On the 19th I had a mole removed. It was right underneath my nipple. There are something like ‘the five deadly signs of moledom’ that you have to look out for. If a mole changes shape, if it’s an irregular shape, if it’s raised, if it has dark spots in it, if it’s a new mole…stuff like that. This one was new and it had dark spots, so I went to the doctor. He said “better safe than sorry” so he laid me down on the table, poked me with a needle, cut the thing out and sewed me up. Three stitches. I took it as the perfect opportunity to bail out of work last week and try to catch up on my artwork, which was overdue. When the art director initially asked me how many pages of work I wanted for the book (The Divine Quarter) – I said three pages, and that was foolish, as it turned out to be pretty unreasonable given the fact that I’m already late on another art project – (very late…as late as I’ve ever been) and I’ve still got writing to do. Anyway, Stan! was very good about the whole thing and gave me an extension, so for the first chunk of last week I managed to knock off three drawings a day, which is unheard of. Normally I do my originals at 115%-133% (sometimes larger) so that when they get shrunk down in the book they look better, but these ones were mostly 100%-115%. Still, they generally turned out fine. The company doesn’t pay quite as much as I’m used to from the other larger companies I work for, but they’re books are so well put together that I just like to do art in them so I can get contributor copies. I used Thieves Quarter book for my current campaign and it was incredibly useful. What other D&D product has maps of the sewer system under the city? Great stuff. Anyway, come mid-week it turns out that I didn’t have to run myself ragged on the art, as an editing hiccup gave me yet another 5 days leeway, so I was joyously afforded some leisure time this weekend, which I’ll tell you about, Shortly.
Work is Unpleasant
If I were Janet and I had to get up at 4 in the morning I don’t think I would be alive today. Getting up at 7:30 is depressing enough. Although – Janet gets to sit down and occasionally surf da internet. When I was younger I had crappy jobs – like the sewage filter factory, and DeVry Greenhouses. I never was one to get depressed much, but getting up to go to work at these jobs was that special time when depression shined on through. Usually it would just last for a few minutes to a couple hours. Once I actually started doing something rather than sitting in bed thinking “why don’t they get it over with and kill me?” (yes, I was listening to Metallica at the time) I was okay. Grouchy, but okay. Some days those feelings come back. This morning was not a problem, but Monday made me feel terrible. I don’t know what makes it change from day to day.
The skin on my face is being problematic. It gets so dry on the cheeks around my nose, and on my eyebrow – then it peels off (or I peel it off if I’m being stupid) and is raw underneath. Normally I can put some vitamin E cream on before I go to bed and I look normal in the morning, but today I had these big red blotches and I was pretty self-conscious about them. I don’t know why this has started to happen, but I wonder if going to see a dermy-to-ligist is covered by MSP.
On Sunday we had a Vancouver Gaming Guild meeting and we decided we’ll just try 3 conventions this year, not 4. Winter is a hard time to book a con because in October there are other, non-VGG cons like V-Con and Con-Fusion going on, and nobody wants to do anything in December. Okay this is already getting boring so I’m going to switch topics.
Marlo’s parents took us out to dinner at the Boathouse. The dinner was okay but the dessert was astounding. Keith (Marlo’s Dad) called me Tynan when he dropped us off and I think that’s funny. I don’t get phased or bothered by that sort of thing because people get my name wrong so often. Plus – who the fuck cares? It was nice for them to buy me dinner!
We also had another miniature painting potluck party but 4 of the 8 attendees jammed out at the last minute, so we got distracted from painting and played Talisman instead. It was fun on a bun. Next time I don’t want to be the Inquisitor because I always forget his special abilities, and we’ll play with the City and the Dungeon expansions. TALISMANNNNN!
Arrrrrrrrrr
If not the longest, this is the most in-depth D&D campaign I’ve ever run. I’m learning a lot about galleons and sea travel from it, too. For example:
-For lavatories, the crew uses seats overhanging the deck rail at the head (bow) of the ship.
-Everyone in the crew takes turns at the watch (keeping look out). Watches last 8 hours, and are timed with an hour glass. Sand takes half an hour to run through the narrow waist of this glass bottle.
-Sailors on the ship do not have cabins. They just sleep wherever there is space.
-Strict regulations control the use of candles, because of the risk of fire.
-Damage to the rigging (the sails and ropes) is common, so every ship carries spares. Rats eat even the sails if they can, so spare sails are often stored in empty barrels.
-Seawater that seeps into the ship collects in the bilge–the space between the hold and the keel–and turns into a foul brew. A pump clears the bilges but the smell of the water is disgusting.
-Cooking facilities are different on every ship. Often there is no chimney, so the galley gets very smokey.
-Many ships carry pigs, sheep, and chickens. Fresh eggs and meat are reserved for the sick and the ship’s most senior officers.
Women and seamen don't mix
We played D&D last night and it was fun. The gang is on board a galleon. They’ve had to be hired on as workers, which required a lot of shenanigans, since none of them (except the NPCs) have any sailor skills. The ship is under command of their enemies, so they have to constantly be careful not to expose themselves. This is particularly difficult because Paul’s wizard character used a magical ‘hat of disguise’ to get on board the ship (wizards are not allowed) and they are now travelling through a zone that negates magic. This zone surrounds an island called The Flame of Mesir-Ramok. The island is all that remains of the domain of an ancient dragon god-king, who was so nasty that all the other gods got together centuries ago to destroy him and his continent.
Anyway, Marlo’s spindly elf character (Marwen) couldn’t pass as a sailor, so she was trained to be the cook. So far, even though she took 6 ranks in the Profession: cooking skill, she’s rolled a 1 for both consecutive meals she’s prepared for the crew, and the officers are demanding that something be done about her. The salty sea-dog captain, who has a thing for elves and orchestrated the whole arrangement for Marwen to be cook in the first place, told the crew he’d see to it “personally” and demanded sexual favours from her, otherwise who knows what will happen.
Meanwhile the wizard spent the last 24 hours hiding in the spare rigging or throwing up from seasickness, or both. It’s pretty entertaining as a DM.
Back to the old drawing board
I was planning on seeing The Eagles of Death Metal, Helmet, and Metric this month. I also toyed with seeing Goatsblood and some other band I forgot the name of. I didn’t see any of them. I haven’t seen any of those bands before and it’s a shame that I missed them, but I don’t feel too broken up about it. There are things I like about seeing live music (the music, spending time with friends) and there are things I don’t (crowds, bars). But missing them was pretty unavoidable due to work. I’m almost finished the art for Black Company, which technically was due on the 12th. If I’m diligent I’ll get the last 2 pieces done today. It wasn’t a very dynamic weekend for the same reasons, but one of the good things about Marlo is that she doesn’t mind hanging out while I work. She can sit on the couch while I’m sitting at the drawing table, and we can both enjoy watching Enterprise – to her it’s all new, to me it’s just entertaining background noise that keeps me entertained while I draw. It’s a pain, sometimes, that we can’t watch the movies on our list because I can’t actually pay much attention to what’s on the TV while I draw. But we did watch The Others on Friday night after I finished my work for the night. It was pretty good. Very suspenseful, my favourite kind of horror.
Anyhoo, some time ago I wrote up a list of all the best Enterprise episodes (and the ones she needs to watch because they’re part of a major arc) for Marlo but since she’s become enamoured with the Vulcans and Dr Phlox (and rightly so) I’ve had to add a few things to that list. Here’s what’s left of the ‘must see’s before we can move on to season three:
The Communicator – Reed and Archer retrieve a communicator left behind on an alien planet, but are captured in the process. I like this one because it deals with culture contamination.
Judgment: Archer stands accused before a Klingon tribunal of conspiring against the Empire, and faces a lifetime sentence on Rura Penthe.
The Breach: Enterprise is asked to evacuate a group of Denobulan geologists from a world that has been taken over by a militant faction. Really good drama from John Billingsly, aka Dr. Phlox.
Bounty: A Tellarite bounty hunter captures Archer intending to turn him over to the Klingons for a substantial reward. Tellarites were seen in the original series, but to my knowledge not in TNG, DS9 or Voyager.
We’ll probably have to watch most of Season 3, even though it’s annoying.
So far season 4 has been good. And I’m really looking forward to next weekend’s because a) it showcases backstory from the eugenics war, (Khaaaaan!) b) it shows the orions, and c) Brent Spiner plays the criminal Dr Arik Soong an ancestor of Dr Noonian Soong (Data’s creator).
Now back to work for me. Byeeeeeee!
But for how long, Spock. For…how long.
Today I drew a picture of the wizard Silent from The Black Company. And I think I have a job starting on Tuesday at Raincoast Books so I celebrated with some pizza (Kodos joined in the celebration – I’m surprised he hasn’t puked from all the bread). I taped the season premiere of Enterprise, plus a new episode of Justice League and Home Movies while I drew. Then I did up the debriefing/recap of what happened in D&D last night. It was all very exciting. The group took a new step this week in that they tied up some smugglers and slit their throats in cold blood. COLD BLOOD.
Well you’re a pretty kitty
Now grab those guys
And put ’em in a box
And tape up the sides
Now throw them into space
So they’ll stay up there
Cuz you’re a pretty kitty
With pretty kitty hair
A quick review of HPL Film Fest movies I saw.
The Last Wave
This was one of the features and even though S.T. Joshi pointed out how Lovecraftian it was, I found it to be only tenuously linked to HPL’s style/philosophy/Cthulhu Mythos. It was quite good. This white fellow becomes the lawyer for some urban tribal aboriginies who execute one of their members for touching forbidden objects. The lawyer has prophetic dreams about these objects, etc and it tears him and his family apart. There were some cool bits. 7/10
The Resurrected
I have a copy of this film on VHS so I didn’t bother watching it at the fest. It’s a very good adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, one of my favourite HPL tales. Plus it was filmed locally, and has Chris Sarandon (Prince Humperdink from Princess Bride) as Ward. High 7/10 – it would be higher if some of the actors were better.
Quatermass 2 (1957 black and white)
We missed the beginning of this but I loved it. Meteors from space infect the townsfolk and they harbor space blobs in a mysterious factory. Very campy but the acting was great and the style was typically cool. I love the esthetics and social dynamics of the 20’s through the 50’s, and I need to see more classic films in general. 6/10
Enter the Dagon
A pretty silly mockumentary short about some guys who are trying to make a Lovecraftian martial arts film. Some of the jokes were expected, some of them just bad, but others were pretty funny. The idea for the film is great, but it’s really just a one-joke concept and it can’t hold up for more than a few minutes. I had heard that it was edited down and I think that was the right decision. It worked and was enjoyed by all. 6/10
Why Vote for the Lesser Evil
A very silly short about two guys who are trying unsuccessfully to fill out their Cthulhu cult and get Cthulhu voted for president until they realize that George Bush is more evil than Cthulhu. I was amused but not as much as everyone else in the theater as I have heard all these jokes before. 5/10
The Visage
I found out after I saw this that it was adapted from a Gogol story. I’ve read a few Gogol stories and have really enjoyed them, I think I may still have a book kicking around. Anyway, this would have been good had they cast someone different from the lead actor, Derek Thompson. Thompson played Clifford the down-on-his luck young man who is recruited to watch over the body of a dead spiritualist for three days. This guy had -5 charisma and his acting was painful to watch. Seriously, it drove me nuts–I can’t get past it. I could not enjoy this otherwise good short film that had legitimately tense, creepy moments. One cool part was when Clifford was hiding under an afghan blanket and you saw his P.O.V. of the room through the tiny holes in the stitching. I have to give this a 4 (out of 10). If they had cast a better actor, it would easily have been twice that.
If you saw it you can rate the movie here http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386852/combined
The Case of H.P. Lovecraft (documentary)
I have seen this French, artsy documentary on H.P. Lovecraft’s life before and it’s amazing, if long. 8/10
The Summoning
Another silly little short (I have nothing against silly, mind you) about a guy who is given a book and finds a glowing circle in his basement so naturally he goes into the circle and starts reading aloud from a book. Surprise surprise, tentacles appear and eat him! Simple, on-topic, and well done. 6/10
Rate it yourself here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0426591/combined
The Tell-Tale Heart
I love Andrew to death, but this is where he and I differ on judging what goes into a HPL film fest. Poe is fantastic, I’m sure you’ll agree. But why is The Tell-Tale Heart in a Lovecraft festival? Argh! Okay okay – Lovecraft was Poe’s number one fan. Fine. Anyway – I had never actually read the story, so it was good that this film was basically the narrator reading the story throughout the short. It was quite good – but there were some things that bothered me greatly. The narrator said things like “It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening” of the door, and “I undid the lantern cautiously — oh, so cautiously — cautiously (for the hinges creaked), I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye” but all the while you were watching the fellow on film put thrust his head into the doorway in 2-3 seconds, and the room was lit at all times so you could see not just the eye, but the entire body of the sleeping man and the narrator. How would I get around these things if I were making the film? I don’t know. Suffice it to say, these discrepancies bugged me. Also the policemen weren’t acting like the narrator was telling me they were acting – that definitely could have been fixed with better direction. Otherwise the film was really quite outstanding. The narrator did a really good job. 8/10
Pickman’s Model.
This was an old adaptation of the HPL story of the same name. It was a really old, low-quality print of the film but it was not without its charm. If you’ve read the story, you know that it’s about an artist who paints ghoulish things – from life!! This short followed an art critic who was writing a book on art for some kind of art gallery/society but they cut his funding when he insisted that Pickman’s work be included in the book. Pickman’s paintings cause him to have bouts of prophetic fancy. The acting was fine, the story was not bad. Generally I thought it was pretty good compared to a lot of Lovecraftian film. I wish the paintings had been more exactingly executed, and I wish we got to see, if not a ghoul itself, at least the photos that Pickman was working from. 5/10
I wished I had been able to see the other block of shorts with Edward’s “Innsmouth Legacy” and “Strange Aeons” but it didn’t happen. I wasn’t going to mention any trailers or bumpers but I will say that I sure am looking forward to seeing “The Call of Cthulhu” next year!
And this is my post for the day
I get the feeling that if I lived next door to the strikingly white, bearded spokesperson for Canadian Tire all my life’s problems would be solved. He’s just so earnest and helpful it makes me want to kill myself instantly.
I’ve also noticed that car commercial narrators read $29,995 as “twenty-nine-nine-ninety-five” as if we will be fooled into thinking it’s somehow NOT five bucks shy of thirty THOUSAND dollars.
The episode of Star Trek original series on Space today was the one with Kodos the executioner. I have actually never seen it before today. Every time they said the name ‘Kodos’ it made me chuckle and want to give my cat another morsel of dampfkneudel. Last night Marmar and I went to Ursula’s for some delicious cuisine, including said german dumplings and some yummy soup. Oh and some crazy giant grapefruit called a…pommello? We brought some grape tomatoes (not to be confused with tomatoe grapes) and some broccoli. Yvonne, Caleb, Ian, Tiffany and Ursy’s mom were there and I got to watch Ursula get poked full of various needles, some supercharged with electricity, another administering C’Plus into her vein. So, fun night all ’round, including a good hour plus walk back to M’lo’s.
Tonight I am going to see some anime shorts as part of the VIFF with Yvonne and Marlo. Melange de shorts are always the best part of film festivals. Often you can just wait to see features when they come out in wide release, or on video. Shorts, on the other hand, are what film fests are all about, as far as I’m concerned. When we went to pick up our tickets at City Square last night it was an agonizing multi-step problem.
Let’s first have a look at a normal movie ticket-buying experience:
Step 1 – figure out what movie to buy tickets for by looking at the marquee
Step 2 – wait in line
Step 3 – swap money for tickets
Compare with VIFF:
Step 1 – (and this was my fault for having a bad memory) figure out what movie we were buying tickets for by trying to interpret 2 different schedule booklets.
Step 2 – Fill out a form with my name, address, phone, email, and specifics of what movie we were going to see, including the ‘movie code’ for the film.
Step 3 – wait in a different line with our form in hand
Step 4 – Hey we’re at the front of the line! Great, now we can…oh no…stand and wait some more while the lady inputs the information from the form into a laptop computer
Step 5 – fill out the membership card
Step 6 – swap money for tickets
And all that only after I had to have Yvonne explain the different ways I could get to see a VIFF movie, and the risks and hardships involved. Now, it’s a given that I’m an idiot, but come on – I just want to go to a theater and see a movie! I’m willing to show up an hour early to get a good seat. I’m not too keen, on the other hand, on jumping through a series of flaming hoops, each more flamingly hoopy than the last.
I’ve generally given the VIFF a miss over the past few years, but this has only been because I’ve been traditionally swamped with work this time of year. The only movie I saw at VIFF in recent memory is Volcano High, and I think that was 2 years ago. I hope tonight’s cinemafeast will be just as good!
The Post That Offends Everyone Who holds wedlock sacrosanct
At the wedding this weekend instead of a guest book there were piles of construction paper on the dinner tables. Naturally I was at a table full of gamers – Jon, Stewie, Neal, Shawn & Mariko, so there were lots of jokes about gaming. I.E. the wedding was actually a LARP, and we turned our table place name tags into mini character sheets, etc. One of the of the pieces of construction paper I wrote:
I try to pickpocket Shawn’s character
…and folded it up. Only gamers will get that. The rest of the papers we mostly doodled on.
Marlo and I were discussing the wedding. I think that if we ever do get married, for tax purposes or because we live in an Orwellian future, or because Marlo discovers that she is part Shangri-Lan and the only way I can stay there for more than a 6-month work visa is to be one of her many husbands, it would be a great excuse to throw a catered party at our parents’ expense. I would be dressed as Princess Leia and Marlo would be dressed as Darth Vader and the justice of the peace would be dressed as Grand Moff Tarkin: “I grow tired of asking this, so it will be the last time: Do you, Toren, take Marlo to be your wife?” and Marlo can shout “I’ll never join you!” And the wedding cake would be the Death Star, and all the guests would have to be in stormtrooper outfits and stand at attention while Marlo walks down the aisle to the tune of the Emperor’s March.
Bedding Wells
What did I do this weekend? Friday night was Chris Slater’s stag party, where we ate pizza and pie, played video games (I played 5 different games – my favourite was some Final Fantasy version) and card games, and some got drunk. I did not. I saw someone’s nipple but that’s about as naughty as it got. And no, it wasn’t Iain’s.
Saturday I had a meeting with Tim Carter, went to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow which I largely recommend with some caveats (see more below), and wandered around downtown with Marlo.
Today was Chris & Kathryn’s wedding. The padre mispronounced Kathryn’s name once and kept talking about God this and Jesus that but otherwise it was really great. I’m really happy for those two crazy kids, and there was tons o’ love at the reception. It was nice, and the food was amazing. I haven’t eaten that much meat in a long time – and it was all because of the two kinds of gourmet mustard and the horseradish sauce that went with the roast beef.
BIG FAT SPOILERS ABOUT SKY CAPTAIN: As I mentioned, I enjoyed the movie. Expectation is everything, and I didn’t expect anything out of the actors, so it didn’t trouble me too much that they came through on the promises of milquetoast acting made in the trailers. Still, I wanted to slap Gwyneth Paltry just to get some kind of emotion out of her. Mostly I wanted to see the movie because I love the genre and I wanted to see how they could pull off a movie that was almost entirely shot on blue screen. I had most of the same problems with the movie as Warren did (see blog link to the right) and I had a few more as well. I didn’t see the usefulness of using CGI cars instead of real ones (it was distracting). There were some really dumb bits, such as when Sky Captain punched and essentially K.O.’d robots twice his size. I guess the robots were made of balsa wood. There were general problems with the aircraft that you didn’t have to be an engineer to balk at – monoprop planes lighting safely on a few hundred feet of landing strip; planes not shattering when they hit the water surface at terminal velocity; etc. I also made some pretty good guesses which I expect a lot of other people did as well. The second time I saw the mystery woman, I knew she was a robot. As soon as I saw Totenkopf’s holographic face, I guessed he had been dead for a long time, and the evil plan was all his robots’ legacy. One of the things that I really did appreciate in the film is that nobody had any gratuitously revealing clothes. They stayed true to the genre on that and I thought it was classy that they avoided sinking to the lowest common denominator.