Well today I playtested the Spaceship Zero scenario I’m runnin at HPL’s Birthday Party convention next weekend. Norm played his SpaceCorp executive, Nathan played a space pirate, David Bradley played his robot, James played his gladiator “Brock!”, and Ken played the mechanic. It was a madhouse, Jerry, a madhouse. They completely circumvented the major plot point, but it was still a hoot and a half, and now I am more prepared for next Saturday. Not a single ray gun was fired, although somebody was stabbed in the leg. I’d say more but I know that Marlo will be reading this, and she’s scheduled to play at the nerdcon. How come you don’t make up your own character, Marlo?
I am the GameMaster
The terrible terrible secret is this: I’m running Spaceship Zero tomorrow at 5pm for James, Norm, etc etc, and I still have no idea what the hell I’m going to do. I’ve come up with two really good ideas that I want to fit together, but which will not fit together, and either one on their own is only a beginning, and I have no idea how it would play out…or should play out. I could go into details but I think those details would be lost on anyone who won’t be playing the game tomorrow (or at the con next weekend), and those who will be playing aren’t allowed to know said details.
There are drunken idiots on the street outside yelling “HELLOOOOOOOO” and other, more retarded things.
blood bowl
The New York Jets (which I guess is a football team) were unable to book a hotel in Indianapolis for their game this weekend because GenCon (a gaming convention, for you non-nerds) has every room in town booked.
What Happened Yesterday?
The thing about the Thai House on West 7th is that the food is good, but the service is mediocre, as is the atmosphere. Even taking into account the fact that we asked for a table for 6 and there were only 5 of us, I felt like I had to lean in constantly to be part of the conversation. What’s an antonym for intimate?
The thing about Amazon Women on the Moon is that it’s funny. My favourite parts are Don “No Soul” Simmons and Video Pirates. The pirate captain is the same guy who played the AI expert in Star Trek TOS and did the voice for the Master of Shadows in the Real Ghostbusters episode “Slimer, Is That You?” which is one of my favourites.
Speed Lines to SFU
I wonder if anyone would be interested in attending this anime convention which I just discovered. I’m particularly interested in seeing the panels with voice actors and voice directors, but that’s just a small part of the con. There’s also gaming happening, though there seems to be zero structure to it at this point. The bad news is it’s $35 to get in. I am trying to contact the organizers to ask some questions – maybe I can get a deal if I run some Spaceship Zero. It’s August 20-22 which is a little poopy.
They told me it was a good idea…
…so I thought I’d share it with you.
Whenever I save a file to my hard drive that I know is only temporary, I save it with the word ‘toast’ in it. So, let’s say I’m downloading an exe file to install a new program, or I’m saving a jpeg that I want to convert to a gif and then send it to someone. When I hit SAVE AS I’ll add the word ‘toast’ into the file name, so the file ilikeyourwiggle.jpg becomes toastilikeyourwiggle.jpg or ilikeyourwiggletoast.jpg or some such.
Then, when it’s clean up time, I just do a search on my hard drive for the word ‘toast’ and when they all come up I can send them to the trash can with…as Grand Moff Tarken says…one swift stroke!
I Can't believe it's not butterday
It’s already the 12th? Crazyness.
Tonight I played D&D. It was mostly the party trudging across the blighted hills without incident, but there was an encounter with strange beetle swarms, and a rogue displacer beast. Then when they used the cromlech to mystically transport to the continent of Maal, they appeared in the middle of a fight, and couldn’t see much because of the mist (a byproduct [biproduct?] of the teleportation) but they were attacked by these floating demonic jellyfish which had paralytic venom in their stingers, and that’s just for starters.
Today I did some voiceover work, but due to confusion about the time difference between here and PEI, I couldn’t get ahold of the director so I had to direct myself. I hope they turn out alright. Right now I’m uploading angry amounts of wav files to the ftp space I got in a trade for a gmail address.
Wonder Toren Power – ACTIVATE!
Sixteen episodes of original Superfriends (1973) plus 16 episodes of All New Superfriends Hour (each of which actually consists of 4 different tales) (1977) plus 16 episodes of Challenge of the Superfriends (1978) plus 24 episodes of World’s Greatest Superfriends (1979) plus 62 shorts plus 8 episodes of Legendary Super-Powers Show plus 8 episodes of Galactic Guardians equals 150 episodes of Superfriends, only one of which I am missing (Shark Attack) as of receiving a new tape in the mail today! Neato.
What? No Yog-Sothoth?
Many of you have seen my felt Cthulhu on the bookshelf in my living room. Tim Emrick made it along with all the other characters in my “Where the Great Old Ones Are” drawing. He’s put up the last two on ebay- Chaugner Faugn http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5513207614 and Ithaqua http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5513207006
Meanwhile, not far away: The Cobalt is closing.
Scare Tactics
scary
Function: adjective
Definition: frightening
Synonyms: alarming, bloodcurdling, chilling, creepy, hair-raising, hairy, horrendous, horrifying, intimidating, shocking, spine-chilling, spooky, terrifying, unnerving
Let’s agree on some ground terms as there are different types of horror films. I’ve split into four categories the techniques (tactics, if you prefer) commonly used in, and often defining, horror films.
The Gross-Factor: they pull out all the intestines and eye slashing stops; most zombie films I’ve seen rely on the gross-factor to get by.
The Creep-Factor: Ringu, Jacob’s Ladder and even Donnie Darko are great examples.
The Suspense Factor: this is my favourite – think of the part in Alien when Dallas was crawling through the ducts with a flame-thrower. Terminator, Jaws & The Shining had lots of it.
The “BOO!” factor: this is the one where your senses are assaulted by sudden flashes of visuals and audio – it’s all I remember about Event Horizon and it’s the cheapest kind of horror.
Now let’s look at a few really good horror films.
Alien. This came out when I was 9. I don’t remember when I saw it. Very little gross-factor, as far as I’m concerned. There’s the chest bursting scene and apart from a few short scenes of blood, that’s it. They’re all well done and I wouldn’t say they’re gratuitous. Oh, I guess the scene where Ash goes nuts is kind of gross, but still, I’m sticking with my low GF rating.
The Ring. High on the Creepy Factor. Disturbing and unsettling. I don’t remember any GF but there was definitely some Suspense Factor. If I recall correctly the BOO Factor was minimal to nonexistent.
King Kong (’76). I saw this when I was quite young, and it had an impact on me. Fighting with that snake had some GF but to me the most horrifying will always be the part when Kong was spinning that log to make the people fall down into the chasm. That was probably a bit too intense for me at my tender young age, so that’s stuck with me.
The Shining. Lots of creepiness, lots of suspense. No Gross-Factor to speak of. A real class-act.
John Carpenter’s The Thing. There was a fair amount of Gross-Factor in this – but it was divided between the blood ‘n’ gore kind of gross and the horrific-looking-slimy-shapechanging-alien kind of gross. Mostly it was suspense, with a touch of creepiness and a tiny smidgeon of BOO-factor at the end.
The Blair Witch Project. No Gore-Factor, no BOO-Factor. All SF and CF. I saw this in the theater and it actually had me shivering, but that could have been because the air-conditioning was up way too high. Also it played upon my fears of being in the woods at night (which comes down to bears, actually).
The Exorcist. Demon vomit definitely qualifies as gross, but I would say the main technique here is the Creepy-Factor.
Yvonne asked me if there were any movies that scared me. Well, if we’re talking about jumping in your seat because the scene went from quiet and serene to violently loud, then yes, Punch Drunk Love scared me when the semi came out of nowhere.
However, if you’re talking about a movie that leaves you with nightmares and noctiphobia, then the only movie that’s truly given me the heebie-jeebies in my adult life would have to be The Blair Witch Project. But they have yet to make a movie that is so scary that I wouldn’t watch it alone.