8:30 p.m.

• So Favre’s done.

After flirting with retirement for years, Brett Favre means it this time. The Green Bay Packers quarterback quit after a 17-season career in which he dazzled fans with his grit, heart and rocket of an arm.

I was never a huge Favre fan, but he did have one hell of a career. I’m not sure if it’s my Mid-Atlantic bias or whatnot, but I’ve never really considered him one of the NFL’s all-time greats. If people consider him to be, then so be it. I’m not sure what’s more surprising: That he wants to call it a career after throwing that interception in the NFC Conference Championship or deciding on whether or not he’s going to play the next season so early into an off-season.

• Guess nobody in his party had a resurrection spell.

Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and is widely seen as the father of the role-playing games, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.

Peace out. I’m not sure if I was a true D&D gamer. When I was a kid, I loved going through this stuff, but I never had the patience (or the friends) to actually get a game going. I remember one time I actually tried putting an adventure together and one of the people in the party was being a smart ass about 5 minutes in – he wanted to walk past the CAVE OF ADVENTURE and move somewhere off the OFFICIAL MAP. I got pissed, said a lightning bolt struck his character and he died. I think I got up, walked over and punched him in the arm. A few minutes later we all were doing something else.

Even now I like going through D&D books just for the artwork. I always get a laugh at how in the Monster Manuals many of the illustrations show the bad guys pwning their opponents. And while I grew up with the Basic manual that showed the fighter and chick wizard fighting some water lizard.

Then there was the EXPERT rules, which showed a Dick Cheney-like wizard behind the scenes pulling all the strings.

And I always stayed away from that Advanced shit. I mean look at this bad-ass coming at you here.

I don’t care how good that chick’s poon is – bitch, you’re on your own.

And don’t even get me started on the rule changes that have taken place with the newer versions with those +5 initiatives and other micro shit that would make someone like me recoil in horror; I want to kill bad guys with my sword, not try to get a stealth bonus with my bugbear ranger. Give me an elf that can wear metal armor AND cast spells and put him with a fighter, cleric, magic-user, thief and I’m set.

Memories: