During our relaunch/redesign this week, we hit a glitch that caused some readers to not see new posts for a couple days. The problem has been resolved, so I encourage you take surf through the last couple days. (However, if you read LA Metblogs with RSS, you may not have noticed anything wrong, but should steer over here to check out our new site design.)

• Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons & Dragons (and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons – there IS a difference), died this week – LAist’s Lori Nyx reminisces being introduced to the game by Brandon Lee. mbLA’s own Wil Wheaton calls him, “the father of all role playing games.”
• Justin Levine is excused from jury service because he’s a blogger.
• Artie at LA Cityzine interviews a local man who has over 22 vintage standup arcade games in his home, including Gauntlet, Tempest, Star Wars, and Robotron: “They’re a lot easier to find than people think, and a lot more affordable than people would think. It’s just a matter if you want to commit the space.”
• How many W-2 forms do you have? Film grip Peggy Archer has 17… one of her own readers has 20.
• Arthur Mag’s Dave Reeves survived jail and has a guide on how you can too. Useful tip #8: “If you’re scheduled to go to jail on a certain date, get drunk as fuck for it. I was so drunk when I surrendered that I almost threw up on the bailiff. What are they going to do—put me in jail?”
• Congratulations to Opus Moreschi on his 365 day stretch documenting doing one new thing a day on his blog “All New Year.” I asked Opus what’s next – his reply: “Now I am going to wallow in a pool of my own feces for about three straight weeks, with a crate of slim-jims and a crate of miller lite within grasping distance of either hand. “

…pic by jek in the box, used under Creative Commons…