I got a birthday present in the mail today from Tom Kalichack, my Cthulhu-lovin’ artist chum on Vancouver Island. He sent me some miniature props from a company called Dwarven Forge. Basically they’re little barrels, sacks of grains, pots, crates and beds in 25mm scale, to go along with one’s D&D figures. So that was great – thanks Tom! I’ll try to slip them in tomorrow night when we continue with our Freeport adventure. I also got a copy of Hellboy the roleplaying game from Scott Allie. It’s not a birthday present, just a gift between industry friends. I told him I’ll send him a Spaceship Zero CD when they’re reprinted. Which for the love of gawd should be any day now. It’s overdue, and I’m a little worried. Anyway, I have to go to acting class now, so I’ll type up some more (if I have more to type) later tonight.
Emails sent to me have been indiscriminately not showing up, I’ve come to understand, but I don’t know why. Sunspots?
I had a fantabulous night tonight with Yvonne. We went to see “How’s Your News” at the good old Blinding Light Cinema!!! – how I will miss it when it’s gone. What other theater will take your money and when you say “do I get a ticket or a stamp or something?” they say “No we’ll just remember your face.” Plus you can get a feta-spinach samosa on an honest to god porcelain plate from their cafe and you can bring it into the theater with you. It’s that kind of service and homey atmosphere that makes me clean up after myself in the theater – now that means something! But no, the BL will be closing down in a little while, and it will be the end of a memorable era in Vancouver. I’m glad you got to experience it, YH, before it all goes away! It will be missed.
Anyway, after the film, which was much less exploitative and generally better than I thought it was going to be – if you have a chance, see it – we walked along the streets of gastown and up to Canada Place, strolling along at a leisurely place and discussing anything and everything. We even saw a blue heron at the misnamed Lookout Point – there were hardly any points to look out for, in fact everything was rounded off for our safety. Then a walk up to Blenz for a cookie and handedly averting an offer from Mr. Sketchy Bus Pass Dude on Granville sadly brought the evening to a close.
How much does it suck to be Kodos the cat? Plenty, when your pa forgets to buy you food. When I came home tonight I realized that I had meant to buy food, but it was quarter past midnight and the Sunshine Market was closed. So I heated up some cheese and potato perogies, which I gutted like a fish and fed him the entrails. Chris, being the best roommate in the world, offered me a burger from his spoils from the BBQ he went to this evening, and I accepted, not only for myself, but to supplement the crappy dinner for Kodos with some actual meaty tidbits. It’s been a bit since I’ve had beef but it was quite tasty and more importantly Kodos is happy…. …for now.
There is some confusion about dates on my blog – and here’s the secret: I usually write this, as I am now, early in the morning – so when I say “tonight” and it’s 2:40 am on July 6th, I actually mean last night as in a few hours ago.
Be that as it may, “tonight” I went to the “premiere” of Graveyard. It was well received – the audience laughed at the funny bits, and at the unfunny bits too. In fact they laughed over top of a couple of funny bits so probably missed them. Kier-La (cinemuerte ghore whore) introduced Ed (the director) who introduced Thor, who promoted his new album and bent a steel bar in his mouth for all of us. It was quite endearing. After Graveyard of course, was Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat. I don’t know why they didn’t spell “You” properly in the movie title. Maybe they forgot. See entry on the new modern language below. Anyway, there were some technical difficulties in the film that had it stopping and starting a couple times, and someone from the audience yelled at one point “Lord help us!” which reminded me of the time on Futurama when Fry was watching a horror movie about humans on the robot planet and he shouted “God help us!” and it was all funny ‘n’ stuff. Maybe he – this unknown yeller in the audience – was trying to capture that moment. If he was, I wonder how many others knew the reference. In that crowd, probably 10%.
Today I spent most of my time pretending to draw, that is…drawing for 5 minutes and then watching 15 minutes of Superfriends, and then repeating the process. I did manage to get one illustration done.
Here’s another tip from my patented “Toren’s Tips” column. Which isn’t patented at all (you can’t patent a column, unless your name is John Doric or Faustus Corinthian (yes, the same guy who invented the leather)…and who could forget Marty Ionic, not to be confused with Therese Ionic who of course invented Ionic bonding in charged particles?)
When you send me a link, either by email or messenger of some kind, don’t just post the link out of the blue and leave it at that. You’ve got to give me some kind of introduction or context. I get enough ‘floating’ URLs throughout the course of a day that they become a hindrance and I don’t even click on them.
It’s not so hard. That was only 45 extra characters – would it kill you? Well maybe it would, I don’t know – but do it anyway.
Here’s another slightly different but still very proper way to send Toren a link: Incredibly hilarious Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974 http://www.candyboots.com/wwcards.html
So, there you have it. Please take it to heart. D&D is in less than 8 hours so it’s time for me to cuddle up with Kodos for the night.
(by the way, if you haven’t visited the above sites, do so!
Tonight I went to the gala opening of the Cinemuerte International Fantastic Film Festival. ‘Fantastic’ as in ‘fantasy’ as in ‘horror’. I got there late – at about a quarter past ten. I was committed to playing Mutants and Masterminds at Theo’s which of course I quite enjoyed, but it meant I missed the screening of Viva La Muerte, the documentary about the past and present of the Cinemuerte film festival. I would have liked to have seen it. James introduced me to the girl who filmed it, and I expressed my misgivings about missing the damn thing. She brought up that it was playing again on Sunday at 2pm, to which I replied that again, I would miss it, since I would be playing Dungeons and Dragons at that time (after a 2 week hiatus, no less). Her reply to that was “that’s not cool.” Then I poured my drink down her shirt.
Well, no, I didn’t do that. But I was put off by her manners and I thought she was out of line. I’d still like to see the film, despite her trying to take me down a peg. Or I’m just reading too much into it, and feeling defensive about being a D&D nerd. Nevertheless, I’m an out-of-the-closet D&D player and I’m glad I was proud enough to bring it up at a party. Ed and James were really the only people I talked to at the party. I only stayed for about 45 minutes – then I hopped on the #50 before my bus pass expired. Ed showed me the article in Terminal City about our film Graveyard – I didn’t read it fully but I’ll pick up a copy – and so should you.
I talked to Kirsten tonight and we have concensus: although her visit was good times for both of us, we will continue our relationship as friends – close friends to be sure, but nothing more. She is a fantastic chick but I just don’t think the cards are right for us at the moment. Kind of sad in a way, but I’m glad both of us feel more or less the same way and that nothing has happened to ruin our friendship.
Oh and did I mention? Spaceship Zero the RPG was nominated for an Ennie Award (that’s a roleplaying game award – there are really only two such awards, the Ennies and the Origins awards). Jeff says that 4 out of 5 of the judges voted for it to be nominated in the category Best Non Open Gaming Product. Now it’s up to the fans to start voting. Let’s hope we win because we could really use the notoriety to boost sales!
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It was Canada Day yesterday. “What’s your favourite part of living in Canada?” Nobody asked me. “That we’re not as patriotic as Americans”, I didn’t reply with some irony. Now don’t mistake me for being anti-American. I have many good American friends. In fact, I can’t think of a single American that I know who I wouldn’t describe as an upstanding, likeable person. But someone once said “There can be no world peace while patriotism exists” and I think that’s 95% true for every country.
On one hand, the melding (some would say loss) of “independent” cultures due to globalization is sad. Wouldn’t it be neat if there were still headhunters in New Guinea? (Heck maybe there still are). But on the other hand, how long can we go on, technology advancing as it is, with those pesky dotted lines on the map? I would much rather have a peaceful racially and culturally integrated (read: mongrel) world than a constantly warring world of segregated cliques.
But then even if we were all exactly the same mongrel race, we’d probably still find things to kill eachother over, wouldn’t we.
Speaking of Canada, Vancouver won the 2010 Winter Olympic bid this morning. My first clue was being woken up rather rudely by the clarion call of over-zealous and inconsiderate commuters at 9:00 this morning. The good news is that all the money we sunk into the bid turned out to be an investment that paid off. The bad news is I can expect a lot more whooping and infantile behaviour from local jocks. The other good news is that it’s 7 years away.
In other news, my out-of-town visitor has gone back to being out of town indefinitely. So it’s back to work for me.
Don’t forget, people who may be reading this, that Graveyard, the movie with me and James, is showing this Saturday at the Pacific Cinematheque at 11:40, opening up for Blood Feast 2. I’ll be getting a sneak preview of the film at Ed’s tonight. Please gawd let me not suck. Or at least let James suck more than me!
