This month, the Looney Academy looks at the Foreign Language classroom and discusses translations versus rote substitution. We have an excellent lesson plan for introducing Fluxx Espaņol to a Spanish 2 classroom. This lesson plan is written by Ryan Full, one of our Teacher Rabbits who teaches Spanish and English (and games!) in a West Virginia junior high school. Thank you Ryan!

Plan now for those long summer days when the kids will be out of school and looking for something to do. Stock up on games that will get their brains working, keep the kids learning, and get the whole family having fun. Grab a Purple Bag and fill it with EcoFluxx, Treehouse, Fluxx Espaņol and our other great educational games - and you're set for the summer!

In the past few year, mostly because of high gas prices, UPS has raised its rates dramatically, and started adding "fuel surcharges" on top. Even US Postal Service rates (one of the cheapest in the world!) have risen a little bit every year. Because of this, we are finding it necessary to raise our own shipping charges a bit. Sorry...

To offset this, however, we are changing our shopping cart to allow us to select the the most economic shipping method for each package. While this means that customers will no longer be able to choose between UPS and USPS shipping methods, it does help us keep our rate increase to a minimum. Expedited shipping will still be an option at this time. Read our About Shipping page.

Good news, Fluxx fans! Our warehouse folks were restocking some promo cards, and they opened a little box of what was labeled as Earth promos - and found some long lost Composting cards! So we will have them back in stock for a while. This New Rule card comes in EcoFluxx, but you can add it to any version of Fluxx. This promo version of the card was printed for Origins 2005, the year 5 different booths were handing out promo cards for us. We'd always held out hope that we'd find some - there were just too few of them to think that we'd actually given them all away. So get 'em while they're hot (that's the best kind of Compost pile anyhow, right? A nice hot one that's actively decaying...)

Those guys over at Pulp Gamer talk about Nanofictionary in a recent podcast...

"Throughout the course of feedback the topic of Nanofictionary comes up. We agreed this game deserved some attention. It is another by Looney Labs that just didn’t get enough mention in our prior shows. You have a small hand of cards, each with an element you must use to tell your nano-sized fiction. Teachers have also found great uses for this fun game."

The five finalists in each category of the Origins Awards were announced at the GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas last week. The finalists were chosen by retailers from a list drawn from publisher/creator submissions with a jury review. We're excited to announce that Treehouse has been nominated for the best "Board Game or Expansion of the Year".

THE BAD NEWS: We're temporarily out of Fluxx Blanxx, and it will be a little while before we get a new print run in.

THE GOOD NEWS: we only JUST ran out of them, so they might still be available in your friendly neighborhood game store - check our store roster and call a store near you to see if they have them. Or you can order them online still at Paizo.com. (If you run an online game store that has Fluxx Blanxx in stock, let us know and we'll list your store here. If you find one of these stores has since run out, please let us know!)

Get a FREE copy of the new promo card The Computer when you purchase over $25 worth of games (before Shipping).

Get a FREE copy of Flowers & Fluxx AND two copies of The Computer when you purchase over $100 worth of games (before shipping).

You have to put these into your shopping cart yourself though, so don't forget!

Looney Show Date Location MARCON 42  May 25-27 Columbus, OH private event June 17 Austin, TX Origins July 5-8 Columbus, OH GenCon Indy Aug 16-19 Indianapolis, IN

What's a "Looney Show"? A Looney Show is an event at which one or more of the people actually named Looney will show up in person to help with the running of Looney Labs events.

Rabbit Show Date Location Morphicon May 18-20 Columbus, OH KublaCon May 25-28 Burlingame, CA Gamex May 25-28 Los Angeles, CA DieCon June 1-3 Collinsville, IL UK Games Expo June 2-3 Birmingham, UK Geekway to the West June 16-17 St. Louis, MO Game 07 June 23-24 Manchester, UK BenCon June 28-July 1 Denver, CO Anthrocon July 5-8 Pittsburgh, PA Trinoc*coN Aug 3-5 Durham, NC Gen Con UK Aug 30- Sept 2 Reading University, UK Dragon*Con Aug 31 - Sept 3 Atlanta, GA MileHiCon Oct 26-28 Denver, CO MACE Nov 16-18 High Point, NC Genghis Con XXVIII Feb 15-18 2008 Denver, CO StellarCon Mar 14-16 2008 High Point, NC

What's a "Rabbit Show"? A Rabbit Show is an event at which Looney Labs gaming will be hosted by one or more of the official Looney Labs volunteer helpers, known as Mad Lab Rabbits (possibly with the further assistance of representatives from the company not named Looney).