC. Second, the whole Traveller deal with LUG fizzled and there never was any formal offer. It is one of those interesting “roads not taken” moments though. What would have happened had I moved to LA? Would Nik and I have gotten married? Would I have ended up back in Seattle when WotC bought out Last Unicorn? Knowing what I know now though, I’m damn glad I stayed in Seattle.