Category: Nerdiness

Since my Disney’s Tomorrowland DVD showed up, my thoughts for the cartoon party have all been spacey. I’m pretty excited. That tomorrowland DVD is really cool. Educational and the art is fantastic. I can watch those things while I draw, and there’s 8 hours of stuff. I sought it out after I saw the Mars animation at “The Animation Show” put on by Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge last year. It’s fantastic in the true sense of the word. There’s lots of Werner von Braun, too, the guy who developed the V2 rockets for nazi Germany. He has a huge segment talking about a space station and the rocket that would launch from it to see the dark side of the moon. Keep in mind this is all post-war, pre-moon landing. Taylor and I were making bad jokes at work about “zis is der space ztation, vhich is vhere ve send all ze ‘spezial’ people. Iz zhere air up zhere? Ve don’t know?” But in reality von Braun was pretty crummy at being a nazi.

So, cartoons. Rocket Robin Hood obviously. Star Trek. Maybe the Heavy Metalesque Star Wars cartoon from the holiday special (1st appearance of Boba Fett). The ghostbusters in space. Duckman’s sendup of Star Trek. Galaxy Trio. 1960’s Spider-Man (there is a space one). Fantastic Four (have you seen the trailer for the movie? I don’t like it). Big Guy & Rusty the Boy Robot (the one that spoofs HAL). Justice League, clearly. Herculoids, Freakazoid, Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Mooninites, anyone?). Jonny Quest and the Venture Brothers. Ren and Stimpy (“Space Madness”). Maybe Thundarr the Barbarian & Reboot. Ripping Friends. There is a spacey Samurai Jack episode but it’s not my favourite. I can’t think of a spacey Powerpuff Girls episode. Oh yes – The Tick (Omnipitus!).

Today I went to Imperial Hobbies with Marlo and we bought some miniatures. The Arcana Unearthed line has some pretty cool figures, but I’ve always been wishy-washy about picking any up. Today I got a cool Inshon that could pass as a hydronaut for Spaceship Zero, and a mohj, which is like a lizard man. Marlo wanted to get a DM screen, but they only had the Dragonlance one (poopy) and the one that comes with the d20 modern screen (unnecessary). We spent a goodly amount of time there and I only got through about half of the Reaper miniatures on the wall. So many I wanted to get, like the “demonic lasher” (aka Yeenoghu), the demon lord of gnolls.

We went to the Aberdeen mall next and I saw in a Japanese toy store a really cool little steampunky figure that I would have bought, except that it’s one of those “collectible” things like Heroclix, D&D miniatures, and those little action figures that are kind of Lego-ey but not Lego. You buy a box and you’ll get one of 7 toys. I am sooooo not inclined to spend ten bucks on something if I don’t know what it is. I only really liked 2 of the 7 figures. I didn’t like those odds. And I refuse to support that ridiculous marketing scheme. I call shenanigans on that.

All three of our bus rides sucked, by the way. On the way to Richmond, there were some bratty kids and their bratty dad or big brother or whatever, who were so annoying that we got up and moved away from them, only to end up next to some dim-witted high school man-twits. Between Imperial and the Aberdeen mall we had to endure short, weird, talk-to-everyone-but-say-nothing guy who may or may not have had some kind of disability. Lastly, on the way home our feet were so tired that we were looking forward to sitting down, but the bus was just crowded enough that we were two of a handful of people who couldn’t get seats. Frustrating. But the good news is on Sundays I ride for free with Marlo because she has a pass!

Next weekend: Chilliwack and Karaoke with the Woods’ and more!

My girlfriend is learning how to be a Dungeon Master. How awesome is that? The answer is: plenty awesome. I want to be a wizard. No, I want to be a totem warrior from Arcana Unearthed. No, I want to be a halforc monk. No, I want to be a…

We played a game of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on Saturday and I played the “ops” guy, whose name was Lieutenant George Thampy (“Spellbound” fans take note).

I think it would be fun to make up a “what non-standard D&D race are you?” quiz, but you better your bottom GP I’m not going to sit down for X hours/days and work out the programming for that. So, just choose your favourites:

drow
tiefling (devil blood)
aasimar (celestial [angel] blood)
genasi (genie blood) – air/earth/fire/water
aranea
centaur
drider
salamander
sprite (grig, nixie, pixie)
harpy
lillend (points if you even know what the heck this is)
medusa/half-medusa
mind flayer (illithid)
ogre/half-ogre
satyr
troll
aellar (winged elf)
blinkling
lizardfolk
gnoll
goblin
kuo-toa
nymph
giant
merfolk
troglodyte
dryad
sthein (elf/naga)
werewolf
woodwose (elf/treant)
bugbear
derro
duergar
formian
githyanki
githzerai
hobgoblin
kobold
orc
yuan-ti

Plush beholder doll!!!!

http://www.paizo.com/store/toys/plushes/other/v5748btpy775z

That’s going on my list, for sures. Also the plush caltrops are a hoot, as is the Lovecraftian moon-beast (from Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath). The beholder is king, though.

So – House of Flying Daggers. Very very pretty. And an excellent movie…until the end. I don’t want to SPOIL anything for you, because it’s still worth seeing, but the ending is ridiculously drawn out and melodramatic. The fight scenes were excellent and they weren’t just cut thrust dodge parry, they used the environment to excellent effect. I think sometimes wuxia films go a little too far with the superhuman abilities, and that’s never more clear than in House of Flying Daggers. Jumping really high – practically flying – I’ve accepted that. Throwing knives and having them defy the laws of physics like Batman’s batarangs…that’s a little tougher to swallow.

The Christmas season doesn’t have much tradition for me…except the playing of Baldur’s Gate. Last year I didn’t have much time to waste, but this year (once my last drawing assignment was finally pegged) I have had plenty of free time, which I am putting to good use putting xvarts and tasloi to the sword. Hey – I think I’ll go do that now.

So, as I mentioned, Morbo and I watched the extended edition of Return of the King. I think it’s my least favourite of the trilogy, but that has to do with Tolkein as much as it does Peter Jackson, I’m sure. Seeing it the second time a few weeks ago definitely didn’t have the same impact as seeing it the first time in the theater. I actually got pretty tired of most of the main characters. I was tired of Frodo and Sam and Aragorn doing the same thing all through the movie. The most interesting character work in King was in and around Faramir’s father, the rest of it, for the most part, seemed same old same old. Even for movies I don’t like, I don’t usually say that they’re too long. If it’s a good film, I don’t mind it going on for 4 hours. But I will say it about Return of the King and here’s why: too much slow motion. I wonder just how much time would be shaved off the film if all the slow mo scenes were done at real time, or go mo as I like to call it.

Specifically, for the extended edition, there was some stuff I liked and some stuff I didn’t like. Gimli and dwarfs in general were made fun some more, which is lame. There was a new character called the Mouth of Sauron which I thought was great – he was played by that guy in Road Warrior who flew the gyrocopter (he’s apparently going to be in Revenge of the Sith, too). The scene where Saruman gets impaled I found extremely silly, as was the tidal wave of skulls in the…grotto of the dead. Gandalf’s confrontation with the Witch King was interesting and I think it would have been fine to keep it in the theatrical cut.

One of the best (and coolest) foes in the entire story are the ring wraiths, I don’t know why they had to kick the Witch King up a notch from what he looked like in the Fellowship – I liked him better without the funky helmet and giant flail. It just seems they went over the top in King, I guess that’s what you get when Peter Jackson is at the helm. But it’s still a cool movie. It’s very pretty, the fight scenes are dynamic and interesting despite the fact that they go on and on and involve so many combatants, and Andy Serkis’ work as Gollum is no less amazing than in Two Towers.

The extras are pretty fantastic. We didn’t have time to listen to the audio commentaries, but we watched a lot of the documentaries and I would say that as a selling point for the extended edition they exceed the deleted scenes. I’m just amazed at how much detail and craftsmanship they put into the props on that movie – things that you would never notice or even have the opporunity to see in the film. And to hear the actors and crew telling their stories and saying their goodbyes on set was just as emotional as any musically-enhanced, slow motion drama scene.

After 3 weeks of hiatus we played D&D last night, and it was good. Two players, independently of one another, managed to throw my plans out of whack. This is actually a good thing since it proves to me that they’re not just resigned to let the wind take them whichever way it blows – that they are taking an active rather than a passive role in the story. I was worried that since they are in such a dangerous and precarious situation they have been paralyzed into doing nothing that could remotely compromise their safety. Pluses and minuses either way.

It’s also a good thing because I don’t want them to feel that “my plans” are the only way that the adventure can play out. Railroading in a campaign is the #1 “DM don’t.”

Project 1: When trying to take the stitches out of your former mole-hole, a pair of hair scissors and a utility knife do not, literally, cut it. Plus I can’t see a damn thing because it’s underneath my nipple. So after trying unsuccessfully for about ten minutes (except for the bleeding and pain parts – those were successful), I gave up until Marlo arrived later in the day. Even though Marlo’s mom is a nurse, Marlo herself is pretty Squamish, I mean squeamish, so I knew it would be troublesome. But, she hit upon the idea of using a needle and that worked like gangbusters!

Project 2: I got the free bed frame from Sam by calling the Vancouver Taxi and asking for a van. There was a $10 surcharge for bed frame transport, so it ended up costing me $20 in all but I was not dissatisfied with that. Sam showed me his new surround sound system by watching the battle at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring. It occured to me this morning that (and I know that Marlo will make me sit in the corner for speaking out of turn) the main character of the movie is probably the most boring character. I don’t blame Elijah Wood so much, there’s just not much for him to do as an actor besides looked glum and troubled. But I digress.

I cleaned out my room to some extent, and made space for the new frame. Marlo and I put together the new frame with screws and nails and two very special alan wrenches. It worked like a big wooden bed-shaped charm. Even though I love that old wooden plank that Chris Woods lovingly carpented for me close to a decade ago, I couldn’t pass up the free bedframe, so the fruit of Chris’ lathe got flushed.

Stewie: “What are we doing with this?”
Toren: “Taking it down to the basement.”
Stewie: “I thought we weren’t allowed to put our junk in there.”
Toren: “Well who’s going to know that it’s mine?”
Stewie (grabbing one end of the board and opening the door): “I guess that depends on how quiet we are taking it downstairs.”
Toren: *SLAM!*

Project 3: Last night Stewie installed into my computer, while Marlo watched Monk and I looked gayly on, several more gigabytes of hard drive space and a new video card. I now have 16 gigs of hard drive space instead of 4. Dude, that’s like four times as much hard drive space! Yeeeeeeeehawwwwwww! Stewie has a theory that my cunning plan is to stay so far behind the rest of the world technologically, that another person’s computer junk that they’re throwing away is my upgrade. I’ll never tell, except that in the early days of Windows I remember always being behind the newest version by one, so that I got Windows 95 while everyone else was getting Windows 98. The strategy there was by the time I got the OS, all the bugs had been worked out of it by everyone else.

Deep thought: I think “The Moor the Merrier” would be a good historical sitcom.