Quick Update: I’m Gone (For Two Weeks)

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August 9, 2018

Okay, folks, just a quick update to let you know what’s going on over here at the new Angry Games corporate office up in Wisconsin. I’m sitting here banging this update out on a tiny Lenovo ThinkPad on a folding TV tray table, surrounded by boxes, some unassembled IKEA furniture, and waiting on shipping and delivery notifications. As you might surmise, moving Angry Games, Inc. to a new corporate headquarters here in beautiful Manitowoc, WI did not go off entirely without a hitch. Let me say, though, that I am happy. It is a nice town – if a bit smaller than any place I’ve ever lived. It’s quiet. It’s pretty. I’m a block away from Lake Michigan and can ride my bike along the lakeside trails. There’s a game store in town. And everyone is remarkably friendly. And because I’m willing to be unfriendly and have a New York accent and a Chicago address on my driver’s license, I can pretty much do what I want. I have all the power. With 40 stout cannon and four score men, I could rule this land. But I won’t. Because, so far, everyone is just nice and lets me do what I want.

But, hitches have happened. The biggest hitch was that the Angry Laptop – which was a mere two-years old – suddenly sparked, smoked, and died last week. While I was trying to finish writing this book thing a few people were willing to preorder. And my desk was damaged in the move. And we’ve been unable to unpack everything due to a lack of good places to store everything. All of my RPG rulebooks are still packed up awaiting the assembly of IKEA shelves to hold them. But, the book got finished on time and it’s been sent off to the editor. And there’s a new computer – a full desktop PC – coming from Dell. It’s just not in any kind of hurry. And a new desk is coming from Office Max next week as well. And, meanwhile, I do have this little ThinkPad which I bought for 125 American bucks so that I wasn’t completely shut down. And so I could finish the book. And, let me tell you, when you pay $125 for a computer, you get a $125 computer. I’ve taking to calling it the Len-oh-no. You want to open a SECOND browser tab? Oh, no. You want run the Discord App instead of using the web client? Oh, no. You want to open TWO documents side-by-side for editing and revision purposes? Oh, no. It says “oh, no.” A lot.

By the way, absolutely all of my data is backed up, in an external hard drive and on the cloud. I lost nothing of any consequence. I can’t use half of it. This think would burst into flames if I tried to get it to run Campaign Cartographer with it’s FastCAD base. It wouldn’t even get through the entire “oh, no.” It’d be “oh,nnaaaaarrgghhh! I’m on fire! WHY WAS I PROGRAMMED TO FEEL PAIN?!”

So, I’m stuck in a low productivity mode to begin with. And I’ve got an apartment to get back in order. And an office to build. And I’m also taking my girlfriend away for a short weekend vacation to celebrate the move, her return to college, the new job she got, the successful completion of my book, and the general accomplishment of several major two-year-long goals for both of us.

In short. I’m going on vacation. I haven’t taken an actual vacation from The Angry GM in three-and-a-half-years. I’ve taken a few non-vacations where I’ve still put out content, but I squished all the content into the weeks before or the weeks after the vacation. But I’m actually stopping my output. And that was not an easy decision. I feel tremendously guilty about it.

There will be no content on my site for the next two weeks. Nothing new. New content will start to appear in the last week of August. In that week, I will put out two feature articles. That means there will only be two feature articles in August. And, as per the terms and conditions of my whole Patreon and integrity thing, that means my Patreon supporters will only pay for two articles. It’s an unpaid vacation.

I won’t be completely idle during that time. Once I’ve got a computer and a place to put it, I’ll be back to work. I have a book coming back from an editor in a couple of weeks and it will need cleaning up and finalizing so it can be sent to layout and printed and stuff. And I want to build up a good lead on my work going forward. I bled off my lead while I was working on the book and the Kickstarter, both of which took far more time from my life than I meant. And a lot also disappeared with the 150 mile move to a new state. But, for the next week or so, I will be relaxing and doing home things. Like assembling furniture. And also relaxing. And riding my bike. Because I need to reenergize myself a little. I admit that I’m creatively a little burnt out. It’s like GM burnout on steroids. I’ll work through it, but taking a break will help a lot.

As for Patreon, some of you support me with a lump sum payment that gets paid one time per month instead of paying on a per article basis. By reducing my content output for two weeks, I know I am shortchanging you. Therefore, if any of you require it, please sent me a message on Patreon and I will arrange a refund for you of any portion of your support for the month. Just let me know how much you want back. No hard feelings. I have only ever wanted to be paid for my work, and only what you think it’s worth. I won’t ask anyone to subsidize me taking two weeks off. Just send me a Patreon message. Actually, that goes for anyone. If you’re one of my supporters and aren’t happy about the content reduction, please let me know and we can come to some arrangement.

Meanwhile, any of you waiting for contact, please be aware that I am going to be out of town for a few days and my online time is pretty limited while my only access point is the Len-Oh-No. So, if you reach out, expect a delay.

Thank you all for your support and understanding. And look forward to a bunch of new content soon. We have to finish writing that adventure, we have to go into overdrive on that Megadungeon thing to get it out of the way, we have to get Ask Angry back, and I have a new weekly fun feature I think a lot of people will really enjoy for the off days.


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21 thoughts on “Quick Update: I’m Gone (For Two Weeks)

  1. While paid vacation is not legally required in the US, I suppose two weeks off in three years isn’t completely unreasonable. Go not work, or meditate, or whatever it is people do when not working. We’ll manage to survive without your wit and wisdom for that long.

  2. > By reducing my content output for two weeks, I know I am shortchanging you

    Just doubled my pledge to help cover this.

  3. Take care of yourself, everyone needs breaks from work, and you deserve it. Plus, we don’t want advice from The Tired GM or The Sickly GM, what good would that be ?!

  4. What do people do when not working? I just took a 4 day vacation and it was the hardest work i’ve ever done, just of a different kind. And it still feltfgood because occasional changes in type are refreshing to the storyline, but I was clearly still working.

  5. Have a nice vacation. I can’t believe that you’ve been doing the Angry Website for 3 years without a significant break!

  6. You get $125 worth of computer… yep, I agree wholeheartedly.

    Enjoy the vacation time. You’ve earned it.

    Also, I was thinking of the Lenova, that you’ve dubbed the Len-oh-no, and I went to the Len-oh-no-va. Which sounds like the Spanish phrase “no va”, which means “not going” or “it doesn’t go”. Anyway…

    Enjoy your time off!

  7. Good for you, Angry. Well deserved, and I’m sure much needed. Never feel any guilt for taking care of yourself.

  8. I can relate, Angry. My family likes to call it, “The Storm Before the Calm.”
    Whenever we’d get ready to go camping, or visit relatives, or take a vacation, something would go wrong. It became such a regular thing that we started to take it as a sign that we were going to have a great time. Seems you’re suffering from the same thing. 🙂
    Enjoy your vacation. If anyone deserves one right now, it’s you.

  9. I’ve read every article on this site. I’ve never commented until today. Please don’t feel guilty. Enjoy your vacation. We will be patiently awaiting your return. Thank you for being. You are my realized dream of gaming advice.

  10. Got relations in Saukville, about an hour north of Manitowoc, that raise horses. Lots of place to ride up there if I remember correctly, hint hint.

    See you at the Tops!

  11. Does that mean we can now comment without supervision for two whole weeks? Asking for a friend.

    [[Edit: No, it does not. – The Angry GM]]

  12. Please take your vacation and then kickstart your mega dungeon project. That way you will feel obligated to prioritize it and give it the polish it deserves before you disappear into writing the angry RPG.

  13. This is all hogwash. I will wait for new content through this so-called “vacation” with great impatience and immense irritability. Those seems like more appropriate emotional responses to this announcement based on the tone of this website. Plus, as Ron Swanson would say, it was getting a little chummy around here.

  14. Hi AngryGM,

    I just discovered you while trying to understand a monster build found online that “just didn’t look right”. Using your methods I discovered that the monster was several CR higher than the person who posted it indicated. Thanks for the insight. Have a great vacation.

  15. New Angry fan here. First off, f£&#ing tremendous work. I have been avidly devouring your articles at every available moment between work over the last two weeks and enjoyed every second. Can’t wait to put it into practice when my players finally f*%~}ing decide on a date they haven’t got ‘plans’! Don’t feel guilty for the time off. I have managed one 2 week holiday in the last 10 years since I started working for myself and, yes regrets! We work more efficiently and are more creative after proper downtime. Anyway, super looking forward to the end f the adventure; I feel like I have the first half of the Spells of Azeroth and need to learn the f@&£ing substitutiary locomotion! Thanks!

  16. I jist realized that there’s no timestanp on your posts (at least on mobile view) so it’s impossible for forgetful people like me to know which week you’ll be back, among other things.

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