Update! Now with the weekly Craigtoon.

The White Wolf holiday party was Saturday night. (Unless you were on the decorating committee, like me, in which case it was Saturday, beginning at 3pm, which is even better. No foolin'.) So today the Monday Meeting comes in still a little bit ruined from the weekend.

Everybody went to lunch without me, so I'm sitting here drinking water in a mandatory lunch meeting while Chaney and matt and Aaron eat sweet-smelling chicken and crisp green salads. Soon, though, I will get a sandwich. A great and mighty sandwich. That'll show them. It'll be glorious, my sandwich. [Update: I ended with a chicken sandwich with guacamole, chipotle mayo and fresh tomato that was worth waiting for.]

We open the meeting today talking about the current state of our computer hardware. John's machine just died, so he's getting a new Mac mini that's making some of the dudes riding iMac dinosaurs a little jealous. Bax, who was in line to inherit John's old machine, will thus be stranded on his antiquated contraption. It runs on rope, a wooden wheel and a mule. Between that and the gradual meltdown of the production server, everybody's hoping Santa brings them consumer electronics. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

John is soon to get Scion to matt for layout.

Bax is helping Brian get caught up on Lunars proofs. He and John are also walking Craig through the layout of The Wyld. Excuse me, I mean, The Compass of Celestial Directions vol. 2: The Wyld. (e.g. The Wylf.)

Brian is drowning in a huge pile of ad graphics, all due to Marketing this week, but Aileen is coming to his rescue with one of those floating cheerio-things. She was on Baywatch for two episodes in the second season, you know.

Now here comes matt running down the beach, blowing the whistle around his neck, helping Brian back to shore.

Brian had a rough weekend – a four-huck holiday, he says.

I'm finally getting caught up on Free Council, but Friday's all-hands meeting and today's big cubicle migration are still keeping that book delayed. All praise to the great writers I hired, though – Jess Hartley, Steve Kenson and David Chart – 'cause they've provided me with great words, easy to develop. Ray Fawkes and I are putting our heads together on Damnation City and it looks like we'll be bringing in a pinch-hitting freelance developer to dig in the desert for World of Darkness: Reliquary. (More on that in the future.)

matt is preparing his office for me. We're moving in together as part of our new in-house organization method, putting developers in the same immediate space as the art director's for their line. I'm excited – matt's office has a door on it, so I might actually get stuff done when I'm working in the office now.

Ethan is talking about a secret discussion going on about Changeling, but there's not much I can tell you about it. 'Cause, you know. Secret. Changeling is going through playtesting now, which means a lot of it is passing front of Conrad now. His ability to break game rules is legendary. He breaks mechanics like they were chicken bones and he a starving ocelot. (Ocelots eat chickens, right? Chickens and their bones? Well, whatever.) Now Ethan, Aileen and Rich are talking about a future Werewolf book, which must now remain secret, but will make some of you very excited and some you maybe a little bit crazy. We're eager to see. Right now we're arguing about the title, which some of us hate and some of us (not me) dig. We'll see what happens. It's a book I can't wait to talk about, but we don't want to change titles on you after it's announced, so hang in there.

Aileen will be art directing Free Council when I can get her the freakin' art notes. She's also helping Brian with ads this week and doing some design elements and brainstorming for the look of Changeling. I'm hearing something about rabbit heads and corn-husk dolls. Changeling is going to be so rad.

Not to spoil anything for you, but now we're on to a tangent about maggots and raw drumsticks and dead moles and gore and the freebies you can get from the butcher's shop.

Craig is finishing The Wyld and then moving on to the layout for World of Darkness: Urban Legends. Craig rated the holiday party at five hucks.

Bill's working on Magical Traditions drafts for Mage, as well as early design work on some of our EVE products. Have you been reading any of the EVE chronicles over at the EVE Online website? There are some great free stories over there to give you a taste of the EVE universe if you're not familiar with it yet.

Chaney's inputting corrections on the Saturnine Night proof, for Promethean. He's also shepherding the proof of the next Necromancer Games book. In the meanwhile, he's "floating in limbo" for art on Monster Mayhem. The last of the art for Urban Legends is still coming in, which he'll then hand off to Craig for layout.

Aaron is sending a couple of books to editing this week (like Book of Spirits) and three books are heading out editing. He's also working on licensing contracts and a new FAQ for company use. He's also got his regular slew of many, many meetings to sit in on or lead, whether in person and over the phone. A lot of Aaron's time gets taken up talking to people we work with. And let's be thankful for that, people, 'cause you don't want them talking to the rest of us.

That's it for us today. But remember, kids: No matter how shiny the turd is, don't hit it with a hammer.

Current Music: "The First Noel (Attaboy House Party Mix)," Bing Crosby