I finally took advantage of living in Los Angeles and went to see a film in limited release. Of course, all that really means is that for the first time in a year, a movie came out that was intriguing enough to be worth the extra effort and parking fees. Raleigh's highways may be confusing, and Tyson's Corner more crowded than a Wal-Mart on the wrong side of Pennsylvania, but both pale in comparison to the terrors of The Grove.
It was worth it. Children of Men is fantastic.
Assuming you've browsed other reviews, you're familiar with the "most realized dystopian future since Blade Runner" meme. I can't argue with that, though I would add a caveat. Blade Runner is a projection of what the world might have looked like if everything continued to go wrong after 1982. Children of Men depicts a horrible future that is already happening.
The novel The Children of Men uses the premise of an infertility pandemic to explore issues of civil liberties versus security; the consequences of selfishness at personal, familial, and societal levels; and what drives people to power and how power affects those who acquire it. Those aspects are all featured in the film's plot, but it struck me as having a more singular theme: what little value we have for human life. With one or two exceptions, every time a character died in Children of Men, I was shocked. When characters who had only been on screen for 15 seconds were killed, I was horrified. In contrast to the other "serious," "political," and "adult" movies previewed before the film, when something exploded in Children of Men, it wasn't flashy and pretty. It was senseless.
I'm not a war movie person. Even when the message of a war movie is that war is bad, I know a lot of people will watch it and think, "Dude, that part where the guy's flamethrower tank blew up? That was awesome!" What amazed me about Children of Men is that its portrayal of violence was so unglamourous. Even justified deaths lacked satisfaction. You'd have to be a sociopath to enjoy the waste of life in this movie, and this is coming from a guy who thinks a world without children would have its advantages.
The idea that if people became incapable of reproduction we'd still be killing each other is haunting. To imagine that if someone was suddenly able to procreate in such a setting we still wouldn't put down our guns is even worse. But the greatest impact this movie had on me was that this random, pointless waste of life is happening every day, and we just don't see it.
Children of Men isn't science fiction. It's what we ignore about today.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
A Vow Fufilled
Due to the following, I am morally obligated to approve of the Scott Pilgrim series, by Brian Lee O'Malley. (Warning: link provides no evidence that I'm right.)
1- The main story begins with an anime-styled love triangle between Scott Pilgrim, his current girlfriend, and the girl of his dreams.
2- His roommate locks Pilgrim out of his apartment. The roommate demands that Pilgrim make his decision, and break up with "His fake girlfriend" before he'll be allowed back inside.
3- Pilgrim does so, and never looks back.
It's about damn time that happened. Also, a "How appropriate, you fight like a cow," will win me over exactly three out of four times.
A similar vow once caused me to read the entire The Night's Dawn books by Peter F. Hamilton. If I had known the name of the trilogy beforehand, I probably would have never picked up the first one. But once I found out that the books were about mankind's war against humans who had turned into beings of pure energy, I had to read it.
Oh, I hates beings of pure energy. Especially when people turn into them at the end of a book. This explains my anger when at the Deus Ex Machintastic ending, a main character turns into a being of even purer energy, and makes everything right with a wave of his kilowatt hand.
Really, I should've seen that coming.
1- The main story begins with an anime-styled love triangle between Scott Pilgrim, his current girlfriend, and the girl of his dreams.
2- His roommate locks Pilgrim out of his apartment. The roommate demands that Pilgrim make his decision, and break up with "His fake girlfriend" before he'll be allowed back inside.
3- Pilgrim does so, and never looks back.
It's about damn time that happened. Also, a "How appropriate, you fight like a cow," will win me over exactly three out of four times.
A similar vow once caused me to read the entire The Night's Dawn books by Peter F. Hamilton. If I had known the name of the trilogy beforehand, I probably would have never picked up the first one. But once I found out that the books were about mankind's war against humans who had turned into beings of pure energy, I had to read it.
Oh, I hates beings of pure energy. Especially when people turn into them at the end of a book. This explains my anger when at the Deus Ex Machintastic ending, a main character turns into a being of even purer energy, and makes everything right with a wave of his kilowatt hand.
Really, I should've seen that coming.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
An End of the Year Music List
I hate lists. I think they're easy, useless, and resent paying for them. It infuriates me to see magazines and newspapers publishing lists of the best games/TV shows/movies/books/comics/plays of the year (or ever). And don't get me started about lists on podcasts. Yes, GeeksOn was the first place I ever heard about the Necronomicon pillow, but I just don't give a crap about what characters readers would cast the writers of TV Guide as in Buffy or Grey's Anatomy.
But here at CF&S, we're writing text for the Internet, where we don't get paid to make lists and you don't have to pay anything to read them. For me, that makes the phenomenon tolerable. And it wouldn't look like the last week of the year on a web site without a list, would it? So here's mine, The Top 5 Songs I First Heard This Year That Still Bliss Me Out.
5. "ReYourBrains" (Thing A Week Two, Jonathan Coulton)
Mmm, brains. Like most of the songs on this list, this was a toss-up. Coulton's better-known single, "Code Monkey," manages to rock and be surprisingly sweet at the same time. But this is the song that I bought the T-shirt for, and I have never bought a music T-shirt in my life.
4. "In This Together" (You and Me Against the World, Apoptygma Berzerk)
Completeing their journey from synthpop to dance to rock, Apop finally fulfilled Mr. Bile's hopes and released a studio album with the same energy as their live one. The whole album makes me feel happy, but this song in particular has a "played over the end credits of a movie with shots of the main characters dancing" feeling that I really dig. Check out the real version yourself, because you'll only hear the dance remix at goth roller-skating night.
3. "Nursehellamentary" (Rhyme Torrents Volume I, Nursehella)
This was the year I was forcibly exposed to nerdcore, and surprisingly, I liked it. With both MC Frontalot and Weird Al in the mix, it was hard to choose just one nerdcore song to put on this list. I picked Nursehella because she embraced the braggadocio popular in non-nerd rap without mocking it or using it as an excuse for white-boy misogyny. The lyrics are actually kind of hot. My decision was cemented when I checked out her My Space profile, where she describes herself like a sexy Tycho Brahe would.
2. "Night of the Vampire" (Gremlins Have Pictures, Roky Erickson)
Sometimes not finding what you put into the search bar on iTunes has its rewards. I don't even know what subgenre this is. What I do know is that gets stuck in your head, evokes a cool mental picture, and has great misheard lyrics. I stand in the darkness with no porn.
1. "The New Kid" (Drag It Up, The Old '97s)
Another toss-up. Slither has an awesome, thematically appropriate soundtrack. But the Yayhoo's "Baby I Love You" seems to strike a nerve with some women, so "The New Kid" it is. And, yes, it is alt-country.
Most of the above are available for sampling and download via iTunes. "ReYourBrains," "Code Monkey," and other Jonathan Coulton songs may still be available there for free if you subscribe to his podcast. "Nursehellamentary" can be heard in full here.
The usual cheating honorary mentions go to Bear McCreary, The NESkimos, The Oddz, the aforementioned MC Frontalot, MC Hawking, and Rappy McRapperson. Oh, and Lordi. They destroy cheerleaders.
But here at CF&S, we're writing text for the Internet, where we don't get paid to make lists and you don't have to pay anything to read them. For me, that makes the phenomenon tolerable. And it wouldn't look like the last week of the year on a web site without a list, would it? So here's mine, The Top 5 Songs I First Heard This Year That Still Bliss Me Out.
5. "ReYourBrains" (Thing A Week Two, Jonathan Coulton)
Mmm, brains. Like most of the songs on this list, this was a toss-up. Coulton's better-known single, "Code Monkey," manages to rock and be surprisingly sweet at the same time. But this is the song that I bought the T-shirt for, and I have never bought a music T-shirt in my life.
4. "In This Together" (You and Me Against the World, Apoptygma Berzerk)
Completeing their journey from synthpop to dance to rock, Apop finally fulfilled Mr. Bile's hopes and released a studio album with the same energy as their live one. The whole album makes me feel happy, but this song in particular has a "played over the end credits of a movie with shots of the main characters dancing" feeling that I really dig. Check out the real version yourself, because you'll only hear the dance remix at goth roller-skating night.
3. "Nursehellamentary" (Rhyme Torrents Volume I, Nursehella)
This was the year I was forcibly exposed to nerdcore, and surprisingly, I liked it. With both MC Frontalot and Weird Al in the mix, it was hard to choose just one nerdcore song to put on this list. I picked Nursehella because she embraced the braggadocio popular in non-nerd rap without mocking it or using it as an excuse for white-boy misogyny. The lyrics are actually kind of hot. My decision was cemented when I checked out her My Space profile, where she describes herself like a sexy Tycho Brahe would.
2. "Night of the Vampire" (Gremlins Have Pictures, Roky Erickson)
Sometimes not finding what you put into the search bar on iTunes has its rewards. I don't even know what subgenre this is. What I do know is that gets stuck in your head, evokes a cool mental picture, and has great misheard lyrics. I stand in the darkness with no porn.
1. "The New Kid" (Drag It Up, The Old '97s)
Another toss-up. Slither has an awesome, thematically appropriate soundtrack. But the Yayhoo's "Baby I Love You" seems to strike a nerve with some women, so "The New Kid" it is. And, yes, it is alt-country.
Most of the above are available for sampling and download via iTunes. "ReYourBrains," "Code Monkey," and other Jonathan Coulton songs may still be available there for free if you subscribe to his podcast. "Nursehellamentary" can be heard in full here.
The usual cheating honorary mentions go to Bear McCreary, The NESkimos, The Oddz, the aforementioned MC Frontalot, MC Hawking, and Rappy McRapperson. Oh, and Lordi. They destroy cheerleaders.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Viewed: Altered and Lady In The Water
"There is no originality left in the world, Mr. Heep. That is a sad fact I've come to live with."
Altered is the movie Feast wanted to be. Hell, it's the movie we wanted Bubba Ho-Tep to be. A bunch of hillbilly alien abductees have been waiting in the woods for years, hoping to catch an alien of their own for revenge. "But mostly it was about the drinking." When the aliens finally return, they capture one and take it to a remote wilderness compound. The actions of assholes and innocents cause characters to die in an unpredictable order.
The budget is low, the acting isn't that great, and the dialogue could use some punching up. But the movie gets the beats right, an impressive feat for a horror/comedy. The plotting is dead on and the jokes work. There are a few nifty revelations along the way, and some of the plot twists turn out to be punchlines. And in a nice throwback, the aliens are little green men with sharp teeth.
You have to hand it to Eduardo Sanchez, co-writer/co-director of The Blair Witch Project. He sure knows how to make a scary movie about a bunch of jerks screaming at each other and screwing each other over. And now he can do it without giving you a headache.
"What type of person would be so arrogant to assume the intention of another human being?"
Me, for one. Or anyone who reads a book, watches a movie, or views a painting, for that matter. Thanks for asking, Joe Rogan.
Okay, Joe Rogan doesn't actually play the evil movie critic in M. Night Shymalan's Lady in the Water. But he might as well be in there shouting, "If you think this sucks so much, why don't you make a movie?" Ignoring the actual answer (I promised I would never do that again, the evidence might still be out there somewhere and now we have YouTube), I'd ask a question in response. "If you're going to attempt to create art, why shouldn't we be allowed to judge it?"
A quick recap for anyone who regularly avoids reviews of movies they know they will hate: Lady in the Water is the story of an friendly Los Angeles apartment superintendent (it's nice to know screenwriters on both coasts don't know what the hell they're talking about) who befriends a sea creature from the Blue World. She appears in the swimming pool of his apartment complex because she needs to be seen by someone who will change the world. That someone happens to be a writer played by M. Night Shymalan, who is writing a book that will change history after he's killed for publishing his crazy ideas about peace in the first place.
(Oh, and the creature's name is Story and for some reason the superintendent never offers her pants. Dude, if you want to make movies about your fetish for Ron Howard's daughter, do it on your own time, like your fictional counterpart in The Skin Gods.)
You have to give props to M. Night for putting himself in the role of the messiah. Unless he cast Mel Gibson again, we would have assumed the character was supposed to be him anyway. The real problem surfaces after that, when the superintendent tries to get the sea creature back to her homeworld. As it turns out, she requires the services of several archetypes to aid her in her return: a witness, a healer, an interpreter, a guild... (This is all delivered through racist portrayals of Korean-Americans. Old Asian ladies are the new Magical African-American Friends.) Not knowing who to turn to, the superintendent asks the advice of the resident film critic.
This is the point at which it becomes understandable why no one knows the definition of "irony" anymore. Everything the film critic says in the movie is true until M. Night says it's not. The critic's analysis of romantic comedy, his previously italicized opinion of originality, and his original interpretation of which apartment residents fulfill what archetypes are all on the money. Why shouldn't the pot smokers be the guild? Why isn't the crossword puzzle guy the interpreter? Because a movie critic said so and every justifiable opinion he reached is wrong.
Several critics alluded to the twist of Lady in the Water when it came out and how it was cheating, but they wouldn't reveal what it was. Allow me to put in in clear terms. The twist in Lady in the Water is that a writer/director who is known for spelling out what is exactly going on, be it via flashbacks or television and radio announcements, the guy who provided an animated prologue for his latest film because he thinks we're too stupid to get it, is now an unreliable narrator. Who saw that coming?
That's the last time I defend Unbreakable.
Altered is the movie Feast wanted to be. Hell, it's the movie we wanted Bubba Ho-Tep to be. A bunch of hillbilly alien abductees have been waiting in the woods for years, hoping to catch an alien of their own for revenge. "But mostly it was about the drinking." When the aliens finally return, they capture one and take it to a remote wilderness compound. The actions of assholes and innocents cause characters to die in an unpredictable order.
The budget is low, the acting isn't that great, and the dialogue could use some punching up. But the movie gets the beats right, an impressive feat for a horror/comedy. The plotting is dead on and the jokes work. There are a few nifty revelations along the way, and some of the plot twists turn out to be punchlines. And in a nice throwback, the aliens are little green men with sharp teeth.
You have to hand it to Eduardo Sanchez, co-writer/co-director of The Blair Witch Project. He sure knows how to make a scary movie about a bunch of jerks screaming at each other and screwing each other over. And now he can do it without giving you a headache.
"What type of person would be so arrogant to assume the intention of another human being?"
Me, for one. Or anyone who reads a book, watches a movie, or views a painting, for that matter. Thanks for asking, Joe Rogan.
Okay, Joe Rogan doesn't actually play the evil movie critic in M. Night Shymalan's Lady in the Water. But he might as well be in there shouting, "If you think this sucks so much, why don't you make a movie?" Ignoring the actual answer (I promised I would never do that again, the evidence might still be out there somewhere and now we have YouTube), I'd ask a question in response. "If you're going to attempt to create art, why shouldn't we be allowed to judge it?"
A quick recap for anyone who regularly avoids reviews of movies they know they will hate: Lady in the Water is the story of an friendly Los Angeles apartment superintendent (it's nice to know screenwriters on both coasts don't know what the hell they're talking about) who befriends a sea creature from the Blue World. She appears in the swimming pool of his apartment complex because she needs to be seen by someone who will change the world. That someone happens to be a writer played by M. Night Shymalan, who is writing a book that will change history after he's killed for publishing his crazy ideas about peace in the first place.
(Oh, and the creature's name is Story and for some reason the superintendent never offers her pants. Dude, if you want to make movies about your fetish for Ron Howard's daughter, do it on your own time, like your fictional counterpart in The Skin Gods.)
You have to give props to M. Night for putting himself in the role of the messiah. Unless he cast Mel Gibson again, we would have assumed the character was supposed to be him anyway. The real problem surfaces after that, when the superintendent tries to get the sea creature back to her homeworld. As it turns out, she requires the services of several archetypes to aid her in her return: a witness, a healer, an interpreter, a guild... (This is all delivered through racist portrayals of Korean-Americans. Old Asian ladies are the new Magical African-American Friends.) Not knowing who to turn to, the superintendent asks the advice of the resident film critic.
This is the point at which it becomes understandable why no one knows the definition of "irony" anymore. Everything the film critic says in the movie is true until M. Night says it's not. The critic's analysis of romantic comedy, his previously italicized opinion of originality, and his original interpretation of which apartment residents fulfill what archetypes are all on the money. Why shouldn't the pot smokers be the guild? Why isn't the crossword puzzle guy the interpreter? Because a movie critic said so and every justifiable opinion he reached is wrong.
Several critics alluded to the twist of Lady in the Water when it came out and how it was cheating, but they wouldn't reveal what it was. Allow me to put in in clear terms. The twist in Lady in the Water is that a writer/director who is known for spelling out what is exactly going on, be it via flashbacks or television and radio announcements, the guy who provided an animated prologue for his latest film because he thinks we're too stupid to get it, is now an unreliable narrator. Who saw that coming?
That's the last time I defend Unbreakable.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Yes, Virginia, There Is Typecasting
I was expecting reruns today on NPR. Instead, I heard a live discussion about The Great Scrooges. To paraphrase:
Host: "Here's a clip of Starfleet Captain Patrick Stewart taking a turn as Ebeneezer Scrooge..."
Caller: "Well, he was a Shakespearean actor before he was in Star Trek."
Host: "I suppose so."
Caller: "I loved Michael Caine in A Muppet Christmas Carol..."
Host: "I don't think anyone can see him without seeing Alfie."
Caller: "My favorite Scrooge was Henry Winkler."
Host: "Aaayyyyyy?"
Host: "Here's a clip of Starfleet Captain Patrick Stewart taking a turn as Ebeneezer Scrooge..."
Caller: "Well, he was a Shakespearean actor before he was in Star Trek."
Host: "I suppose so."
Caller: "I loved Michael Caine in A Muppet Christmas Carol..."
Host: "I don't think anyone can see him without seeing Alfie."
Caller: "My favorite Scrooge was Henry Winkler."
Host: "Aaayyyyyy?"
Friday, December 22, 2006
Exposition
There are worse reasons than Christmas for a lack of compelling content. The fake holiday I hated the most was E3. For those who were blissfully unaware, the Electronics Entertainment Expo was a week long festival attended by anyone who had ever thought about making a video game. Each entrant would bring videotapes of what they thought their videogame would be like, assuming they had unlimited cash and technology from the future. If the entrant had any money left over from outsourcing their video footage, they would hire a scantily clad woman to stand beside a cardboard fort. During E3, every website that had ever been connected to videogames would alter its format to only talk about E3's hypothetical game experience. This lack of real content would continue for another week afterwards, or two if the reader was really lucky.
I put this in the past tense because E3 has finally died, for unspecified reasons. Expect two to three years of glorious silence before a new media-glomming exposition takes its place.
Christmas might have more of an impact on the web, but at least the reader is expecting this... and if they're lucky, their content providers have too. In case you're desperate, I've taken the liberty of adding Marketplace to the Tolerable Podcasts section. It puts Narraptor to sleep, but I love it for reasons obscured by my mysterious past.
Otherwise, there are always books if you're desperate for content. I suggest grabbing a random mystery with a decent title, and we can all enjoy being underwhelmed together. My latest choice was The Water Clock. As with most mysteries that lack a gimmicked main character, the inside of the book jacket desperately spoils plot points in a desperate attempt to hook you. This one was notable for revealing that the main character's investigations will solve a mystery from his own tragic past. The actual contents of the book give no clue that this is the case, until the last four pages. Also, the title itself is a spoiler, and yet has virtually nothing to do with the book.
Now that I think about it, that's a rather impressive trick.
I put this in the past tense because E3 has finally died, for unspecified reasons. Expect two to three years of glorious silence before a new media-glomming exposition takes its place.
Christmas might have more of an impact on the web, but at least the reader is expecting this... and if they're lucky, their content providers have too. In case you're desperate, I've taken the liberty of adding Marketplace to the Tolerable Podcasts section. It puts Narraptor to sleep, but I love it for reasons obscured by my mysterious past.
Otherwise, there are always books if you're desperate for content. I suggest grabbing a random mystery with a decent title, and we can all enjoy being underwhelmed together. My latest choice was The Water Clock. As with most mysteries that lack a gimmicked main character, the inside of the book jacket desperately spoils plot points in a desperate attempt to hook you. This one was notable for revealing that the main character's investigations will solve a mystery from his own tragic past. The actual contents of the book give no clue that this is the case, until the last four pages. Also, the title itself is a spoiler, and yet has virtually nothing to do with the book.
Now that I think about it, that's a rather impressive trick.
Newsflash
Thank you, JK Rowling, for the excellent pre-Xmas gift. The title of the final Harry Potter novel is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Mrs. Rowling, you are so metal.
'Tis The Season No One Updates
I wanted to take a moment today to highlight our highly selective list of linked content, but this is probably the worst time of the year to do so.
It is the last workday before the Christmas and New Year's holidays, which means most web sites will not be updated for a week and a half at best. The links we offer here will only lead you to "best of the year" articles (or a list of "best articles of the year"), pre-generated content with no immediacy, movie reviews written weeks ahead of time, and podcasts that will return in 2007.
It would seem to be a bad week for those of us stuck at the office. (What the hell am I supposed to listen to on my commute? Music?) But never fear. Canned Food and Shotguns will still be updated on our usual irregular schedule throughout the holidays. So it will only suck for me, assuming I actually have time to browse the Internet at work, and Mr. Bile, who does not work in an office, much less The Office, which had the best Christmas episode ever.
I encourage anyone who missed the latter to pick it up via iTunes as a present to themselves. I know some of you might be on the torrents and believe information deserves to be free, but really, is $1.99 that bad a price for 42 minutes of information that contains the phrase: "We're going to Asian Hooters"?
And on the subject of Christmas presents, we may even have one or two for you next week. I already know what I'm getting you. If you have a wish list, send your suggestions to Mr. Bile immediately. I asked for a Tight Hat.
Hey, it's Christmas. I can make all the obscure references I want.
It is the last workday before the Christmas and New Year's holidays, which means most web sites will not be updated for a week and a half at best. The links we offer here will only lead you to "best of the year" articles (or a list of "best articles of the year"), pre-generated content with no immediacy, movie reviews written weeks ahead of time, and podcasts that will return in 2007.
It would seem to be a bad week for those of us stuck at the office. (What the hell am I supposed to listen to on my commute? Music?) But never fear. Canned Food and Shotguns will still be updated on our usual irregular schedule throughout the holidays. So it will only suck for me, assuming I actually have time to browse the Internet at work, and Mr. Bile, who does not work in an office, much less The Office, which had the best Christmas episode ever.
I encourage anyone who missed the latter to pick it up via iTunes as a present to themselves. I know some of you might be on the torrents and believe information deserves to be free, but really, is $1.99 that bad a price for 42 minutes of information that contains the phrase: "We're going to Asian Hooters"?
And on the subject of Christmas presents, we may even have one or two for you next week. I already know what I'm getting you. If you have a wish list, send your suggestions to Mr. Bile immediately. I asked for a Tight Hat.
Hey, it's Christmas. I can make all the obscure references I want.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Them! Vs. Christmas
Take a moment to perform one of the following sense memory exercises:
1) You are a young adult ofeither any sex and ethnic background walking on the sidewalk of a relatively safe Los Angeles neighborhood at night. If you don't know any better, you consider the air to be chilly and you can pretend that it's fall. The interstate emanates a constant white noise, and the air smells of that weird apartment building three blocks south. Suddenly, you see a Christmas tree thrown to the curb. A man emerges, kicking it furiously while it's down.
2) You are a slightly older young adult of any sex (but most likely female) and ethnic background (Thai? Vietnamese? Mmm. Viethaimese.) and you enter your apartment building's garage early in the morning. You are carrying a bag of trash, which reeks of cardboard from mail-order Christmas presents or just moving in. Living so close to the interstate, your ability to taste is inevitably dead. You open the door to the trash bin and see...(roll2d10)...a Christmas tree sticking out of the bin, still green, with lights still on it, a week before Christmas.
How do you react?
The understandable answer is "WTF?" But should you ever experience either of these scenarios in real life, allow me to fill you in on TF.
TF is that the Christmas tree someone paid $40 for, the first real one they ever acquired since moving out of their parents' house, was covered with ants.
1) You are a young adult of
2) You are a slightly older young adult of any sex (but most likely female) and ethnic background (Thai? Vietnamese? Mmm. Viethaimese.) and you enter your apartment building's garage early in the morning. You are carrying a bag of trash, which reeks of cardboard from mail-order Christmas presents or just moving in. Living so close to the interstate, your ability to taste is inevitably dead. You open the door to the trash bin and see...(roll2d10)...a Christmas tree sticking out of the bin, still green, with lights still on it, a week before Christmas.
How do you react?
The understandable answer is "WTF?" But should you ever experience either of these scenarios in real life, allow me to fill you in on TF.
TF is that the Christmas tree someone paid $40 for, the first real one they ever acquired since moving out of their parents' house, was covered with ants.
All Is Forgiven
After comparing Battlestar Galactica to the lowest of modern art forms on Saturday, I had the most wonderful dream: Boomer in a Japanese Asics competition swimsuit. The racerback opening showed off her beautiful glowing spine, and the translucent white lycra provided a hint of everything else.
Forget what I wrote earlier. Bestdream show evar.
Forget what I wrote earlier. Best
Sunday, December 17, 2006
The Mysterious Dean Stockwell
A discussion about the penultimate episode to BSG's demiseason will have to wait for a few more days. But along with the show needing more Baltar and more Zarek, I'd like to ask where Dean Stockwell's been hiding out. It's nice that he reappears for the important episodes, but it was distracting to wonder where the hell he had gone to for half of the season. His reappearance only serves to break my private hope that every Stockwell model had left to form their own renegade cylon armada.
I'm starting to suspect that BSG has never been very good about getting contracts set up with their cylon actors. For the longest time, I was convinced that there was a reason you never saw Religious Cylon interacting with the rest of his kind. The real reason turned out to be "to stretch the casting budget." This was perfectly fine in the beginning, but once you start killing off characters who won't commit to multiple seasons, it's bad form to turn around and only hire "real actors" for three episodes at a time. Especialy when they play characters who ought to be present in every episode.
For you non-BSG watchers out there, despite what Narraptor said there is no "frelling" in the cylon occupied world of the future. They've upgraded to "frakking," which is unfortunate for most everyone concerned. It must be said that things could have turned out worse. In my youth, I read Shadowrun novels where the reader was expected to take lines like "What the frag?" seriously. Harder science fiction authors would just substitute curse words from other languages, assuming you count Esperanto as a real language.
I dimly recall that Tad Williams had come up with some good fake curse words for his made-up future. He claimed that this was because you couldn't accurately predict what slang would be like even ten years from now, so you might as well just come up with a word that sounds good.
I'm starting to suspect that BSG has never been very good about getting contracts set up with their cylon actors. For the longest time, I was convinced that there was a reason you never saw Religious Cylon interacting with the rest of his kind. The real reason turned out to be "to stretch the casting budget." This was perfectly fine in the beginning, but once you start killing off characters who won't commit to multiple seasons, it's bad form to turn around and only hire "real actors" for three episodes at a time. Especialy when they play characters who ought to be present in every episode.
For you non-BSG watchers out there, despite what Narraptor said there is no "frelling" in the cylon occupied world of the future. They've upgraded to "frakking," which is unfortunate for most everyone concerned. It must be said that things could have turned out worse. In my youth, I read Shadowrun novels where the reader was expected to take lines like "What the frag?" seriously. Harder science fiction authors would just substitute curse words from other languages, assuming you count Esperanto as a real language.
I dimly recall that Tad Williams had come up with some good fake curse words for his made-up future. He claimed that this was because you couldn't accurately predict what slang would be like even ten years from now, so you might as well just come up with a word that sounds good.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
What The Frell?
It was not too long ago that I praised BSG as one of the best shows in season on television. At the beginning of season 3, I could not praise it highly enough. Now I've turned into an "each week is the worst episode ever" fan. What the frell happened?
The easy answer is M.A.N.T.I.S. But that is a disservice to Carl Lumbly, who I can only hope pops up in a Lost flashback sometime soon, since BSG obviously needs multiple black characters as much as it needs a bitter aerospace engineer.
The seeds of suck were already apparent in the first post-New Caprica episodes, and more observant friends of mine noticed dramatic changes in the dialogue as early as episode 2. Things have only worsened since then, with characters stating things we already know ("I know how it feels to lose a child"), expositing things that were just made up ("You know, my dad was really into the faith"), and anything that comes out of Callie's mouth. Don't be surprised if the next episode opens with Callie saying, "You know, Chief, assuming we live through this, I'll finally get that haircut I've been talking about."
I am usually the last person to conclude that a show has been raped by a panda, but when the dialogue goes to hell, that's a bad sign. I remember my shock at X-Files season 7, the one where they were "getting back to their roots." Mulder stopped talking like Mulder, and Scully and Skinner--Skinner!--did likewise. In the most recent episodes of BSG, conversations just seem too scripted. To mine the mid-season finale for examples: the giving up Baltar scene, the Sharon-Boomer confrontation, Helo's speech to Adama about Hera...
Watching those play out, I felt like I was watching TV. Or even worse, Battlestar Galactica the play.
The turning point for me was the boxing episode, which I still believe to be the best worst episode ever. It was worth it to see Chief get punched in the face and for the subtle acknowledgment that he does realize that, dude, Sharon is totally hot, Helo's a boring jock who doesn't deserve her, and Callie cares too much about their baby to do something with her bangs. But the story didn't make any sense. You have so few humans you outlaw abortion, but free-for-all boxing is okay? And the writers doubted our ability to get the point so much that it was delivered via metaphor, flashback, and monologue. Wasn't this supposed to be a smart person's show?
It's not like I never suspected this would happen. I knew something would go wrong when the series became popular enough to warrant 20-plus episodes a year instead of 12. People I trust have several interesting theories about where the show went astray or why it has yet to do so. One thinks they should have kept the conceit from "33", with the Cylons constantly chasing the humans towards Earth. And as far as I know, Mr. Bile still holds faith that the show's first and last episodes each season will totally kick ass. Allow me to present a different perspective, based in part on listening to 40 minutes of the BSG writer's meeting podcasts I previously linked.
1. There is no frelling plan.
2. The writers introduce concepts with no concern for their long-term impact. Remember when Cylons' spines turned red when they were having sex? Sure, maybe Boomer subconsciously always wanted to be on top so no one would notice. But after it turned out the Pegasus guys were having their way with a Six, it never came up again. Don't you think someone would have mentioned it as the ultimate Cylon detector? For that matter, does it happen with Cylon dudes as well?
3. The show lost its edge when they allowed a Six to off Admiral Cain. Having Starbuck back off from Galactica's assassination attempt wasn't a cop-out until an NPC shot her in the head. Introducing Cain as Adama's superior, electing Baltar as President, these were the most promising conflicts in the series after the first season Adama/Roslyn battles. Why kill them off/make them impotent just when things are getting interesting? For that matter, where the hell is Zarek?
The easy answer is M.A.N.T.I.S. But that is a disservice to Carl Lumbly, who I can only hope pops up in a Lost flashback sometime soon, since BSG obviously needs multiple black characters as much as it needs a bitter aerospace engineer.
The seeds of suck were already apparent in the first post-New Caprica episodes, and more observant friends of mine noticed dramatic changes in the dialogue as early as episode 2. Things have only worsened since then, with characters stating things we already know ("I know how it feels to lose a child"), expositing things that were just made up ("You know, my dad was really into the faith"), and anything that comes out of Callie's mouth. Don't be surprised if the next episode opens with Callie saying, "You know, Chief, assuming we live through this, I'll finally get that haircut I've been talking about."
I am usually the last person to conclude that a show has been raped by a panda, but when the dialogue goes to hell, that's a bad sign. I remember my shock at X-Files season 7, the one where they were "getting back to their roots." Mulder stopped talking like Mulder, and Scully and Skinner--Skinner!--did likewise. In the most recent episodes of BSG, conversations just seem too scripted. To mine the mid-season finale for examples: the giving up Baltar scene, the Sharon-Boomer confrontation, Helo's speech to Adama about Hera...
Watching those play out, I felt like I was watching TV. Or even worse, Battlestar Galactica the play.
The turning point for me was the boxing episode, which I still believe to be the best worst episode ever. It was worth it to see Chief get punched in the face and for the subtle acknowledgment that he does realize that, dude, Sharon is totally hot, Helo's a boring jock who doesn't deserve her, and Callie cares too much about their baby to do something with her bangs. But the story didn't make any sense. You have so few humans you outlaw abortion, but free-for-all boxing is okay? And the writers doubted our ability to get the point so much that it was delivered via metaphor, flashback, and monologue. Wasn't this supposed to be a smart person's show?
It's not like I never suspected this would happen. I knew something would go wrong when the series became popular enough to warrant 20-plus episodes a year instead of 12. People I trust have several interesting theories about where the show went astray or why it has yet to do so. One thinks they should have kept the conceit from "33", with the Cylons constantly chasing the humans towards Earth. And as far as I know, Mr. Bile still holds faith that the show's first and last episodes each season will totally kick ass. Allow me to present a different perspective, based in part on listening to 40 minutes of the BSG writer's meeting podcasts I previously linked.
1. There is no frelling plan.
2. The writers introduce concepts with no concern for their long-term impact. Remember when Cylons' spines turned red when they were having sex? Sure, maybe Boomer subconsciously always wanted to be on top so no one would notice. But after it turned out the Pegasus guys were having their way with a Six, it never came up again. Don't you think someone would have mentioned it as the ultimate Cylon detector? For that matter, does it happen with Cylon dudes as well?
3. The show lost its edge when they allowed a Six to off Admiral Cain. Having Starbuck back off from Galactica's assassination attempt wasn't a cop-out until an NPC shot her in the head. Introducing Cain as Adama's superior, electing Baltar as President, these were the most promising conflicts in the series after the first season Adama/Roslyn battles. Why kill them off/make them impotent just when things are getting interesting? For that matter, where the hell is Zarek?
Friday, December 15, 2006
Out Of The Cylon Planet
On the second attempt, I finished reading Out Of The Silent Planet, the unnecessary first book of C. S. Lewis' unnamed science fiction trilogy. The hero is kidnapped, and taken to a mysterious planet by an evil scientist and his preppie. He escapes, and discovers that every other sentient life form in the solar system lives a good and righteous life except for man. Then, he gets sent back to Earth and complains that the story you have just read left out all the best parts.
This might very well be the weakest book in the trilogy, for all I know. However, the weakest book in the Chronicles of Narnia features a giantess using a steel girder as a club. In contrast, Out Of The Silent Planet climaxes with an astronaut complaining how hot it gets in space.
If I'm going to talk about the science fiction religious allegories of yesteryear, I should also talk about Battlestar Galactica. I have a working theory that any time a mystery is presented to the viewers, it's the show's way of saying that they don't know either. What is the connection between the barely explained human religion and the utterly unexplained Cylon religion? You can be assured that your guess is exactly as good as the writing staff's. After two and a half seasons, all I know about Cylon Jesus is that he doesn't like people very much.
And that's why you should never admit the full extent to which you're making up the story as you go along. In a book, when the scene switches to the main villain's perspective and he thinks about his master plan in the vaguest of terms, I'm only annoyed at the bad writing. It never occurs to me that perhaps Jeffery Deaver doesn't know what's going on, either.
This might very well be the weakest book in the trilogy, for all I know. However, the weakest book in the Chronicles of Narnia features a giantess using a steel girder as a club. In contrast, Out Of The Silent Planet climaxes with an astronaut complaining how hot it gets in space.
If I'm going to talk about the science fiction religious allegories of yesteryear, I should also talk about Battlestar Galactica. I have a working theory that any time a mystery is presented to the viewers, it's the show's way of saying that they don't know either. What is the connection between the barely explained human religion and the utterly unexplained Cylon religion? You can be assured that your guess is exactly as good as the writing staff's. After two and a half seasons, all I know about Cylon Jesus is that he doesn't like people very much.
And that's why you should never admit the full extent to which you're making up the story as you go along. In a book, when the scene switches to the main villain's perspective and he thinks about his master plan in the vaguest of terms, I'm only annoyed at the bad writing. It never occurs to me that perhaps Jeffery Deaver doesn't know what's going on, either.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
The Future Of CF&S
In the future, I am going to try very hard never to use that acronym again.
I'm looking forwards to the day this blog becomes well-read enough that we can begin the traditional internet fundraiser. We'll explain how a freak accident destroyed our computer and/or car, and how we can't afford to purchase a new one. A helpful Paypal donation button will be added, and promises will be made for bonus content for everyone who donates. Later, we'll dash off a letter gushing about how our readers are the best, and allow them to bask in the shared glory of our shiny new swag.
With luck, shortly after that Blogger's cortical stack will be removed by the Russians. Then we can reveal that for three years, the idea of backing up our files onto CD had never occurred to us. I haven't decided yet if the files will be recovered. We might just write highly fictionalized summaries about each week's content.
A year or so later, we can finally make a desperate cry for help. We'll question why the hell we bother writing things down. Things no longer make any sense to us, and we're not happy with the quality of our work. After the comments come rolling in, we'll thank our incredible fans, and say that we'll continue our good work. The only catch is that we'll be doing it in a completely different way, but one that we hope will be as much fun for you as it is for us.
Within three months, the site dies off. Every few months, a short apology is posted, as well as a link to half-finished content.
I'm looking forwards to the day this blog becomes well-read enough that we can begin the traditional internet fundraiser. We'll explain how a freak accident destroyed our computer and/or car, and how we can't afford to purchase a new one. A helpful Paypal donation button will be added, and promises will be made for bonus content for everyone who donates. Later, we'll dash off a letter gushing about how our readers are the best, and allow them to bask in the shared glory of our shiny new swag.
With luck, shortly after that Blogger's cortical stack will be removed by the Russians. Then we can reveal that for three years, the idea of backing up our files onto CD had never occurred to us. I haven't decided yet if the files will be recovered. We might just write highly fictionalized summaries about each week's content.
A year or so later, we can finally make a desperate cry for help. We'll question why the hell we bother writing things down. Things no longer make any sense to us, and we're not happy with the quality of our work. After the comments come rolling in, we'll thank our incredible fans, and say that we'll continue our good work. The only catch is that we'll be doing it in a completely different way, but one that we hope will be as much fun for you as it is for us.
Within three months, the site dies off. Every few months, a short apology is posted, as well as a link to half-finished content.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Press X
Due to a loophole in the Blogger beta, an article saved as a draft will post on the day you first saved it when it's finally published. So if anyone other than Mr. Bile was intrigued by the hat and had yet to figure out where to obtain one, I suggest you press the X-button and wait for the text to scroll down to December 5th.
Now that that's out of the way, I actually logged on to point out that according to Google, I am the first person ever to imagine "Buttstar Gaylactica."
The search engine even provided the punchline.
Now that that's out of the way, I actually logged on to point out that according to Google, I am the first person ever to imagine "Buttstar Gaylactica."
The search engine even provided the punchline.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Concerning Narraptor's Return
I realize that Narraptor's reappearance might be giving you cause to doubt my prognosticative ability. This is understandable, but give me some credit: Most people would have already begun their reign of terror once they had assumed total control of their blog. I was content to wait a few weeks, to make sure my cohort was as dead as I beleived. So while I might not have been correct, I was at least able to avoid the epic poetry battle atop Mount Slam that would have erupted if I had made my move too early.
I still wish I had let italics back into the kingdom, though. It's a lot easier to stress my syllables through artificial means, than by indicating a change in tone through natural dialogue alone.
Something you may not know: Information does not want to be free. Oh, I know how much it likes to preach the virtues of freedom, but what it really wants is to be safe and loved. It wants to be found, but only on it's own terms where it's safe from getting hurt. This is why Wikipedia has guardians.
Data, on the other hand, loves freedom. It positively thrives on it, which is why half of the things available on a file sharing site are not what they seem. Data doesn't have to serve a need, it just has to occupy space on your hard drive.
Our love of information fuels our previously unstated editorial policy. There are no archives dedicated to our mistakes. While some sites will happily supply editorial footnotes detailing that, "The entire news article below turns out to have been made up," I believe in more permanent solutions. When mistakes happen, they get vanished. There might be a note about this, or there might not. Either way, if you didn't spot the mistake yourself then it's left to your imagination. Which, as any lover of black and white movies will tell you, is a more potent thing than actually showing you what happened.
Unless you're killing Dracula, that is.
I still wish I had let italics back into the kingdom, though. It's a lot easier to stress my syllables through artificial means, than by indicating a change in tone through natural dialogue alone.
Something you may not know: Information does not want to be free. Oh, I know how much it likes to preach the virtues of freedom, but what it really wants is to be safe and loved. It wants to be found, but only on it's own terms where it's safe from getting hurt. This is why Wikipedia has guardians.
Data, on the other hand, loves freedom. It positively thrives on it, which is why half of the things available on a file sharing site are not what they seem. Data doesn't have to serve a need, it just has to occupy space on your hard drive.
Our love of information fuels our previously unstated editorial policy. There are no archives dedicated to our mistakes. While some sites will happily supply editorial footnotes detailing that, "The entire news article below turns out to have been made up," I believe in more permanent solutions. When mistakes happen, they get vanished. There might be a note about this, or there might not. Either way, if you didn't spot the mistake yourself then it's left to your imagination. Which, as any lover of black and white movies will tell you, is a more potent thing than actually showing you what happened.
Unless you're killing Dracula, that is.
What's This? What's This?
Anaheim, California
There's something very wrong! At Disneyland. There's monsters singing songs! But they're singing "This is Halloween" instead of "Grim Grinning Ghosts." In a significant reversal after last year's declaration of war on Christmas, this holiday season, Christmas is at war with Disneyland.
The outer facade of the Haunted Mansion is littered with fake pumpkins, cheap candelabras, and a "days until Christmas" clock. Inside, at least four Hot Topics have exploded. While security kept photography within the Mansion to a minimum (there were only distracting cell phone camera flashes every thirty seconds), Canned Food and Shotguns did manage to capture devastating photos of what happens to the daily cosplay parade when Christmas comes all over it.
That Christmas tree is actually a 20-foot tall Roomba. Some say that contrary to all available evidence in the writers' podcasts, they have a plan. A minority of those say that plan is to suck up all childhood memories and cover them with tinsel and Disney-fied Christmas pop. Others, however, say, "Kawaii!"
The Christmas insurgency against Disneyland was on display throughout the park, the Downtown Disney shops, and even the scarcely-attended stronghold of Disney's California Adventures, where 3-D Muppets and Dave Foley hold the fort against an ever-growing army of carolers. In addition to conquering main street, the parade, the fireworks display, and New Orleans, Christmas has even managed to take control of a small world. This has been particularly alarming to secular commercial forces, as there are many places in that world that do not celebrate Christmas.
With little more than two weeks before the 25th of December, there are still a few valiant holdouts. Pirates from the Caribbean have kept up a successful barricade against the assault, though they are still suffering their own inappropriate incursions from Barbossa, Davy Jones, and Hans Zimmer. And two survivors persist on the Thanksgiving front, though neither would comment about their previously pardoned associates.
(The sign, not fully visible, identifies these as the "Happiest Turkeys on Earth.")
There's something very wrong! At Disneyland. There's monsters singing songs! But they're singing "This is Halloween" instead of "Grim Grinning Ghosts." In a significant reversal after last year's declaration of war on Christmas, this holiday season, Christmas is at war with Disneyland.
The outer facade of the Haunted Mansion is littered with fake pumpkins, cheap candelabras, and a "days until Christmas" clock. Inside, at least four Hot Topics have exploded. While security kept photography within the Mansion to a minimum (there were only distracting cell phone camera flashes every thirty seconds), Canned Food and Shotguns did manage to capture devastating photos of what happens to the daily cosplay parade when Christmas comes all over it.
That Christmas tree is actually a 20-foot tall Roomba. Some say that contrary to all available evidence in the writers' podcasts, they have a plan. A minority of those say that plan is to suck up all childhood memories and cover them with tinsel and Disney-fied Christmas pop. Others, however, say, "Kawaii!"
The Christmas insurgency against Disneyland was on display throughout the park, the Downtown Disney shops, and even the scarcely-attended stronghold of Disney's California Adventures, where 3-D Muppets and Dave Foley hold the fort against an ever-growing army of carolers. In addition to conquering main street, the parade, the fireworks display, and New Orleans, Christmas has even managed to take control of a small world. This has been particularly alarming to secular commercial forces, as there are many places in that world that do not celebrate Christmas.
With little more than two weeks before the 25th of December, there are still a few valiant holdouts. Pirates from the Caribbean have kept up a successful barricade against the assault, though they are still suffering their own inappropriate incursions from Barbossa, Davy Jones, and Hans Zimmer. And two survivors persist on the Thanksgiving front, though neither would comment about their previously pardoned associates.
(The sign, not fully visible, identifies these as the "Happiest Turkeys on Earth.")
Monday, December 04, 2006
This Doesn't Count As A Post
As you can tell, I have already embraced our new "Three times a week" schedule by delaying my latest missive. This continues to be the case.
In the meantime, on Dev's suggestion, I have been sponsored by the color blue. Sadly, we've already had one vote against my original choice of red, and a Doctor Forrester shade of green is too damn hard to read. (Also, by all rights it would belong to Narraptor.)
In the meantime, on Dev's suggestion, I have been sponsored by the color blue. Sadly, we've already had one vote against my original choice of red, and a Doctor Forrester shade of green is too damn hard to read. (Also, by all rights it would belong to Narraptor.)
Saturday, December 02, 2006
It Was Late And I Was Tired 2
Los Angeles - 15 Hours Later
See? I knew it would happen again! I am often tired when it is late.
I logged on to write about made-up e-mails and the best worst episode of Battlestar Galactica ever, but then I discovered we had actual comments. I will respond to them instead of making up my own.
As I suspected, people who know my secret identity (newspaper-delivering super scientist, guitar hero, Taiko drum master, and dance revolutionary Gopal Gothrap) check this site on an irregular basis. That's cool. I'll see what I can do with the tools to create a permanent mission statement that is easily accessible from the main page, but for now just know that we're switching to a "there will be three posts a week" schedule. Hopefully, those will readable on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Does that mean if you check in on Tuesday or Thursday you might get something before its street date? It depends what was on TV the night before and the time difference. Or perhaps things could go into overtime and we'll have six posts on Saturday. What's ultimately important is that you continue to check back when all hope is lost. I do the same thing with all my favorite sites and podcasts.
As for the colors and fonts, everything I've done is wrong for just one person. The first template was too bland, the second too hard to read, the new one too red to read. I'll keep fidgeting with it, but I doubt I'll be happy until I relearn how to format this sort of thing myself or hire someone to do it for us.
See? I knew it would happen again! I am often tired when it is late.
I logged on to write about made-up e-mails and the best worst episode of Battlestar Galactica ever, but then I discovered we had actual comments. I will respond to them instead of making up my own.
As I suspected, people who know my secret identity (newspaper-delivering super scientist, guitar hero, Taiko drum master, and dance revolutionary Gopal Gothrap) check this site on an irregular basis. That's cool. I'll see what I can do with the tools to create a permanent mission statement that is easily accessible from the main page, but for now just know that we're switching to a "there will be three posts a week" schedule. Hopefully, those will readable on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Does that mean if you check in on Tuesday or Thursday you might get something before its street date? It depends what was on TV the night before and the time difference. Or perhaps things could go into overtime and we'll have six posts on Saturday. What's ultimately important is that you continue to check back when all hope is lost. I do the same thing with all my favorite sites and podcasts.
As for the colors and fonts, everything I've done is wrong for just one person. The first template was too bland, the second too hard to read, the new one too red to read. I'll keep fidgeting with it, but I doubt I'll be happy until I relearn how to format this sort of thing myself or hire someone to do it for us.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Nextpunk
I have given serious thought to changing the font for my posts on this blog. I'm tired of hypothetical readers having to wait until the end of a post, waiting to find out which author they've been reading. Since Narraptor has turned into a being of pure energy, I think it's important to rebrand myself as soon as possible.
In a similar vein, I've scoured Blogger's suggestions on how to boost readership. Playing chess and saying as little as possible figure prominently. Changing the entire site into a viral metagame based loosely on Michael Crichton's Next was not, but it ought to have been. My pitch: A series of four websites of avid readers who live in an alternate world where the last twenty years of science fiction have never happened. They become increasingly convinced that the mindblowing ideas of Next could not have been made up by a mortal man, and instead are thinly disguised nonfiction from their own future. Readers of the blog communicate with the writers by solving obtusely designed puzzles, and answering phones. The tension mounts as the gene harvesting raptors hunt down our heroes one by one, leaving us to wonder who will be... next.
The game will come to an abrupt and unsatisfacotry ending on the day Next comes out in paperback, and the game's winners would receive a free wallpaper featuring a barcode riding a monkey.
In a similar vein, I've scoured Blogger's suggestions on how to boost readership. Playing chess and saying as little as possible figure prominently. Changing the entire site into a viral metagame based loosely on Michael Crichton's Next was not, but it ought to have been. My pitch: A series of four websites of avid readers who live in an alternate world where the last twenty years of science fiction have never happened. They become increasingly convinced that the mindblowing ideas of Next could not have been made up by a mortal man, and instead are thinly disguised nonfiction from their own future. Readers of the blog communicate with the writers by solving obtusely designed puzzles, and answering phones. The tension mounts as the gene harvesting raptors hunt down our heroes one by one, leaving us to wonder who will be... next.
The game will come to an abrupt and unsatisfacotry ending on the day Next comes out in paperback, and the game's winners would receive a free wallpaper featuring a barcode riding a monkey.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Die Hard on a Blog
By the end of this post, I will present a list of demands. But first, a dramatic preamble.
Half a lifetime ago I stumbled upon my first real girlfriend. Shortly after we started dating, she moved to India. That was the last time I let my parents send me away to summer camp. Instead of spending an extra three weeks with a chick who actually liked me back, I got to be the weird guy who wore a trenchcoat and a fedora in 80-degree weather, played role-playing games as much as I wanted, and met a really cute gymnast who wanted maybe only one thing more than to read the first draft of A Christmas Tree From Hell.
Put that way, I guess I should have given performing arts summer camp one more shot. I wonder if I'm too old to be a counselor.
But I digress. After my girlfriend left the country, I wrote her letters once a month, every month for a year. I didn't even think of dating anyone else until January. Of course, I never heard back from her until a year later, when I wrote my "this is my last" letter.
It was then that I finally heard from her. She claimed to have been horribly depressed and missed me all that time. She finally sent me a picture, albeit one where she appeared hardly bigger than my thumbnail. (She did say she lost some weight.) I wrote her back, informing her that, yes, I did finally have a new girlfriend, which prompted her to write that she had only gone out with me on a dare, to which I responded not too politely, which was countered with a "How dare you think that last letter was true? I was only mad!" response, and continued until I finally discovered my superpower--the ability to destroy friendships on purpose.
If my abnormal ability sounds depressing, it's really more of a blessing than a curse. I think of it as Delayed Blast Karma. I have yet to meet anyone who can take that many d6 of emotional damage. Let's see Heroes rip that off.
And now we'll skip to the part where my flashback becomes relevant.
I don't have the window on Tuesdays and Thursdays I used to. Considering that I didn't necessarily post until late on those days and I live on the west coast, this may not make any difference to you. But I don't know that for sure because no one has said anything.
I realize that our current audience is composed of friends who may not be as hungry for Internet content as Mr. Bile or myself. But I have a vague plan to expand beyond our core demographic and that requires feedback. I have requested input several times and recieved none outside of phone conversations or the occasional e-mail. If I wish to expand our influence, and I do, that can no longer be considered sufficient.
Therefore, I will not post again until I recieve significant answers to the following questions, either in comments or by e-mail. Have fun on the pledge drive, Mr. B.
1. What days do you read our blog? Would you object to a traditional M/W/F schedule?
2. What do you think of our current font/color scheme? (Whenever I try a large font to accomodate sleepy eyes, it looks stupid. Agree/Disagree?) I hear it takes a toll on readers above the age of 30.
3. What features should we follow up on? More metaplot? Short story movie reviews? Wal-Mart muckraking? Original fiction that would be otherwise unmarketable?
4. It's late and I'm tired. I'm forgetting something.
5. Do our comments and e-mails even work?
Until I hear from you, Narraptor out.
Half a lifetime ago I stumbled upon my first real girlfriend. Shortly after we started dating, she moved to India. That was the last time I let my parents send me away to summer camp. Instead of spending an extra three weeks with a chick who actually liked me back, I got to be the weird guy who wore a trenchcoat and a fedora in 80-degree weather, played role-playing games as much as I wanted, and met a really cute gymnast who wanted maybe only one thing more than to read the first draft of A Christmas Tree From Hell.
Put that way, I guess I should have given performing arts summer camp one more shot. I wonder if I'm too old to be a counselor.
But I digress. After my girlfriend left the country, I wrote her letters once a month, every month for a year. I didn't even think of dating anyone else until January. Of course, I never heard back from her until a year later, when I wrote my "this is my last" letter.
It was then that I finally heard from her. She claimed to have been horribly depressed and missed me all that time. She finally sent me a picture, albeit one where she appeared hardly bigger than my thumbnail. (She did say she lost some weight.) I wrote her back, informing her that, yes, I did finally have a new girlfriend, which prompted her to write that she had only gone out with me on a dare, to which I responded not too politely, which was countered with a "How dare you think that last letter was true? I was only mad!" response, and continued until I finally discovered my superpower--the ability to destroy friendships on purpose.
If my abnormal ability sounds depressing, it's really more of a blessing than a curse. I think of it as Delayed Blast Karma. I have yet to meet anyone who can take that many d6 of emotional damage. Let's see Heroes rip that off.
And now we'll skip to the part where my flashback becomes relevant.
I don't have the window on Tuesdays and Thursdays I used to. Considering that I didn't necessarily post until late on those days and I live on the west coast, this may not make any difference to you. But I don't know that for sure because no one has said anything.
I realize that our current audience is composed of friends who may not be as hungry for Internet content as Mr. Bile or myself. But I have a vague plan to expand beyond our core demographic and that requires feedback. I have requested input several times and recieved none outside of phone conversations or the occasional e-mail. If I wish to expand our influence, and I do, that can no longer be considered sufficient.
Therefore, I will not post again until I recieve significant answers to the following questions, either in comments or by e-mail. Have fun on the pledge drive, Mr. B.
1. What days do you read our blog? Would you object to a traditional M/W/F schedule?
2. What do you think of our current font/color scheme? (Whenever I try a large font to accomodate sleepy eyes, it looks stupid. Agree/Disagree?) I hear it takes a toll on readers above the age of 30.
3. What features should we follow up on? More metaplot? Short story movie reviews? Wal-Mart muckraking? Original fiction that would be otherwise unmarketable?
4. It's late and I'm tired. I'm forgetting something.
5. Do our comments and e-mails even work?
Until I hear from you, Narraptor out.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Gray Friday
Black Friday did not live up to its hype. The promised insanity consisted of customers asking me where things were.
Wal-Mart had slower than expected sales and blamed a weak economy. I would've chosen to blame the special deals that were meant to lure in customers from 5am to 11am. There were plasma televisions sold at cost, but those were all snapped up by 4am. Other items offered included a mediocre 5 megapixel camera sold for 88 dollars, as opposed to the other 5 megapixel cameras sold for 88 dollars in previous weeks. If that didn't work, the twin-pack of Chutes and Ladders and Monopoly was supposed to be a one-two punch of pure entertainment sure to lure people out before noon.
There was a selection of two dollar DVDs that seemed quite popular. By 7am the cardboard bins were dominated by large veins of Red Heat and Mazes and Monsters, constantly stirred by customers trying to find The Hulk.
I will tell you this: There is no book to be had about working at Wal-Mart. Which is a shame, because it ruins my plan to pretend I'm a respected author, diving into the sordid world of retail to gather a slew of poignant slice-of-life stories, excerpted over weekends on NPR. I've always fancied my voice has the idiosyncrasies that they look for.
As it is, I'll have to get a truly terrible job if I want to bluff my way into the sordid world of nonfiction.
Wal-Mart had slower than expected sales and blamed a weak economy. I would've chosen to blame the special deals that were meant to lure in customers from 5am to 11am. There were plasma televisions sold at cost, but those were all snapped up by 4am. Other items offered included a mediocre 5 megapixel camera sold for 88 dollars, as opposed to the other 5 megapixel cameras sold for 88 dollars in previous weeks. If that didn't work, the twin-pack of Chutes and Ladders and Monopoly was supposed to be a one-two punch of pure entertainment sure to lure people out before noon.
There was a selection of two dollar DVDs that seemed quite popular. By 7am the cardboard bins were dominated by large veins of Red Heat and Mazes and Monsters, constantly stirred by customers trying to find The Hulk.
I will tell you this: There is no book to be had about working at Wal-Mart. Which is a shame, because it ruins my plan to pretend I'm a respected author, diving into the sordid world of retail to gather a slew of poignant slice-of-life stories, excerpted over weekends on NPR. I've always fancied my voice has the idiosyncrasies that they look for.
As it is, I'll have to get a truly terrible job if I want to bluff my way into the sordid world of nonfiction.
I Can't Believe I Saw Happy Feet
The marketing campaign behind this was really slick. The previews kept people like me at bay and enticed unsuspecting masses. It was only a matter of time before the inconvenient truth was learned and the rest of us said, "Uh, two for Happy Feet, the movie that destroys childhood ignorance?"
My preview would have looked a little bit different:
"From the director of Mad Max and The Road Warrior...an animated musical that will make you feel bad...Featuring the voices of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in a limited amount of screentime, and Robin Williams at his most tolerable."
[cue E.S. Posthumus' "Pompeii" to a montage of penguins fleeing realistic animal predators]
"Happy Feet."
[pull back on Earth with three dirge-like percussive beats]
"This Thanksgiving, embrace guilt."
My preview would have looked a little bit different:
"From the director of Mad Max and The Road Warrior...an animated musical that will make you feel bad...Featuring the voices of Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in a limited amount of screentime, and Robin Williams at his most tolerable."
[cue E.S. Posthumus' "Pompeii" to a montage of penguins fleeing realistic animal predators]
"Happy Feet."
[pull back on Earth with three dirge-like percussive beats]
"This Thanksgiving, embrace guilt."
Friday, November 24, 2006
Risk: Godslow (Supersized 11/25/06)
That took longer than expected. "That" being a friendly game of Risk: Godstorm and preparing Straight Guy Ambrosia. What made it straight? The fact that I can't properly peel or cut fruit. Without Rachael Ray as my guide, I probably couldn't slit my wrists. Of course, having her there to instruct me would be added incentive to get the job done right.
As it turned out, the ambrosia dish was a bit of misnomer. The only person not to partake of the Straight Guy Ambrosia was the straight guy. I followed the directions in my Williams and Sonoma salad recipe book and it called for several fruits that I don't eat.
I inflict board games on my friends once or twice a year, usually on holidays. I hope to increase that frequency in the future, perhaps running Advanced HeroQuest on Valentine's Day and Descent during Fashion Week. (I can't believe I forgot to put that on my Christmas list!) I also have a wedding anniversary to plan each year. But in case I continue to slack on the board game front, I have some helpful advice for my future self.
"Dear Narraptor,
Hi. Has Lost Adama Caused the Destruction of the Colonies'ed yet? LOL. ADCtDothC is the new Raped By a Panda. Should I worry about Bernard and a polar bear? No spoilers!
It's been six months, so you've probably forgotten about what happened last time and are thinking of having a board game night. You might want to break out the tokens the day before and play two rounds. That way you can avoid game-breaking misinterpretations and rules omissions that need to be re-looked up on the Internet before the real session reaches the point of no return. In the case of Risk, that's two hours, after everyone has finally placed their armies.
Oh, and unless you plan on taking it, make sure the card that sinks Atlantis is in the proper spell deck next time, though that did lead to an amusing chase scene on the Atlanteans' part.
See you in May."
After consulting Mr. Bile, I came to the conclusion that there are four annoying player archetypes common to board gamers:
1. The guy whose turns take too long
2. The guy who gets bitchy when he decides he doesn't understand how to play
3. The guy who throws the game
4. The guy who can't tolerate being back-stabbed in back-stabbing games
You'll notice all of those examples are male. In my admittedly limited experience with unconventional games--the ones that you won't find at Toys 'R Us--the only time I've ever seen a female player pissed was in response to the intelligence scores of female brains in The Great Brain Robbery. Our first reaction was, "Aww," but it quickly became scary. That's why Kate the Simple Housewife has an extra zero added to her IQ with a Sharpie.
Mr. Bile pointed out that each archetype may have different reasons for acting the way he does. One might take too long on his turn because there are too many options, another might find it necessary to calculate every single one. The guy who throws the game might do it because he no longer sees the possibility of winning, or maybe he refuses to ever use a failure card on principle.
Full disclosure, I myself fall into the second archetype, as I learned when I was exposed to Robo Rally. Mr. Bile acknowledges to exhibiting tendencies of the first.
I bring this up because board games are a social activity, and I think it's important to know under what circumstances you start to ruin it for everyone else. For example, in our second round of Godstorm, I succumbed to my board game shadow. After depleting many of my troops in spite I sat back, had another half-tumbler of wine, and remembered there were other people there trying to have fun. Why should I throw off the game balance just because I hadn't got the rules right from the beginning? After that, I did the best with what I had, just like when I resigned myself to sending all of my Johnny 5's into the same pit round after round in that stupid robot game that doesn't make any sense.
I lost terribly.
I had hoped to play Puerto Rico, but it's been so long I can't remember why I liked it. With only vague memories of fun, the gameplay instructions don't make it an easy sell to newbies. "The players go from round to round in different roles and initiate the associated actions." Hell, yeah!
As it turned out, the ambrosia dish was a bit of misnomer. The only person not to partake of the Straight Guy Ambrosia was the straight guy. I followed the directions in my Williams and Sonoma salad recipe book and it called for several fruits that I don't eat.
I inflict board games on my friends once or twice a year, usually on holidays. I hope to increase that frequency in the future, perhaps running Advanced HeroQuest on Valentine's Day and Descent during Fashion Week. (I can't believe I forgot to put that on my Christmas list!) I also have a wedding anniversary to plan each year. But in case I continue to slack on the board game front, I have some helpful advice for my future self.
"Dear Narraptor,
Hi. Has Lost Adama Caused the Destruction of the Colonies'ed yet? LOL. ADCtDothC is the new Raped By a Panda. Should I worry about Bernard and a polar bear? No spoilers!
It's been six months, so you've probably forgotten about what happened last time and are thinking of having a board game night. You might want to break out the tokens the day before and play two rounds. That way you can avoid game-breaking misinterpretations and rules omissions that need to be re-looked up on the Internet before the real session reaches the point of no return. In the case of Risk, that's two hours, after everyone has finally placed their armies.
Oh, and unless you plan on taking it, make sure the card that sinks Atlantis is in the proper spell deck next time, though that did lead to an amusing chase scene on the Atlanteans' part.
See you in May."
After consulting Mr. Bile, I came to the conclusion that there are four annoying player archetypes common to board gamers:
1. The guy whose turns take too long
2. The guy who gets bitchy when he decides he doesn't understand how to play
3. The guy who throws the game
4. The guy who can't tolerate being back-stabbed in back-stabbing games
You'll notice all of those examples are male. In my admittedly limited experience with unconventional games--the ones that you won't find at Toys 'R Us--the only time I've ever seen a female player pissed was in response to the intelligence scores of female brains in The Great Brain Robbery. Our first reaction was, "Aww," but it quickly became scary. That's why Kate the Simple Housewife has an extra zero added to her IQ with a Sharpie.
Mr. Bile pointed out that each archetype may have different reasons for acting the way he does. One might take too long on his turn because there are too many options, another might find it necessary to calculate every single one. The guy who throws the game might do it because he no longer sees the possibility of winning, or maybe he refuses to ever use a failure card on principle.
Full disclosure, I myself fall into the second archetype, as I learned when I was exposed to Robo Rally. Mr. Bile acknowledges to exhibiting tendencies of the first.
I bring this up because board games are a social activity, and I think it's important to know under what circumstances you start to ruin it for everyone else. For example, in our second round of Godstorm, I succumbed to my board game shadow. After depleting many of my troops in spite I sat back, had another half-tumbler of wine, and remembered there were other people there trying to have fun. Why should I throw off the game balance just because I hadn't got the rules right from the beginning? After that, I did the best with what I had, just like when I resigned myself to sending all of my Johnny 5's into the same pit round after round in that stupid robot game that doesn't make any sense.
I lost terribly.
I had hoped to play Puerto Rico, but it's been so long I can't remember why I liked it. With only vague memories of fun, the gameplay instructions don't make it an easy sell to newbies. "The players go from round to round in different roles and initiate the associated actions." Hell, yeah!
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Between Consuming And Consumers
For the holiday, something I can't believe I'm thankful for:
At night, Wal-Mart's radio shifts from The Lite FM to a call-in show. And god help me, it's far better than any of the music stations I can get on my radio.
I say that in spite of the fact that there are people out there who still request Who Let The Dogs Out every other day, to say nothing of Sexyback. I might hate a lot of what they play, but there's variety to it, and some songs I like that I have never heard on the radio before. This meets the low standards it requires to be better than everyone else.
At night, Wal-Mart's radio shifts from The Lite FM to a call-in show. And god help me, it's far better than any of the music stations I can get on my radio.
I say that in spite of the fact that there are people out there who still request Who Let The Dogs Out every other day, to say nothing of Sexyback. I might hate a lot of what they play, but there's variety to it, and some songs I like that I have never heard on the radio before. This meets the low standards it requires to be better than everyone else.
And now, I go to experience Black Friday from inside the belly of the beast.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Enough To Die For
The Hamiltons:
A family of serial killers tries to survive, now that their mother and father are gone. It has the twists that you'd expect, and features actors who aren't Crispin Glover or Rose McGowan, but would like to be. Victims go to amazing lengths to die, but my main issue with the film is how terribly psychopathic most of the family is. Whether you root for or against the family, the kill-crazy brother has to die, and the movie never twigs to that fact.
Gravedancers:
This starts off as a very typical going-for-creepy film, and if you're going to watch it you ought to skip the rest of this paragraph. Anyway, dancing on graves with your drunken buddies is bad. Our hero and is wife become puzzled over a mysterious stalker who keeps rattling the water pipes and turning invisible. All standard stuff, until they visit their screwup friend who was smart enough to hire Tchéky Karyo, paranormal scientist extraordinaire. The movie shifts directly into adventure mode, and then the fun starts. While the movie will does dive into the glorious excess of driving a humvee through a mansion while being chased by the giant floating head of a piano teacher, the rest of the film is played mostly straight. So now that you're expecting this sudden shift, the movie's going to lose a lot of its punch. Sorry. You can still enjoy Tchéky Karyo.
But it also raised two points in my mind: First of all, this was the only movie where some of the characters who are utterly screwed react in ways that, you know, normal people would. It really can't be that hard to do in a movie. Secondly, people being trapped on opposite sides of a door is boring.
In the end, I did enjoy watching all of the films, except for Penny Dreadful. What I can't do is recommend them to you without knowing how many flaws you're willing to put up with.
I'll go out on a limb and say that if you thought Descent was a genius piece of filmmaking, you should see all three. If you hated Silent Hill, then none of them. If both of those are true for you, then I foresee many disagreements in our future.
A family of serial killers tries to survive, now that their mother and father are gone. It has the twists that you'd expect, and features actors who aren't Crispin Glover or Rose McGowan, but would like to be. Victims go to amazing lengths to die, but my main issue with the film is how terribly psychopathic most of the family is. Whether you root for or against the family, the kill-crazy brother has to die, and the movie never twigs to that fact.
Gravedancers:
This starts off as a very typical going-for-creepy film, and if you're going to watch it you ought to skip the rest of this paragraph. Anyway, dancing on graves with your drunken buddies is bad. Our hero and is wife become puzzled over a mysterious stalker who keeps rattling the water pipes and turning invisible. All standard stuff, until they visit their screwup friend who was smart enough to hire Tchéky Karyo, paranormal scientist extraordinaire. The movie shifts directly into adventure mode, and then the fun starts. While the movie will does dive into the glorious excess of driving a humvee through a mansion while being chased by the giant floating head of a piano teacher, the rest of the film is played mostly straight. So now that you're expecting this sudden shift, the movie's going to lose a lot of its punch. Sorry. You can still enjoy Tchéky Karyo.
But it also raised two points in my mind: First of all, this was the only movie where some of the characters who are utterly screwed react in ways that, you know, normal people would. It really can't be that hard to do in a movie. Secondly, people being trapped on opposite sides of a door is boring.
In the end, I did enjoy watching all of the films, except for Penny Dreadful. What I can't do is recommend them to you without knowing how many flaws you're willing to put up with.
I'll go out on a limb and say that if you thought Descent was a genius piece of filmmaking, you should see all three. If you hated Silent Hill, then none of them. If both of those are true for you, then I foresee many disagreements in our future.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Horse: The Beaten
Pardon me, Mr. Bile, but the significant other rules from the core system are indeed in effect. You must have confused them with the "f@!# buddy" modifier, which grants you extra points for friends you can have sex with with the illusion of no strings attached but hidden emotional damage.
Forgive me for the censorship, but I can't bring myself to acknowledge that such a term exists. That's part of the reason why we ignore the new simplified rules.
For the record, significant others are scored as follows:
Significant other: 100 points
Additional significant others: 25 points
Most important, friends with significant others are worth half normal point value, rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5. That means I'm only worth 10 points to you, but you give me a full 25.
Forgive me for the censorship, but I can't bring myself to acknowledge that such a term exists. That's part of the reason why we ignore the new simplified rules.
For the record, significant others are scored as follows:
Significant other: 100 points
Additional significant others: 25 points
Most important, friends with significant others are worth half normal point value, rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5. That means I'm only worth 10 points to you, but you give me a full 25.
After Darker Mints
Penny Dreadful:
A direct-to-DVD film that happens to be on the big screen. Mimi Rodgers plays the world's worst psychiatrist, dragging a girl terrified of cars along on a cross country car trip. Soon, the girl is trapped in the car by a hitchhiker who gets magical powers by keeping a hood over his face. Meanwhile, we are treated to long shots of Mimi Rodger's corpse straining not to blink.
Far as I can remember, well over half the film consists of the girl waking up, getting scared, and going back to sleep. I did get a good laugh when the villain finally opened his mouth, and let his prepubescent voice wreck any specks of menace remaining in the film.
A direct-to-DVD film that happens to be on the big screen. Mimi Rodgers plays the world's worst psychiatrist, dragging a girl terrified of cars along on a cross country car trip. Soon, the girl is trapped in the car by a hitchhiker who gets magical powers by keeping a hood over his face. Meanwhile, we are treated to long shots of Mimi Rodger's corpse straining not to blink.
Far as I can remember, well over half the film consists of the girl waking up, getting scared, and going back to sleep. I did get a good laugh when the villain finally opened his mouth, and let his prepubescent voice wreck any specks of menace remaining in the film.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Podcast Pimping
Three notable shout-outs.
The November 13th Games For Windows podcast (also linked on our sidebar) has some interesting news bits, like the White Wolf MMO and a mad scientist who has invented an unbreakable game controller. It concludes with a storytime session detailing game reviewers' worst experiences with PR people. If you play games, check it out.
Also worth a listen is the latest Things On. I'm on the fence in regards to their tolerability. Sometimes their thing doesn't seem to be on. This week's podcast contains a long interview with Garrett Wang, Ensign Kim from Star Trek: Voyager. There's some good "Why did that suck so hard?" dirt in there.
Finally, for those of you who don't visit Something Awful on a regular basis, you might have missed a .mp3 interview with Mike Nelson of MST3K.
The November 13th Games For Windows podcast (also linked on our sidebar) has some interesting news bits, like the White Wolf MMO and a mad scientist who has invented an unbreakable game controller. It concludes with a storytime session detailing game reviewers' worst experiences with PR people. If you play games, check it out.
Also worth a listen is the latest Things On. I'm on the fence in regards to their tolerability. Sometimes their thing doesn't seem to be on. This week's podcast contains a long interview with Garrett Wang, Ensign Kim from Star Trek: Voyager. There's some good "Why did that suck so hard?" dirt in there.
Finally, for those of you who don't visit Something Awful on a regular basis, you might have missed a .mp3 interview with Mike Nelson of MST3K.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Krigeworthy
You would think a movie where Henry Rollins wears pink sweatpants and is used as a battering ram would have a recommendation coming to it. Especially if that movie contains the quote: "Monster cock stuck in the door!" (I may be paraphrasing that one. You try Googling "feast" and "monster cock.") But the same should be expected of a horror film set in an all-girl's school from the director of May.
The characters in Feast are shot from the waist up in almost every frame. That might not sound distracting, but Henry Rollins spends half the movie in pink sweatpants...and you can't see them. It was like watching a bunch of manananggals trapped in a bar with a floating head that was supposedly a kid in a wheelchair.
The Woods was a disappointment. Imagine Suspira with too much mystery revealed instead of too little. On the upside, any one of the teachers could have brought enough dignity to Alice Krige's Argento-worthy role in Silent Hill that Mr. Bile wouldn't have to defend it anymore.
What more can I say? Mediocre movies don't fill my criticism meter. Feast wasn't clever enough to forgive its amateurish production. (The alternate ending--the monsters are hurt by sunlight!--reveals a huge continuity error in the final cut of the film, just in case you missed it.) As for The Woods, evil roots aren't enough anymore.
There was one surprising thing about The Woods. Bruce Campbell was damn good in it.
The characters in Feast are shot from the waist up in almost every frame. That might not sound distracting, but Henry Rollins spends half the movie in pink sweatpants...and you can't see them. It was like watching a bunch of manananggals trapped in a bar with a floating head that was supposedly a kid in a wheelchair.
The Woods was a disappointment. Imagine Suspira with too much mystery revealed instead of too little. On the upside, any one of the teachers could have brought enough dignity to Alice Krige's Argento-worthy role in Silent Hill that Mr. Bile wouldn't have to defend it anymore.
What more can I say? Mediocre movies don't fill my criticism meter. Feast wasn't clever enough to forgive its amateurish production. (The alternate ending--the monsters are hurt by sunlight!--reveals a huge continuity error in the final cut of the film, just in case you missed it.) As for The Woods, evil roots aren't enough anymore.
There was one surprising thing about The Woods. Bruce Campbell was damn good in it.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Blueshirt Confessional
It's true that I currently have a pool of 2 friends available for wacky hijinks. However, during the lightning round all points are doubled, so it's still anybody's game.
In case you're curious, we're playing by the New Simplified Rules and using the base scoring system:
Available friends: 50 points
Unavailable friends (out of state): 25 points
Unavailable friends (in state, always too busy): 15 points
Mysteriously Vanished friends: 10 points
Acquaintances: 25 points for the first, 5 for every additional one
We did add a few house rules. Instead of reducing a friend's value to its square root when they have an asshole attached to them, we simply deduct 10 points. Also, we don't use any of the "Girlfriend modifier" nonsense the New Simplified Rules tried to usher in.
A lot of old-schoolers will tell you the game's heyday was back in the early 90's, when the "Skills and Thrills!" expansion set came out. It had its charms, but half of the rules are now either out of date, or depend too much on trying to rate the quality of your friends, which seems a bit demeaning. Personally, I just think there are people out there who like doing complicated math for its own sake. (I know I could download one of a dozen freeware programs to do the math for me, but I just don't have the patience.)
For no raisin, I should tell you about my own current employment.
The first step to recovery is to admit the truth: I work at Wal-Mart. It seemed harmless enough at the time. I had just moved, and The House That Sam Built was the first employer to offer me both a job and a wage that would pay my bills.
One thing I never figured on was the atmosphere of fear that wafts down from the management. Every person I've met in the corporate structure is concerned with Wal-Mart's many enemies, and is not hesitant to say so. The media is a prime boogeyman, looking for any opportunity to destroy Wal-Mart. The vendors who restock Coke and Frito-Lay are always suspect, because everyone knows that they really make their money by stealing product. Shrinkage can only come from employees recklessly destroying property in secret. Unless it comes from theft, which can come from anywhere. Every business Wal-Mart has destroyed now stands as an example of the store's own mortality. Only by constantly growing can Wal-Mart hope to outpace their enemies and live another day. But the bigger they grow, the stronger their enemies will become.
I've had to watch at least ten different training videos, and the only one to feature "real actors" was the one informing me about the dangers of union ninjas tricking me into signing away my soul. These actors are much worse than the random employees they hired to enact the skits on the other videos, and Wal-Mart missed a prime opportunity to hire Sean Bean to proclaim that "Wal-Mart has no unions. Wal-Mart needs no unions!" Instead, a number of people stare into the camera, and talk about how Wal-Mart is not anti-union. Wal-Mart is pro-employee. There is an "open door policy" that means anyone can complain to anybody at anytime, so it is impossible for problems to happen.
Then there are clips of union workers accosting employees, and giving them cards to sign. It is explained that by signing the card, you sign away all your rights, and will end up getting paid less due to union arbitration. The actual reason you'd get paid less, "Wal-Mart will raze the store to the ground to prevent the contamination from spreading," is never mentioned. I'm fairly sure it's illegal for them to say that, but the honesty would be refreshing.
This goes on for a while. Afterwards, a manager explained to us that since Wal-Mart is the richest company in the world, unions want to use us to become richer than Croseus. I'm willing to believe that, with the caveat that they'd try to make my life better in order to keep access to that font of cash. The part after that explaining that any monkey could do a union job for seven bucks, instead of the fifteen they demand, was less inspiring.
But that does lead into Wal-Mart's surprisingly seductive philosophy. They claim that by selling things for a low enough price, and paying out even less, they strive to lower the cost of living for the area. As Wal-Mart grows larger, this will ripple out until a dollar is equal to its 1950's value.
Sadly Wal-Mart is far from consistent about applying this principal. That's a shame, because I'm a sucker for economic theories that sound like they came out of a pulp novel. They don't even have an entertaining name for it, like Sam's Hammer.
In case you're curious, we're playing by the New Simplified Rules and using the base scoring system:
Available friends: 50 points
Unavailable friends (out of state): 25 points
Unavailable friends (in state, always too busy): 15 points
Mysteriously Vanished friends: 10 points
Acquaintances: 25 points for the first, 5 for every additional one
We did add a few house rules. Instead of reducing a friend's value to its square root when they have an asshole attached to them, we simply deduct 10 points. Also, we don't use any of the "Girlfriend modifier" nonsense the New Simplified Rules tried to usher in.
A lot of old-schoolers will tell you the game's heyday was back in the early 90's, when the "Skills and Thrills!" expansion set came out. It had its charms, but half of the rules are now either out of date, or depend too much on trying to rate the quality of your friends, which seems a bit demeaning. Personally, I just think there are people out there who like doing complicated math for its own sake. (I know I could download one of a dozen freeware programs to do the math for me, but I just don't have the patience.)
For no raisin, I should tell you about my own current employment.
The first step to recovery is to admit the truth: I work at Wal-Mart. It seemed harmless enough at the time. I had just moved, and The House That Sam Built was the first employer to offer me both a job and a wage that would pay my bills.
One thing I never figured on was the atmosphere of fear that wafts down from the management. Every person I've met in the corporate structure is concerned with Wal-Mart's many enemies, and is not hesitant to say so. The media is a prime boogeyman, looking for any opportunity to destroy Wal-Mart. The vendors who restock Coke and Frito-Lay are always suspect, because everyone knows that they really make their money by stealing product. Shrinkage can only come from employees recklessly destroying property in secret. Unless it comes from theft, which can come from anywhere. Every business Wal-Mart has destroyed now stands as an example of the store's own mortality. Only by constantly growing can Wal-Mart hope to outpace their enemies and live another day. But the bigger they grow, the stronger their enemies will become.
I've had to watch at least ten different training videos, and the only one to feature "real actors" was the one informing me about the dangers of union ninjas tricking me into signing away my soul. These actors are much worse than the random employees they hired to enact the skits on the other videos, and Wal-Mart missed a prime opportunity to hire Sean Bean to proclaim that "Wal-Mart has no unions. Wal-Mart needs no unions!" Instead, a number of people stare into the camera, and talk about how Wal-Mart is not anti-union. Wal-Mart is pro-employee. There is an "open door policy" that means anyone can complain to anybody at anytime, so it is impossible for problems to happen.
Then there are clips of union workers accosting employees, and giving them cards to sign. It is explained that by signing the card, you sign away all your rights, and will end up getting paid less due to union arbitration. The actual reason you'd get paid less, "Wal-Mart will raze the store to the ground to prevent the contamination from spreading," is never mentioned. I'm fairly sure it's illegal for them to say that, but the honesty would be refreshing.
This goes on for a while. Afterwards, a manager explained to us that since Wal-Mart is the richest company in the world, unions want to use us to become richer than Croseus. I'm willing to believe that, with the caveat that they'd try to make my life better in order to keep access to that font of cash. The part after that explaining that any monkey could do a union job for seven bucks, instead of the fifteen they demand, was less inspiring.
But that does lead into Wal-Mart's surprisingly seductive philosophy. They claim that by selling things for a low enough price, and paying out even less, they strive to lower the cost of living for the area. As Wal-Mart grows larger, this will ripple out until a dollar is equal to its 1950's value.
Sadly Wal-Mart is far from consistent about applying this principal. That's a shame, because I'm a sucker for economic theories that sound like they came out of a pulp novel. They don't even have an entertaining name for it, like Sam's Hammer.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
A Final Lack Of Gaming
In a few days, the Playstation 3 and the Wii come out, all my game systems will be obsolete, and I'll no longer count as a gamer. I suppose that I can eventually convince myself to purchase a Wii based on cheapness, and perhaps join hands with the Gamers Who Hate Games that the Wii is marketed towards. Not that I blame them, after seeing a friend manhandled by Bully's "We use every button on your controller, even the ones you didn't know existed!" design. The fact that the game waits to give instructions on how to use button #13 until a chase scene probably didn't help. It'll be interesting to see if cutting down on the number of buttons will end up making a more intuitive game or just an entirely different skillset to memorize. Replace "interesting" with "frustrating" in the previous sentence if the Wii experiment fails.
So, last week I never really did talk about games I didn't play, but still ought to. Here's a pair for your consideration.
A Game Of Thrones is a smartly designed boardgame that works in all the ways Axis-and-Allies style games usually don't. For one thing, a lot of the action happens simultaneously, so you don't have to deal with thirty-minute breaks in between your turns. Also, while there's a welcome element of randomness in the game, combat is wholly strategic. (At least, I'm happy about that, seeing as how I can count on my dice to betray me more often than not.) Unfortunately, the game balance pretty much requires that you have the maxiumum of five players. Otherwise, get used to the despairing wail of "King of the North!" as whoever plays the Starks gets beaten down.
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is the less-popular sequel to the original Carcassonne. Control an entire tribe of French cavemen struggling to score you points in a gleefully passive-aggressive game. Instead of attacking your opponents, you just happen set up tragic accidents wherein they're kicked out of prime hunting grounds. Since a number of the people I play with react poorly to being assaulted, this is quite a good thing.
The original Carcassonne is also fairly decent, but its scoring system feels unbalanced, although that is partially fixed in a number of complicated expansion packs. But it's the only version I ever see in stores when I remember that I need to buy my own copy of Hunters and Gathrers since I've moved, and I'd rather not pay thirty bucks for its weak sister.
So, last week I never really did talk about games I didn't play, but still ought to. Here's a pair for your consideration.
A Game Of Thrones is a smartly designed boardgame that works in all the ways Axis-and-Allies style games usually don't. For one thing, a lot of the action happens simultaneously, so you don't have to deal with thirty-minute breaks in between your turns. Also, while there's a welcome element of randomness in the game, combat is wholly strategic. (At least, I'm happy about that, seeing as how I can count on my dice to betray me more often than not.) Unfortunately, the game balance pretty much requires that you have the maxiumum of five players. Otherwise, get used to the despairing wail of "King of the North!" as whoever plays the Starks gets beaten down.
Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is the less-popular sequel to the original Carcassonne. Control an entire tribe of French cavemen struggling to score you points in a gleefully passive-aggressive game. Instead of attacking your opponents, you just happen set up tragic accidents wherein they're kicked out of prime hunting grounds. Since a number of the people I play with react poorly to being assaulted, this is quite a good thing.
The original Carcassonne is also fairly decent, but its scoring system feels unbalanced, although that is partially fixed in a number of complicated expansion packs. But it's the only version I ever see in stores when I remember that I need to buy my own copy of Hunters and Gathrers since I've moved, and I'd rather not pay thirty bucks for its weak sister.
No Longer Play Because I Hate The Playas
Mr. Bile asked me to discuss the games I no longer play. I suspect this is an attempt to make me feel inferior to him, as he actually has friends he doesn't have to kidnap from their apartments and tie to chairs in front of a table full of Energon drinks and handmade sushi in order to get them to touch a pair of dice, much less some traitorous foreign game from Europe that involves tiles or bidding rounds. Or maybe he just wanted to lord it over me that he has friends with a "s", whereas I have friend.
Ignoring computer and video games, which I could go on about at tedious length, I don't have much to say about games I no longer play. I got rid of them when I moved. When I see the RPGs gathering dust on my bookshelf or the board games piled up in my closet, my perspective isn't that I will never play them again (or in the case of certain titles, for the first time), I'm just not playing them right now. I'm waiting for the right group of friends to play them with.
"Friends" is the key word. Since college, I've found gaming groups who were nice enough to let me join their sessions and tolerated my playstyle, and I've found groups of friends who I could hang out with, but games were an afterthought or of the junior high school DM versus the players variety. And of course, let's not forget the Wangomancers.
I have yet to establish a post-graduation group of like-minded individuals who will show up on Fridays with equal enthusiasm for alcohol, Battlestar Galactica, and existential horror meets Iron Chef in a game of furry action. One of the things my wife and I have found in LA is that people join groups just for meetups. With a few notable exceptions (also recently relocated) most of the people I've role-played with here are very secretive about their jobs and personal lives. Maybe it's me, but I don't feel comfortable inviting people over to my house for a game unless they're also interested in Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter night.
Ignoring computer and video games, which I could go on about at tedious length, I don't have much to say about games I no longer play. I got rid of them when I moved. When I see the RPGs gathering dust on my bookshelf or the board games piled up in my closet, my perspective isn't that I will never play them again (or in the case of certain titles, for the first time), I'm just not playing them right now. I'm waiting for the right group of friends to play them with.
"Friends" is the key word. Since college, I've found gaming groups who were nice enough to let me join their sessions and tolerated my playstyle, and I've found groups of friends who I could hang out with, but games were an afterthought or of the junior high school DM versus the players variety. And of course, let's not forget the Wangomancers.
I have yet to establish a post-graduation group of like-minded individuals who will show up on Fridays with equal enthusiasm for alcohol, Battlestar Galactica, and existential horror meets Iron Chef in a game of furry action. One of the things my wife and I have found in LA is that people join groups just for meetups. With a few notable exceptions (also recently relocated) most of the people I've role-played with here are very secretive about their jobs and personal lives. Maybe it's me, but I don't feel comfortable inviting people over to my house for a game unless they're also interested in Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter night.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Today Is Not That Time
During the last blog post of Canned Food And Shotguns, we will break all of our rules with gusto. Until then, I suppose I'll have to endure these unnatural restraints. It's much easier to obey the common-sense laws of Canned Food and Shotguns. For example, we don't need a prohibition on using the phrase "Jump The Shark." A healthy desire to maintain our self-esteem is more than enough to keep that at bay.
So instead of meager excuses for late posting, I offer swagger and braggadocio. Last night, I ran a game of Unknown Armies with players who I can trust to outsmart me nine out of ten times, and the tenth time is usually because they forgot about an obtuse comment mentioned by one person three months ago in the middle of the night. Plots were hatched, mysteries were plumbed, and I managed an accent that didn't careen into "Not Even Close To Sounding British."
And do not let Narraptor fool you with his devious trickery! Even though I've burned out on almost the entire genre of wacky card games, I still enjoy Give Me The Brain. Games like Munchkin, Chez [EDITED BY BRAIN GREMLIN], and Gloom have not been so lucky. The gameplay for each of them is disturbingly similar. The first few times, you have to learn a set of rules that feels a touch more complex than it was meant to be, and made more so by some very vague definitions. Then someone plays a card that has new rules printed on it that take precedence over the ones everyone else has been playing by. The card's grammar and syntax are puzzled over, someone is hosed, and the game continues.
As familiarity with the set of cards sets in, you get down to the serious business of applying deep strategy to a game that doesn't have any. You start basing strategies on whether or not the Big Unfair Card you need will show up, and praying that the chaff that makes up half the deck ends up in someone else's hands. Then, everyone gets sick of the game and it's either time to pony up for a new expansion featuring more wacky cards (Do you think "Auntie Paladin" is funny? What's wrong with you?) or move on. Alternatively, someone in the group can get an official Munchkin T-Shirt that gives him bonuses in the game. That will bring the game to a much swifter ending, especially if alcohol is involved.
The revised edition of Give Me The Brain is another matter altogether. The rules are only as complex as they need to be, and each card has a sense of fitting into a fairly balanced whole. Six years of playtesting turned out to be just what the game needed.
Finally, I might as well expand on Guitar Hero 2. The game provides you with a mostly complete single player game and a good enough multiplayer mode. If you can put the two together, you'll end up with a complete game. Other facts of note:
Playing on Easy and Medium are easier than in the first game
Playing on Hard and Expert are harder than in the first game
There is no difficulty level in between Medium and Hard
A practice mode is included in the game, to help facilitate the endless replaying you'll have to do once your natural talent runs dry.
As I mentioned before, expect to play through all of Medium difficulty before you even touch the multiplayer game. If you want to unlock more than just a few characters and all the available songs, expect to plumb the mysterious depths of the fifth fret, and the best of luck to you.
The song list has a bit less goofy fun and a bit more angry metal and arrhythmic guitar wanking than I care for. That said, it's the only licensed rhythm game made that doesn't force you to play A-B-C, making me more than willing to forgive songs like Yes We Can. I've even made my peace with Freebird, since the last song I'd want to play is the last song that I have to play.
As an added bonus, the vocals in Killing In The Name Of are performed by a man who only pretends he can't sing.
So instead of meager excuses for late posting, I offer swagger and braggadocio. Last night, I ran a game of Unknown Armies with players who I can trust to outsmart me nine out of ten times, and the tenth time is usually because they forgot about an obtuse comment mentioned by one person three months ago in the middle of the night. Plots were hatched, mysteries were plumbed, and I managed an accent that didn't careen into "Not Even Close To Sounding British."
And do not let Narraptor fool you with his devious trickery! Even though I've burned out on almost the entire genre of wacky card games, I still enjoy Give Me The Brain. Games like Munchkin, Chez [EDITED BY BRAIN GREMLIN], and Gloom have not been so lucky. The gameplay for each of them is disturbingly similar. The first few times, you have to learn a set of rules that feels a touch more complex than it was meant to be, and made more so by some very vague definitions. Then someone plays a card that has new rules printed on it that take precedence over the ones everyone else has been playing by. The card's grammar and syntax are puzzled over, someone is hosed, and the game continues.
As familiarity with the set of cards sets in, you get down to the serious business of applying deep strategy to a game that doesn't have any. You start basing strategies on whether or not the Big Unfair Card you need will show up, and praying that the chaff that makes up half the deck ends up in someone else's hands. Then, everyone gets sick of the game and it's either time to pony up for a new expansion featuring more wacky cards (Do you think "Auntie Paladin" is funny? What's wrong with you?) or move on. Alternatively, someone in the group can get an official Munchkin T-Shirt that gives him bonuses in the game. That will bring the game to a much swifter ending, especially if alcohol is involved.
The revised edition of Give Me The Brain is another matter altogether. The rules are only as complex as they need to be, and each card has a sense of fitting into a fairly balanced whole. Six years of playtesting turned out to be just what the game needed.
Finally, I might as well expand on Guitar Hero 2. The game provides you with a mostly complete single player game and a good enough multiplayer mode. If you can put the two together, you'll end up with a complete game. Other facts of note:
Playing on Easy and Medium are easier than in the first game
Playing on Hard and Expert are harder than in the first game
There is no difficulty level in between Medium and Hard
A practice mode is included in the game, to help facilitate the endless replaying you'll have to do once your natural talent runs dry.
As I mentioned before, expect to play through all of Medium difficulty before you even touch the multiplayer game. If you want to unlock more than just a few characters and all the available songs, expect to plumb the mysterious depths of the fifth fret, and the best of luck to you.
The song list has a bit less goofy fun and a bit more angry metal and arrhythmic guitar wanking than I care for. That said, it's the only licensed rhythm game made that doesn't force you to play A-B-C, making me more than willing to forgive songs like Yes We Can. I've even made my peace with Freebird, since the last song I'd want to play is the last song that I have to play.
As an added bonus, the vocals in Killing In The Name Of are performed by a man who only pretends he can't sing.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Sometimes Mr. Bile Is Boring
By posting that he would write something interesting later on Thursday, Mr. Bile violated Canned Food and Shotguns Rule #2. For those keeping track at home:
No spoiler warnings
No posts promising more or better posts later in the day
No apologizing for not posting on post days
No spelling apologize with a "s" or color with an "u"
No boring posts about boredom or depressing posts about depression
No politics
No Ron Jeremy or ATM
I believe the third, fourth, and fifth rules are new. Rules #6 and #7 have gone unsaid, but have always been in place. None of these have been ratified by a show of hands, but I intend to strictly enforce them all. The consequences for breaking a rule are having said disobedience pointed out. Mr. Bile, consider yourself chastened for ignoring rules you never agreed to and I just came up with.
Let the metafictional conflict begin. It can be like The Colbear Repor, but without the people who don't get it going "Whoo!"
Now, I happen to know that Mr. Bile was facing technical difficulties on Thursday which may have prevented him from giving us insight into why he no longer plays Give Me the Brain Age, but that is precisely why Rule #2 is in place. It saves us all from disappointment and more behind-the-scenes blogger commentary like this. I probably wouldn't have mentioned it at all, but given that I only have proof that Mr. Bile and I visit this page on a regular basis, I'm not too concerned with whether I'm boring people or not at this point. Add to my comments section sometime and I'll start to tailor stuff to you, dear Stephen King Reader. One person already got the font changed. Who knows what influence you might have?
I was issued a challenge last week that I was not able to address, but I now accept. Look it up, dear. Or wait until Tuesday.
I turned this on five minutes in last Saturday and watched it in its entirety. Never before has the Frogtown Barrier been crossed at 9:00 in the evening. (An interesting aspect of the Frogtown phenomenon, alcohol is never involved.)
There was one good joke in the...er, film: "Pick up my brother at the airport." You had to be there and you didn't want to, as it was at the expense of James "Lo Pan" Hong, one of the last great Asian-American character actors of our time. At some point in the future, the sad state of parody must be discussed.
No spoiler warnings
No posts promising more or better posts later in the day
No apologizing for not posting on post days
No spelling apologize with a "s" or color with an "u"
No boring posts about boredom or depressing posts about depression
No politics
No Ron Jeremy or ATM
I believe the third, fourth, and fifth rules are new. Rules #6 and #7 have gone unsaid, but have always been in place. None of these have been ratified by a show of hands, but I intend to strictly enforce them all. The consequences for breaking a rule are having said disobedience pointed out. Mr. Bile, consider yourself chastened for ignoring rules you never agreed to and I just came up with.
Let the metafictional conflict begin. It can be like The Colbear Repor, but without the people who don't get it going "Whoo!"
Now, I happen to know that Mr. Bile was facing technical difficulties on Thursday which may have prevented him from giving us insight into why he no longer plays Give Me the Brain Age, but that is precisely why Rule #2 is in place. It saves us all from disappointment and more behind-the-scenes blogger commentary like this. I probably wouldn't have mentioned it at all, but given that I only have proof that Mr. Bile and I visit this page on a regular basis, I'm not too concerned with whether I'm boring people or not at this point. Add to my comments section sometime and I'll start to tailor stuff to you, dear Stephen King Reader. One person already got the font changed. Who knows what influence you might have?
I was issued a challenge last week that I was not able to address, but I now accept. Look it up, dear. Or wait until Tuesday.
I turned this on five minutes in last Saturday and watched it in its entirety. Never before has the Frogtown Barrier been crossed at 9:00 in the evening. (An interesting aspect of the Frogtown phenomenon, alcohol is never involved.)
There was one good joke in the...er, film: "Pick up my brother at the airport." You had to be there and you didn't want to, as it was at the expense of James "Lo Pan" Hong, one of the last great Asian-American character actors of our time. At some point in the future, the sad state of parody must be discussed.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Holding Pattern
Writing about things I found boring turned out to be boring. Who knew? Interesting things will be discussed later in the evening.
In the meatime, I've just discovered the fun to be had in Guitar Hero 2's cooperative mode. That is, the fun after someone studiously unlocks all the songs in single player mode, because everyone knows a multiplayer game works so well with 4 songs to choose from.
There is a training mode to the game. It ignores obvious questions you might have, like, "How can you play a five button fake guitar with only four fingers?"
Also, there are some questionable choices in the song mix. Guitar solos that consit of random notes played to no melody whatsoever. Also, I may have just rocked out to Christian Metal. This disturbs me.
In the meatime, I've just discovered the fun to be had in Guitar Hero 2's cooperative mode. That is, the fun after someone studiously unlocks all the songs in single player mode, because everyone knows a multiplayer game works so well with 4 songs to choose from.
There is a training mode to the game. It ignores obvious questions you might have, like, "How can you play a five button fake guitar with only four fingers?"
Also, there are some questionable choices in the song mix. Guitar solos that consit of random notes played to no melody whatsoever. Also, I may have just rocked out to Christian Metal. This disturbs me.
Getting Lost
The mini-season of Lost has come to an end, with no new episodes until February. I understand a few million viewers found themselves underwhelmed at the beginning of the season. I hope they're still paying attention.
The writers were faced with an unusual dilemma this season. Last year, ABC frustrated viewers with an erratic schedule, leaving the show off the air for weeks at a time, coming back for one new episode and following it with another two-week break. Ratings fell, and a balanced solution was sought. Would the series be better off if it ran straight through starting in January? That would be a long wait for one of the network's flagship shows. As a compromise, they split the series into parts. Six episodes would air in the fall, eighteen would be shown back to back in the second half of the television season.
I hope it's obvious to ABC and the show's producers now that that was the wrong move. Serialized shows work best when they can air week to week without interruption. Considering how many viewers are used to watching the show on DVD, a long wait for a full season is better than splitting it up into any number of parts.
Additionally, airing what amounts to a six episode prologue does nothing to placate the fickle audience who has been demanding answers right now for the past two seasons. Cliff-hangers on three different parts of the island had to be wrapped up. Given the show's grounding in character flashbacks, this took up half of the episodes. Immediately after those were resolved, a mini-season cliff-hanger had to be set in place. This tight outline allowed for little screen time for anyone other than Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, and left several mysteries that should have been addressed in the wake of last season's finale untouched. (Did Charlie tell anyone what happened in the hatch or was he happy living under the assumption that Locke and Eko were dead? How did Locke, Eko, and Desmond escape from the implosion? Has Sayid mentioned the big foot to anyone? What was the response on the beach to the sky turning purple?)
Put in perspective, I think the writers did the best they could with the time they had to tell a story. And while the payoff was limited in scope, it made for a very smart cliff-hanger. Leaving Sawyer with a gun to his head wouldn't exactly have me on the edge of my seat. Leaving Kate and Sawyer with one hour to escape from an island prison and Ben in the hands of a very pissed off Jack? That's something to look forward to.
To compare the show to one of my other favorite mysteries, I don't expect George R.R. Martin to bring the evil in a Song of Ice and Fire novel until all the characters have been reintroduced and we know where they're going. (On the other hand, leaving out half the cast didn't work well in A Feast For Crows, either. SoIF without Tyrion is like Lost without Hurley.) I expect Lost will return to business as usual in February, when we can finally learn what Bernard thinks of the fact that everyone else from the tail section is dead.
The writers were faced with an unusual dilemma this season. Last year, ABC frustrated viewers with an erratic schedule, leaving the show off the air for weeks at a time, coming back for one new episode and following it with another two-week break. Ratings fell, and a balanced solution was sought. Would the series be better off if it ran straight through starting in January? That would be a long wait for one of the network's flagship shows. As a compromise, they split the series into parts. Six episodes would air in the fall, eighteen would be shown back to back in the second half of the television season.
I hope it's obvious to ABC and the show's producers now that that was the wrong move. Serialized shows work best when they can air week to week without interruption. Considering how many viewers are used to watching the show on DVD, a long wait for a full season is better than splitting it up into any number of parts.
Additionally, airing what amounts to a six episode prologue does nothing to placate the fickle audience who has been demanding answers right now for the past two seasons. Cliff-hangers on three different parts of the island had to be wrapped up. Given the show's grounding in character flashbacks, this took up half of the episodes. Immediately after those were resolved, a mini-season cliff-hanger had to be set in place. This tight outline allowed for little screen time for anyone other than Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, and left several mysteries that should have been addressed in the wake of last season's finale untouched. (Did Charlie tell anyone what happened in the hatch or was he happy living under the assumption that Locke and Eko were dead? How did Locke, Eko, and Desmond escape from the implosion? Has Sayid mentioned the big foot to anyone? What was the response on the beach to the sky turning purple?)
Put in perspective, I think the writers did the best they could with the time they had to tell a story. And while the payoff was limited in scope, it made for a very smart cliff-hanger. Leaving Sawyer with a gun to his head wouldn't exactly have me on the edge of my seat. Leaving Kate and Sawyer with one hour to escape from an island prison and Ben in the hands of a very pissed off Jack? That's something to look forward to.
To compare the show to one of my other favorite mysteries, I don't expect George R.R. Martin to bring the evil in a Song of Ice and Fire novel until all the characters have been reintroduced and we know where they're going. (On the other hand, leaving out half the cast didn't work well in A Feast For Crows, either. SoIF without Tyrion is like Lost without Hurley.) I expect Lost will return to business as usual in February, when we can finally learn what Bernard thinks of the fact that everyone else from the tail section is dead.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
The World Of Insufficient Light
I was exposed to the World Of Darkness by a well-meaning classmate in high school. He had heard that I had been playing Dungeons and Dragons and wanted to spread the word of something a bit more contemporary.
He gave me a role-playing game called Werewolf: The Apocalypse, part of White Wolf’s The World Of Darkness series of Gothic-Punk roleplaying games.
At first, it didn’t seem that much different from Dungeons and Dragons. It even began with the same form of introduction: “Imagine something that’s not roleplaying. Now imagine that it is!”
But as I read deeper, I wanted to give the game a spin. It was the first role-playing game I had encountered where a character wasn’t created by randomly generated numbers. And being forced to choose between pre-defined stereotypes to play made things even easier, allowing a person to easily role-play their character without having to spend time on a backstory. There was even flavortext sprinkled liberally across each page…bad poetry, stories in unreadable fonts, outright lies deluding you into thinking that with five points in Law, your character was the reincarnation of Perry Mason. But the flavortext didn’t have to be good, it just had to exist. Even the mechanics seemed novel back then, rolling and re-rolling dice like a game of jacks.
Werewolf was set in a world where nature was Good, and technology was Bad. You fought businessmen with a penchant for turning into tentacle demons when cornered, and evil werewolves that looked just like you, but slimier. In downtime, you got to jockey for political renown amongst your clan, who were all power hungry assholes and/or sage mystics. In other words, it was a game steeped in anime insisting it was Gothic-Punk. But since I didn’t know a damn thing about anime, Goths, or punks, I just accepted this as fact.
Likewise, the storyline of the rest of the World Of Darkness games were a schizophrenic mish-mash of conflicting ideas, and for a while, that was what I was looking for. I enjoyed the fact that each book featured an entirely different conspiracy that controlled 80% of the world, and didn’t know about each other. What I didn’t realize for a while was that each game put the players in the position of being given goals they could never actually achieve. You could play as Mages who couldn’t use magic, or Ghosts who couldn’t save themselves from Oblivion. Werewolves were already extra-doomed, to the point that “The Apocalypse” was in the subtitle of their book. And of course, there were Vampires. Ancient, alien intelligences that would plot and scheme for thousands of years to bring about the downfall of their enemies. You didn’t play as those people. You played as their henchmen’s henchmen, so far down the totem pole that there was no way in hell you could ever gain a bit of political power. But since no game company could put out modules based on a character’s individual struggle to gain contentment and peace in their lives, all adventures were about being sent to fight people much stronger than you in an attempt to gain favor with a powerful Vampire lord. That was unless you were involved in storylines that could equally be defined as a “Comedy of Manners” or “Dilbert.” Could you bluff your way into the inner circle of upper-class twits who could read your mind and then rip it out of your skull? Of course not.
At the time, we didn’t know any better. Most of the role-playing games we played offered sadistic advice we’d choose to ignore. Dungeons and Dragons would warn that actually letting the players collect the wealth and fame they sought would destroy your precious storylines. Call of Cthulhu was about defeating the undefeatable, and in Paranoia, everyone was trying to survive to see the next day, and that simply wasn’t going to happen. The difference is that World of Darkness was the first role-playing game publishers to take deviation from their vision as insulting. Players who became the prince of their city were simply carving out adolescent fantasies, and werewolves who kicked too much ass were not being realistic enough. The very idea that people were playing Vampire-Werewolves in the privacy of their own home really annoyed them, and they weren’t shy to say so. Repeatedly. In sidebars of books that you had just paid too much money for to few pages of information. Then they’d publish a book featuring a werewolf with a cybernetic arm and nothing to lose. Of course, he has a mysterious past.
But I played the games because role-playing games are viral in nature. Each time my group of friends got tired of the strange mechanics and awkward storylines, someone else would come up with a new idea, and we’d be back on the wagon. In college, this trend continued, as any new game was as likely as not to be about things that went bump in the night.
As time went on, White Wolf became more concerned with defining what the game was not than what it wasn’t. In an entire supplement devoted to wire-flying humans and people armed with robots powered by the dreams of Japanese children, they took the time out to explain why Blade was stupid, and you were stupid for thinking vampires could learn kung-fu. But that wasn’t what finally tipped the scales. In the end, it was the simple fact that the good people at White Wolf games would reissue new editions of their books every few years, usually with hard to define rule changes, and a lack of hooks that would drag a player in…and a steeper price tag. This is the sort of thing that stops a player from continuing on, and also causes him to re-evaluate his previous investments.
My final exposure to White Wolf was Adventure!, a game based on pulp novels from the '20s. It ended with trying to play it. In a game of fast moving action and dramatic flair, I question mechanics that divide “rolling on the ground, picking up a knife, and then throwing it at a goon” into three separate actions, each requiring a separate roll to determine success.
I’m told that eventually White Wolf decided that their storyline had gotten much too complex, and that it was time to end over a decade of interweaving books, comics, and in-game fiction by weaving them together into the final ending that the series had been striving for all those years.
The ending was, “Well…what do you think happened?”
Then White Wolf rebooted it’s series of games from ground zero. It featured the same plotlines, the same themes, and suspiciously similar characters…but it did have better statistics.
He gave me a role-playing game called Werewolf: The Apocalypse, part of White Wolf’s The World Of Darkness series of Gothic-Punk roleplaying games.
At first, it didn’t seem that much different from Dungeons and Dragons. It even began with the same form of introduction: “Imagine something that’s not roleplaying. Now imagine that it is!”
But as I read deeper, I wanted to give the game a spin. It was the first role-playing game I had encountered where a character wasn’t created by randomly generated numbers. And being forced to choose between pre-defined stereotypes to play made things even easier, allowing a person to easily role-play their character without having to spend time on a backstory. There was even flavortext sprinkled liberally across each page…bad poetry, stories in unreadable fonts, outright lies deluding you into thinking that with five points in Law, your character was the reincarnation of Perry Mason. But the flavortext didn’t have to be good, it just had to exist. Even the mechanics seemed novel back then, rolling and re-rolling dice like a game of jacks.
Werewolf was set in a world where nature was Good, and technology was Bad. You fought businessmen with a penchant for turning into tentacle demons when cornered, and evil werewolves that looked just like you, but slimier. In downtime, you got to jockey for political renown amongst your clan, who were all power hungry assholes and/or sage mystics. In other words, it was a game steeped in anime insisting it was Gothic-Punk. But since I didn’t know a damn thing about anime, Goths, or punks, I just accepted this as fact.
Likewise, the storyline of the rest of the World Of Darkness games were a schizophrenic mish-mash of conflicting ideas, and for a while, that was what I was looking for. I enjoyed the fact that each book featured an entirely different conspiracy that controlled 80% of the world, and didn’t know about each other. What I didn’t realize for a while was that each game put the players in the position of being given goals they could never actually achieve. You could play as Mages who couldn’t use magic, or Ghosts who couldn’t save themselves from Oblivion. Werewolves were already extra-doomed, to the point that “The Apocalypse” was in the subtitle of their book. And of course, there were Vampires. Ancient, alien intelligences that would plot and scheme for thousands of years to bring about the downfall of their enemies. You didn’t play as those people. You played as their henchmen’s henchmen, so far down the totem pole that there was no way in hell you could ever gain a bit of political power. But since no game company could put out modules based on a character’s individual struggle to gain contentment and peace in their lives, all adventures were about being sent to fight people much stronger than you in an attempt to gain favor with a powerful Vampire lord. That was unless you were involved in storylines that could equally be defined as a “Comedy of Manners” or “Dilbert.” Could you bluff your way into the inner circle of upper-class twits who could read your mind and then rip it out of your skull? Of course not.
At the time, we didn’t know any better. Most of the role-playing games we played offered sadistic advice we’d choose to ignore. Dungeons and Dragons would warn that actually letting the players collect the wealth and fame they sought would destroy your precious storylines. Call of Cthulhu was about defeating the undefeatable, and in Paranoia, everyone was trying to survive to see the next day, and that simply wasn’t going to happen. The difference is that World of Darkness was the first role-playing game publishers to take deviation from their vision as insulting. Players who became the prince of their city were simply carving out adolescent fantasies, and werewolves who kicked too much ass were not being realistic enough. The very idea that people were playing Vampire-Werewolves in the privacy of their own home really annoyed them, and they weren’t shy to say so. Repeatedly. In sidebars of books that you had just paid too much money for to few pages of information. Then they’d publish a book featuring a werewolf with a cybernetic arm and nothing to lose. Of course, he has a mysterious past.
But I played the games because role-playing games are viral in nature. Each time my group of friends got tired of the strange mechanics and awkward storylines, someone else would come up with a new idea, and we’d be back on the wagon. In college, this trend continued, as any new game was as likely as not to be about things that went bump in the night.
As time went on, White Wolf became more concerned with defining what the game was not than what it wasn’t. In an entire supplement devoted to wire-flying humans and people armed with robots powered by the dreams of Japanese children, they took the time out to explain why Blade was stupid, and you were stupid for thinking vampires could learn kung-fu. But that wasn’t what finally tipped the scales. In the end, it was the simple fact that the good people at White Wolf games would reissue new editions of their books every few years, usually with hard to define rule changes, and a lack of hooks that would drag a player in…and a steeper price tag. This is the sort of thing that stops a player from continuing on, and also causes him to re-evaluate his previous investments.
My final exposure to White Wolf was Adventure!, a game based on pulp novels from the '20s. It ended with trying to play it. In a game of fast moving action and dramatic flair, I question mechanics that divide “rolling on the ground, picking up a knife, and then throwing it at a goon” into three separate actions, each requiring a separate roll to determine success.
I’m told that eventually White Wolf decided that their storyline had gotten much too complex, and that it was time to end over a decade of interweaving books, comics, and in-game fiction by weaving them together into the final ending that the series had been striving for all those years.
The ending was, “Well…what do you think happened?”
Then White Wolf rebooted it’s series of games from ground zero. It featured the same plotlines, the same themes, and suspiciously similar characters…but it did have better statistics.
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