Does anyone have these sitting at home... and can I get them from you, please?

I really, really want them. These two are like my holy grails.

Now, Action Toys (never known for good prices) has Warlord for $74.99. Billy Galaxy - who has a wonderful selection - for $65. But it's waaaaaaaay too high a price to pay for me. I'm a teacher.

As a matter of fact - Billy - if you're reading this, I'll give you free ad space for a lifetime in exchange for that Warlord figure plus shipping to me. On top of that, I'll post your newsletters here on Dane of War for a lifetime, too. You're never going to get a better deal than that.

Sadly, it seems that Arak isn't in stock anywhere.

So, I'm appealing to you guys out there... my fellow geeks... to check out your storage boxes.

And while we are at it, I'd really, really like to get my hands on a DC Direct 1st Appearance Warlord... and I'd really rather deal with one of my friendly reader folks than get gouged for something I can't get there in Denmark.

Cuil needs to get a new web address... like fail.biz or something

A day back, the new search engine Cuil launched out of beta. Cuil's founders are ex-Google employees, so it really got a lot of publicity around the 'Net.

Danny Sullivan from SearchEngineLand was quoted in the New York Times as saying

This is the most promising thing I've seen in a while.

Really, Danny? 404 errors and search results saying "Due to excessive load, our servers didn't return results", along with random pictures next to hits is promising? To be fair, though, he really seems to hate Google.

They spent 5 million dollars on something with a stupid name that doesn't fucking work. It is a textbook case of how not to launch a product. It's embarrassing.

A "Google Killer"? Not only is it far from that (seems more like an investment killer)... why, exactly, would you want to kill Google?

Google Trends: It's crazy what people search for sometimes

Every so often I like to check out Google Trends. I get blogging ideas and get "caught up" on things that might be relevant to my interests. It's always amusing, though, what exactly people in the US search for sometimes.

1. mike adamle

- Let me get this straight. The top Google trend is the new General Manager of WWE's Monday Night Raw? Now, don't get me wrong... I like wrasslin'... but this is kind of a sad statement of what people are interested in considering the state of the world.

2. gurren lagann

- Another shitty-assed giant mecha cartoon from Japan, featuring the same old plots and emo teenage pilots. Goody.

3. john edwards girlfriend

- So a politician has a mistress and a secret love child? Wow. I can't imagine that could ever happen.

4. sesame place

- I'm not sure that this is ranked because of the popularity of the beer-company sponsored Sesame Street amusement park (oh, the fucking irony) or that some woman popped out a kid in one of their bathrooms.

5. now and then here and there

- The name of the first episode of the previously mentioned shitty-assed Japanese cartoon.

6. a time to kill

- John Grisham's 1989 book (or the great '96 film) is popular again? Cool.

7. weeds season 4 episode 7

- I've never seen the series, so I don't have a comment here.

8. blooter

- Isn't this a Scottish slang word for pounding the hell out of something?

9. tonight lyrics jonas brothers

- Okay, little girls, they suck. Ask your parents about Hanson.

10. ronald gray

- US Army private convicted in 1988 of multiple rapes and murders is finally going to get what is coming to him.

11. unabomber manifesto

- I'm not sure why this has suddenly surged in interest.

12. isabel lucas

- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen star injured in a car accident. There's a joke here.

13. pickle pops

- I hate to break this to people... but these are not "new". We made them in 2nd grade.

14. cindy nicole

- Latina actress with the face of a horse.

15. paper moon

- I saw the film, but don't remember it noteworthy enough to search about 35 years after it was made. Apparently some do.

16. princeton review rankings

- The 2009 edition of The Princeton Review’s annual college guide, The Best 368 Colleges, has been released. You probably can't afford to go to 360 of them.

17. mirrors

- Upcoming Kiefer Sutherland flick. It probably won't suck.

18. hiram bullock

- A fantastic musician from the World's Most Dangerous Band has passed away at age 52.

19. ryan seacrest shark

- No happy ending here. He lived.

20. jimmie henderson

- This is related to Ronald Gray from #10. President Kennedy commuted his death sentence in 1962.

It's time for the ENnie Awards - Get Voting!

The Gen Con EN World RPG Awards (the "ENnies") are an annual fan-based celebration of excellence in tabletop roleplaying gaming. The ENnies give game designers, writers and artists the recognition they deserve. It is a peoples' choice award, and the final winners are voted upon by the gaming public at EN World.

The ENnies were created in 2001 as an annual award ceremony, hosted by the leading D&D/d20 system fan site, EN World in partnership with Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News. Since they were originally conceived the ENnies have expanded from an Internet-based awards selection to an annual award ceremony at Gen Con Indy. The ENnies have also branched out from their roots as an award ceremony focused upon d20 system publishers and products to celebrate the achievements of all tabletop RPGs and the publishers and products that support them.

With award categories recognizing the components that make a game great to the types of products fans have come to love, categories for fan-based websites and much more, the ENnies are the best way for fans to acknowledge outstanding effort from and to say "thank you" to the publishers, designers and artists who make this hobby great.

2008 ENnie Awards Nominees

Voting for the Awards:

From yesterday, July 28th to August 6th, gamers from around the world are invited to visit the ENnies voting booth to express their preferences for products. Voters are tracked by IP address, and limited to one vote per individual, tracked by IP.

The nominees for Best Publisher Award are chosen by collecting nominations from RPG.Net, The Forge, Story Games, and EN World. All of the other nominees are selected from submissions by a panel of five elected fandom judges.

http://www.ennieawards.com/voting/index.phtml

Hero Lab to support Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG

Lone Wolf Development is pleased to announce that Hero Lab will support Paizo Publishing's upcoming Pathfinder RPG. The Pathfinder RPG, built upon the success of Paizo's acclaimed Pathfinder Adventure Path series, covers new changes and additions to the d20 System rules.

Hero Lab will fully support Paizo's refinements to the d20 system, including a host of new feats and spells, updated options for all core classes, and hundreds of new items, both magical and mundane. Hero Lab support for the Pathfinder RPG will become available shortly after the release of the planned Beta edition, due out at GenCon Indy this August.

Updates to Hero Lab's Pathfinder RPG support will be released as necessary throughout the playtest period. Following publication of the finalized Pathfinder RPG, final Hero Lab data files will be made available.

Hero Lab will also continue to support the Adventure Path series content via ongoing updates.

Renegade Rules for PDF Publishing: #2 - Misdirection Marketing

From the company that brought you the RPG publishing Gauntlet series, comes the next evolution of the PDF publisher resource and development. Renegade Rules for PDF Publishing are ideas and concepts that will put you on the "bleeding edge" of RPG Publishing development and marketing. Many of the ideas in concepts in Renegade Rules for PDF Publishing are the unorthodox and unconventional techniques that the largest and most successful PDF publisher know and use to keep them on top, and now you can have them for yourself! Each issue of Renegade Rules for PDF Publishing covers a specific facet of doing business as a next generation PDF publisher.

The Renegade Rules for PDF Publishing will cover various topics in RPG PDF creation and development from how to how to start a PPDF RPG publishing business to how to get into the top 5% of the best PDF publishers in the world.

In this issue we are focusing on Misdirection Marketing. The purpose of this PDF is to give you a complete background and overview of the topic of Misdirection Marketing. Misdirection Marketing is Web 2.0 way of thinking. This type of marketing was invented to completely disrupt your competition and their marketing efforts in ways they cannot even conceive. And best of all, I am going to teach you how to do it for virtually no money. This issue also covers the topics: The Five Laws of Misdirection Marketing, Standard Actions of Misdirection Marketing - Standard Misdirection and Strike and Follow Through Attack.

In addition, each issue of Renegade Rules for PDF Publishing will come with PDF forms and detailed information sheets that you can use to help execute your plans.

Written by Louis Porter Jr. Available at RPGNow & DriveThruRPG.

The Engines & Empires Basic Set for Labyrinth Lord

Announcing the release of a gaslight and science fantasy supplement for the old-school retro-clone RPGs out there. The ENGINES & EMPIRES basic set includes rules for running gaslight-era Labyrinth Lord (and, with some conversion work, BFRPG) games up to the 5th level of experience. Also includes an introductory 1st level adventure scenario.

Available as a free download or a printed softcover book at stores.lulu.com/relative-entropy.