Seeing what sticks

Okay, so over the past month I've both three D&D Essentials books: the core rulebook and the two "player's handbooks" or whatever they are being called.  I picked them up more out of curiosity as someone who's been playing 4E for the past few years to see what's changed, and because the Borders in my town is closing and everything had been significantly discounted.
I would just like to express my outrage at the fact that the original three hardbound 4E books have been replaced with three softbound books and two box sets, all of which you need for certain parts of the game, but a lot of stuff that you don't.  I'm talking in particular about the box sets, which contain both the treasure tables in one and the monsters in the other.  But I have to get a ton of dungeon tiles and ridiculous cardboard tokens I neither need nor want, making me think I'll just stick with the 4E treasure from the DMG and the MM1-3 I already own.
I understand the math works out about the same, once you buy all the books, and maybe a new player out there just might buy the Heroes of the Fallen Lands and spare themselves the rest and thus enter into this hobby instead of computer games or CMG's or whatever, but I doubt it.
Anyways, that's more of a rant than I intended.  Thursday night I had my weekly phone call from one of my best friends and longtime RPG player.   Until I moved West, I can't remember the last time I ran and/or played and he wasn't at the table, and he keeps leaning on me to get more into RPG's in my new locale.
Right now I spend more time painting miniatures than anything else, a practice which my friend referred to as "being akin to knitting," which is to say that it mostly engages the fingers and not the brain (knitters may be offended, if they wish).  I have, in the past, actually argued the opposite: that painting miniatures and wargaming has such a tangible quality which makes them inherently more valuable as a past-time.
But, I'm pretty set for my painting goal right now, and thought I might take a week, completely pack up all my brushes and flocking, and put my brain in neutral to coast a while.  Ever since I gave up the GM screen to allow one of my players to take over the 4E game, I've missed it.  Don't get me wrong, I love the chance to play, but I like having something to chew on when I have a long drive or a slow afternoon at work (RPG's have than over wargaming, I'll give it that).  I've been considering picking up the third edition of Mutants & Masterminds, but $40 for a softcover feels steep, especially after all the D&D Essentials I just bought.
So my plan?  Spend a week enjoying the warm weather in a lounge chair on the lanai and see what my creative muse wants to do.  If she gives me 20 NPC's for a superhero game, I'll go pick up M&M.  If I get orc PC's flying skyships, I'll go get Earthdawn. If I get the megadungeon mojo going, I'll go run an "Essentials Only" game or something.
One part of that weekly conversation with my friend was that inspiration tends to hit in waves like that.  You get 80-90% of the adventure/campaign/whatever and then spend a good bit of time hammering out the rest, which is usually working out the stats, etc.  These "hobby vacations" have been one of those places where I get the big creative surge like that.  My "Scion of the Dragon" mega-campaign arc for Castles & Crusades was composed practically in a day, and my biggest problem was sitting around for months at a time not being able to do much with it because it was all done.  So we'll see what the week brings.

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