Category: Nerdiness

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.

I’ve been watching a lot of Enterprise lately, and introducing Marlo to series via the good episodes from the first season. Holy smokes does the third season seem like crap compared to episodes like “Silent Enemy” and “Dear Doctor.” It’s been especially fun to MST3K Captain Archer.

The good news is that the story arc from season 3 is over and done with and they can get back to exploring space. I’ve been reading about a 3-part story with Brent Spiner as an ancestor of Data’s creator, Dr. Soong, and it involves more leftovers from the eugenics war and klingons. I’m optimistic.

I just spent the entire weekend running a gaming con. It was fun but I’m very drained. I’ll have stories to tell, but later. Thanks Stewie for buying me Chinese food for dinner to put that spring back in my step.

There’s an interesting and amusing radio article on the 30th anniversary of D&D here: http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3858560
Just click on the link to hear it in Realplayer or Mediaplayer – with real battle sounds!

I have a friend who doesn’t allow cross-gender roleplaying in the groups he runs. I’m not sure why.

But, here’s an interesting article on the subject: http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/play18aug04.html

I personally have played a few different female characters. In one D&D campaign I used to play Ursula Umbragia–a mother who sold her soul to a demon to save her son, and in another I played a barbarian who I modelled after Bjork and whose name was Mjath. I made up a couple of superheroines that I never actually got to play – a black cop, mother of two, who moonlighted as The Black Lantern, and a pair of shopaholic yuppie teenage twins who were also cyborgs. I’ve never played a female in Call of Cthulhu, but I have known guys who have, and gals who have played male characters. I don’t have much experience outside of those genres/systems, so that’s that. I quite enjoyed playing Umbragia because she was on this tortured quest to find some way to break the deal with Anarazel and get her soul back, as her son had since grown to maturity and abandoned her because of the demonic stigma (ingrate!). The others I didn’t invest much time or energy in, but I think I would have had a lot of fun with, like, the twins, totally.

Anghold brought up an interesting point tonight that I hadn’t given too much thought to. When you get an email, and you’re just one of many who got the email, do you hit REPLY or do you hit REPLY ALL? In this case let’s assume that the original email is an invitation to a party. What are your reasons for how you reply?

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?

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.

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.

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.