God’s blessings to you on this the first day of January, in the year of our Lord’s incarnation 2017.

For those of you who celebrate it, happy new year. Last night my wife and I played Oregon Trail: The Card Game. I loved the game I played as a child on Apple II computers in school. This was nothing like that, except that a few words were similar. The tagline on the box is “you died of dysentery,” which probably should have been a warning. The game consists of very little except getting calamity cards and trying to not die, which one often fails at. It’s a bit like starting out with a banker’s health and a farmer’s wealth, and being extraordinarily unlucky. If you possibly can, I recommend you avoid this game. We didn’t even have much fun complaining about it once it was clear that the game was no fun. The original game, by contrast, was a lot of fun. I don’t know how well it would hold up these days, and I can’t help but wonder if there might be a remake where the hunting scenes are 3D rendered first-person shooters. One can hope, anyway.

Russell Newquist’s Lyonesse project was funded, which was very cool to see. I hope it does well, because it would be wonderful for there to be a viable market in short fiction.

Since it’s the season for it, I hope you have a wonderful year in 2017.

Glory to God in the highest.