[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="220" caption="Captain Beefheart"][/caption]I see from the BBC news website that Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, has died (Don Van Vliet, aka 'Captain Beefheart', dies aged 69).  Very sad news.  Although Van Vliet had retired from music back in the 1980s to concentrate on painting, his music has been a major part of my life since I first listened to Trout Mask Replica several decades ago.More obituaries:The Captain Beefheart Radar StationThe Guardian - Captain Beefheart, who has died aged 69, was provocative and unpredictableLA Weekly - Top 14 Reasons Why Captain Beefheart Was a True American GeniusA sad day indeed.  Here's an old video of the Magic Band playing 'Electricity'...

A year or so on after Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, coauthor of Dungeons & Dragons has died (Ars Technica: Between battles, the story: Dave Arneson has passed on).  Dungeons and Dragons (and subsequently several other roleplaying games) played a hugeand very important part in my life from my teens into my late 20s. 

Arneson had some sort of falling out with Gary Gygax and left TSR (the publishers of D&D) in 1975, but apparently he was at least partially back in the fold for the third edition of the game.  The Ars Technica review says it better than I can.

The Cramps' Lux Interior died earlier this month.  There's a story at the Mojo website (Lux Interior: October 21, 1946 - February 4, 2009)

I've inserted a video of my favourite Cramps track below the fold

Very sad news- Oliver Postgate, the man responsible for many remarkably excellent childrens' TV shows has died.  There's a concise biography at wikipedia.

My particular favorite show was Noggin the Nog, but I expect many of us of a certain age will feel nostalgic over one or more of his TV shows.  He'll be missed.

The Register reports another of the original Star Trek cast has died: Majel Roddenberry, who must have had more roles in the Star Trek franchise than any other cast member:

• First officer in the pilot
• Nurse Christine Chapel 
• Lwaxana Troi (Deanna Troi's rather irritating mother) in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• The computer voice in many of the Star Trek shows and animations.  

I was saddened to read on www.timetriallingforum.co.uk that Sheldon Brown had died (see this obituary). Sheldon Brown's website is a fabulous source of bike information, particularly related to fixed wheel and tandems. He'll be missed worldwide.

Seems to be a week for obituaries. Gary Gygax, who with Dave Arneson wrote the groud breaking tabletop role playing game Dungeons & Dragons, has died. The Register has an obituary, as does the New York Times. I spent a lot of time as a youngster playing a variety of role playing games, beginning with D&D. While I eventually moved on to other games (notably Call of Cthulhu) and eventually gave up gaming, I retain a soft spot for D&D, and particularly the original edition of a boxed set of three slim booklets (pictured left, and see the Wikipedia article).

D&D was derived from earlier miniatures war game rules, and was published by Tactical Studies Rules, later known as TSR. The company grew astonishingly rapidly (probably too fast), before being absorbed by Wizards of the Coast, a company that rose on the back of a craze for trading card games.