My father had a hobby store (The Hobby Hut) that sold all that shit: dice, adventure modules, (Monster Manuals & Fiend Folios) die-cast figurines, paint, brushes, etc. He even rented out space in the basement of the store for all those nerds to gather & play their games. I remember going down there one time as a young lad and seeing at least 25 of them sitting at a bunch of folding tables. That must've been quite a campaign.

My old copy of that book is on the table next to me, as I sit here in the living room. My son absolutely loves it... I wonder why...

Yeah, the new D&D system has been re-engineered to appeal to MMO gamers. I guess it's cool that they're trying to appeal to a new generation of gamers.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
It's funny that I stumbled across that video, because I found it shortly after I had come home from the mall, in which I had visited Waldenbooks. And though I haven't looked at D&D stuff in ages, for some reason I decided to check them out today. None of the manuals look even remotely similar to the stuff I had when I had last played it (early '80s), but it still brought back some fond memories. Do you remember the original Deities & Demigods, or was that before your time? Anyway, my mom got a little upset when she found out that some of the goddesses were drawn topless, like Aphrodite and Bast.

Try as I might, I can't find any online images of them. Kind of a tease, isn't it?

In reply to this comment by KnivesOut:
Thanks mang! I love me some pen-and-paper.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
I always hated the mind flayers (Illithids). They had psionic powers, and using psionics was almost like a game within a game. And I hated them also because of their relation to the githyanki, who were just lame-o. (Almost everything in the Fiend Folio was lame-o).

So who's got a 20-sided die?

It's funny that I stumbled across that video, because I found it shortly after I had come home from the mall, in which I had visited Waldenbooks. And though I haven't looked at D&D stuff in ages, for some reason I decided to check them out today. None of the manuals look even remotely similar to the stuff I had when I had last played it (early '80s), but it still brought back some fond memories. Do you remember the original Deities & Demigods, or was that before your time? Anyway, my mom got a little upset when she found out that some of the goddesses were drawn topless, like Aphrodite and Bast.

Try as I might, I can't find any online images of them. Kind of a tease, isn't it?

In reply to this comment by KnivesOut:
Thanks mang! I love me some pen-and-paper.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
I always hated the mind flayers (Illithids). They had psionic powers, and using psionics was almost like a game within a game. And I hated them also because of their relation to the githyanki, who were just lame-o. (Almost everything in the Fiend Folio was lame-o).

So who's got a 20-sided die?

Thanks mang! I love me some pen-and-paper.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
I always hated the mind flayers (Illithids). They had psionic powers, and using psionics was almost like a game within a game. And I hated them also because of their relation to the githyanki, who were just lame-o. (Almost everything in the Fiend Folio was lame-o).

So who's got a 20-sided die?

I always hated the mind flayers (Illithids). They had psionic powers, and using psionics was almost like a game within a game. And I hated them also because of their relation to the githyanki, who were just lame-o. (Almost everything in the Fiend Folio was lame-o).

So who's got a 20-sided die?

This is Google Tech talk describing the extraordinary restoration, imaging and deciphering effort of the Archimedes Palimpsest (a palimpsest is a manuscript which has been re-used by scraping off the original text and writing over the top).

(The following is quoted from http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8211813884612792878)

The Archimedes Palimpsest is a 10th Century medieval manuscript that is the subject of an ongoing technical, scientific and conservation effort at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Since 1999, the multidisciplinary team has been disbinding, conserving, imaging, analyzing, transcribing and studying the 174 parchment folios – yielding approximately 400Gb of data to date.

The Palimpsest, which the team affectionately calls “Archie,” includes at least seven treatises by Archimedes: The only copies of two of his Treatises, The Method and Stomachion; the only copy in Greek of On Floating Bodies; and copies of the Equilibrium of Planes, Spiral Lines, The Measurement of the Circle, and Sphere and Cylinder.

It also contains 10 pages of text by the 4th century B.C. Attic Greek orator Hyperides; six folios from a Neo-Platonic philosophical text that has yet to be identified, but may be commentaries on Aristotle; four folios from a liturgical book; and twelve pages from two different books, the text of which has yet to be deciphered.