Tabula Rasa lj

We have more photos from last week's party, this time from Leigh Blackmore.

And because you demanded to know(?), here's the ( soundtrack )

We had a most excellent party last night, as ably chronicled here by Cat. Careful study may give you a clue as to the theme. Special mention should be made of Andrew's, Bill's and Aileen's costume, although they were all great.

(For those attendees who are interested, the interloper in the slideshow was from Skinwalkers.)

We saw Tim Burton's original Batman last night. It's quite odd how much Batman isn't actually in the movie, but that's alright because it works better that way. The action is a bit clunky, but the quieter bits are often charming or creepy or both.

We ventured out to see two movies last week -- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and The Box. Really, I'm not sure I have much to say about them.

The first looked great, but I found myself more or less unaffected by it. The stakes or the characters never resonated much, beyond the 'she's pretty, he's dead' level.

The second managed to extend itself beyond its simple original idea, with an amalgam of other Twilight Zone type imagery. It was an interesting approach that could have worked (especially the mix of dilemmas, national and personal), but never quite did. kylaw pointed out some gender issues, which do indeed seem dodgy.

So I guess that's said then.

as seen on the back of a ute this morning.

Hunting = Conservation

and

Don't send our troops to Iraq
(send tactical nukes instead)

My website and email appears to have died. Apparently I never got the note about updating my payment details.

All should be good soon.

It's been another busy weekend, and Kyla provides a nice summary of the highlights -- being her theatrical debut as part of the Theatre of Blood, and gothing out at the Halloween ball.

Juke Baritone in particular was very cool, and HorrorWood Mannequins had energy to spare. I wasn't so sure about the headliners, GPKism. Maybe I have some out-of-date notion that the musician on stage should have some sort of audible effect on the music. But a fun night was had.

The things you find when looking for something entirely different... in this case a photo of piercings that match up those worn by Jacqueline in Prismatic. It's more elaborate but recognisable. Since I just made that bit up (by that stage things were a little hectic), I think that's very cool.

I see Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking a bash at Lewis Carroll's title of acrostic champion: a memo.

Looking back, it has been quite a busy couple of days, in a leisurely sense.

• I finished up the 'Long Strange Trip' achievement in WoW, which is fairly well named -- having taken me since last December, on and off.
• Went around to jack_ryder's for Space Hulk. It seems odd to me that a game's introductory scenario would be so dramatically slanted to one side -- but that does seem the point, as our brave (if clumsy) space marines face the alien hordes. As long as you swap sides (which we did), all is good. We also got some Dungeon Twister in, which was also unbalanced, if only because I rudely started with an aggressive forward march that is hard to counter without experience.
• (Dungeon Twister is coming to the XBox soon. I'm not sure if you'll be able to see the board properly in such a medium, but I'll certainly give it a go.)
• Iain also showed me Left4Dead, which I've been meaning to catch up with. Somehow the setting for Borderlands appeals a little more -- it's another 4 character co-op game, albeit with levelling and Mad Max chic. Reviews have been mixed.
• Seeing as WoW is indeed an influence on D&D 4e, I thought I'd push the comparison and introduce some boss concepts into a D&D battle. It didn't go quite as I expected, but it worked well enough for the game in progress.
• Went into to town to catch up with my brother, who flew in for business, and seems to be doing very well.
• Bought Fallout 3, now that the expanded edition is out. I peeked at a couple of online discussions on skill distribution, which I think will help. I will ignore the suggestion to keep reloading each conversation until the desired result is reached (but is this much different to reloading until I manage to keep the sheriff of Megaton alive?)
• Read some Stephen King comics -- the latest Stand, Dark Tower, and Talisman. I don't think RF embarrassed herself with her first actual writing gig, and the Marvel series continue their somewhat rambling pace. Maybe I should switch to the trades (which will no doubt be in hard cover). I see Steve has an original series with Vertigo coming out next year, American Vampire, with might be fun.
• Watched some more NCIS, in our occasional rush when we get whole seasons out from the library (now S3). I see we've entered 'torture is necessary' territory, so I'll be interested to see how thay plays out. Going into Gibbs' past might be dodgy too. But they do good things.
• Saw War, Inc, on the dubious premise that it is an 'informal sequel' to Grosse Pointe Blank. That's true enough, but it's mostly a giddying satire on mercenaries and the Iraq war -- perhaps too giddying to build to the emotional heights, but well worth a look.
• I didn't finish the DA crossword, but got a lot further than last week, when the theme was comedians.
• The weekend continued over length, mostly because my car was in service, and I had to get some art (not mine) into town for the Under the Blue Moon art comp. This variously involved raiding Jintha'Alor temple and defeating Lego Manbat.
• Also played some XBox arcade demo about dropping building blocks onto ever more unsteady towers. Because, you know, I'm almost 40 and wouldn't want to be bored.

As seen on Lilja's Library, Pet Sematary: the game. Darling.

Sometimes I think I should see more comedy films; maybe I would lighten up*. But few of them appeal**, and I probably don't understand the form***. Then again, I don't think the people who wrote the back cover blurb of Pushing Tin understand comedy particularly well either, given their description of the 'hilarious havoc' and 'uproarious contest of wit and wills' involved.

It was a pretty good movie though, and did indeed have some very funny bits.****

* or not.
** Does anything?
*** I don't even know what a sophomore is. This somehow seems relevant.
**** sorry for excessive footnotes.

For no doubt not-very-good reasons, I'm a bit grumpy about the whole D&D thing -- but it must be said that using the Monster Creator to find something you need, then adapting it for the exact level you want, is pretty cool.

As seen on toniaw, retro book covers for fake movie novelisations. My favourite is Highlander.

It's strange the things that strike you about a movie. There are many striking moments in Lair of the White Worm, and one that stayed with me was the sword crashing into the drum set, after bisecting the flying woman. Looking back at it now, that's not even what happens, exactly. Fortunately the movie remains entirely watchable, with a strange mix of high weirdness and practicality. Out heroes might as well be characters in some modern day RPG, the way they progress from a few clues and dream sequences to the big guns (being industrial size sound systems and a hand grenade).

It was also fun to see Peter Capaldi from the recent Torchwood thingie as a mad Scot, though I confess to not recognising him until the end credits.

Speaking of drum kits, I guess I should give up my vague ambitions of making Rock Band and sundry into a party game. Still, K and I are now rocking out to GH Metallica. I still prefer the RB interface, but it's looking pretty good so far.

According to Lilja's Library, a new Stephen King TV series is coming:

...E1 Entertainment has committed to 13 hour-long episodes adapting Stephen King's novella The Colorado Kid into a television series called Haven.

Scott Shepherd will serve as showrunner and exec produce with Lloyd Segan and Shawn Piller, all three of whom were exec producers on USA Network's version of The Dead Zone.

The report describes the project as, "centers on a spooky town in Maine where cursed folk live normal lives in exile. When those curses start returning, FBI agent Audrey Parker is brought in to keep those supernatural forces at bay -- while trying to unravel the mysteries of Haven."

Sounds sort of interesting. More interesting than anything I remember from the book, frankly -- which was not the hard boiled story we were promised, and not much of its own thing either.

I guess I should go back to watch the last season or two of Dead Zone. I liked the show a lot, but apparently it falls away precipitously at the end. My curiosity remains (and now I've finished Breaking Bad S1, there's room for something else that K isn't in to).

I had completely forgotten Minority Report was a Spielberg film -- until the credit at the end of the movie. This apparently wasn't a one-off lapse, since it was filed between Kingdom of Heaven and The Hunger. It's still a pretty good movie, although it makes less sense than I remember (the eternal and not very useful complaint). There was one line Tom Cruise had where I suddenly thought Lestat.

Playing Batman: Arkham Asylum, particularly the fight scenes, is doing my wrists in.

There was also some mix-up with the Brewfest boss, but I'm sure we're both better off with that going unexplained.

To add to the apocalyptic montage, here is K's ( photo of the dust storms. ) Now, we just need some helicopters and Ride of the Valkyries.

We saw Push, and it's pretty cool. Certainly rough -- the actors aren't incredibly convincing, the plot has more than a few wobbles, and the vague promise of wuxia action in the trailer doesn't really come off. But I liked the look of it, and the ideas; a complex web of people and psychic powers that interact in weird ways, both trivial and profound. It reminded me somewhat of the Lost Room mini-series, which is a good thing.

I have been thinking about neat character moments in RPGs, and how they seem really hard to pull off. As a GM, I can set stuff up, and they almost invariably pass by. As a player, I've seen openings created that I have failed to capitalise on, for want of quick thinking or half decent dice rolls (and I'm sure there are openings I failed to even notice as well).

I suspect this is one of the reasons my games run for so long. (Also, I'm a novelist in mind, if not body, and that's how things come out.) I always set things up carefully, provide copious notes to players to keep track of the complexities, and plenty of NPCs. That puts less emphasis on individual moments of coolness that might or might not work; which makes the game run better but can stifle creativity and immersion.

When it works, the slow burn can be pretty cool; if not, it's just tedious and takes up a lot of time that is no doubt better spent. And, of course, different players want different things (certainly in our group they do), so saying such a thing is good or bad is fairly meaningless.

But I want cool moments, to have them and to provide them, and I haven't really figured out how.

As reported in kylaw's journal, she is appearing in the upcoming theatre season Theatre of Blood. Looks most excellent.