POSTMORTEM STUDIOS

For those who haven't seen it yet, you only have a few hours left to see Dr.Horrible's Sing-Along (we)Blog.

http://www.drhorrible.com/act_I.html
http://www.drhorrible.com/act_II.html
http://www.drhorrible.com/act_III.html

After midnight tonight (I'm not sure which coast's midnight) it'll be $1 a pop to watch on iTunes or something like that. But act now and you can see it for free on Windows 98 or better (unlike iTunes, which refuses to even try to run on older Windows systems).

For lunch I blew up a can of chili.

No, seriously.

Okay, check it. Campbell's makes this decent microwaveable chili. It's not the best in the world, but it works for a quick lunch. So, I peel the metal top off, put the plastic lid back on, double check how long I need to nuke it for, and actually set the timer on the microwave correctly, and start it up.

Then, I pop back into my room to check something. I'm gone from the kitchen maybe for 30 seconds when I hear "THUMP" followed by "THUMP THUMP".

WTF?

Go in, and check the microwave. The can of chili apparently in a fit of uneven heating, walked itself from the center of the microwave over to the back right corner and exploded. (For anyone who cannot grasp what I mean by an inanimate object walking across a surface, please place an uneven load in a top-loading washing machine, turn it on, and observe.) I spend the next five minutes cleaning chili out of the microwave.

The next can of chili, however, behaved itself.

-=R286=-

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

-TG

So Doctor Horrible Act III is live.

Time for me to go and watch it and see whether or not I was right.

Back in 15 minutes or so... :p

Hi,

Can anyone (Ozzy? Nicole? Toos? anyone?) possibly give me a quick translation of the German text in this article:  http://www.rollenspiel-almanach.de/starblazer-adventures/18-07-2008/

Many thanks,

Angus

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

In the commercials for M&Ms, they have the two large M&Ms who walk and talk.

Does this make anyone else think that the M&Ms you eat are screaming as you eat them?

Like, a red M&M is falling out of the bag into your hand, and it's yelling at it falls "Sheila! I'll love you forever! Hide in the back of the bag!"

and the fact that I have over seven hours left here at work with currently nothing to do (yes, that's right, all the work I needed to accomplish was done within the first 40 minutes of getting here), I'm going to post this.

Did you ever wonder what the process was for which parables ended up in the Bible? I mean, did all the Apostles sit around and decide? Was there some sort of vetting process?

John: "Okay, so we're decided. 'The Prodigal Son' is going in. Now, on to 'Turning Water Into Wine'..."
Matthew: "No, don't put that one in."
Thaddeus: "Why not?"
Matthew: "Man, I got so drunk then, and I spent an hour hitting on some cute young chick... that turned out to be a shepherd's son."

*general laughter*

John: "Well, we can leave that part out, okay? I mean, we don't want to give the idea that we condone holy men having sex with young boys."

*uncomfortable pause*

Matthew: "I don't know...."
Philip: "Hey, look, we put in the 'Good Samaritan' one. You lobbied so hard for that one. Cut us a break here."
Matthew (hiding Samaritan 9000 foot massager): "Okay, but you promise we keep me getting wasted out of it?"
Judas: "Sure, sure. I mean, hey, we don't want anyone to think we're dicks or anything, right? We all need to look as good as the big guy in this."
Andrew: "Where is Jesus anyway?"
John: "He's off visiting his old lady."
Andrew: "You mean the one that everyone says is a..."
John: "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop right there. That shit was started by that Roman jackass Flavius Maximus. Mary shot him down when he asked her to some party or something. Guy's been a dick about it ever since."
Bartholomew: "Right, man, major uncool. And no one bring that up where the big J can hear. He's already got enough problems with the Romans. If he finds out Flavius started that shit, he'll try and take that fucker down."
John: "Anyway, back to business."

*groans*

John: "Look, we get a couple more voted on, and we can take the rest of the day off. What does everyone think about the 'Loaves and Fishes'?"
Judas: "Do we really want to include good catering among the lessons?"

So the day before yesterday, I hit up Christopher's pub and find that they got rid of their vanilla ice cream to make way for some frozen fruit puree that they'd picked up. Annoyed, I decided to pick up a thing of ice cream at the corner store before hitting Christopher's, so at least I'd have some available when I'd stop by for my Guinness float.

On the way to the store last night, some kid goes rushing around the corner (of Ohio and Hammond), wearing little save for some baggy karate-type pants and sandals. As he heads up Hammond street he still keeps cutting sharp corners...up until the wheels of the bike go off to one side on the gravel and he goes off the other way. Lying on the ground and making general pain-sounds, I consider for about five seconds and then head over to check to see if he's alright (Darn these morals and first aid training!)

I ask if he's hurt, or if it's just pain. As in, is he bleeding or does anything seem actually broken? He really doesn't answer me, even though he's now up and walking around in hunched-over circles. I ask again, and he answers: "Good" Taking that as a sign he doesn't need/want help, I start to continue to the store. He calls me back and proceeds to tell me that this is the second time this week "the bike has done that to him", and he offers to sell the bike to me for $10. I really have no use for a bike (at least, I've more use for $10) at that time, so I decline. Just to make him feel better, though, I agree that it's certainly an evil looking bike. I start to head off again, and he calls me over again. This time, it's to ask that I don't call the cops.

Ooookay. Why would I call the cops? I tell him I shan't, he repeats the deal to sell me the bike, I decline, I start to head back to the store, he repeats that he doesn't want me to call the cops.

In the store I pick up the ice cream, some Arizona Iced Tea, smokes, and some slightly nasty yogurt-like meal-in-a-bar thing. Heading back to Christopher's, I pass this kid on the sidewalk. Note, this is in the opposite side of the store (along Hammond) from where he crashed his bike. He's walking up the hill, I'm walking down the hill, he grabs the bag out of my hands with a terse, "I'm taking your beer"

The hell!?

I turn around to follow him and get about as far as one or two, "Um.. Excuse me?"s when... a bicycle cop quickly pulls over and asks the kid what's going on. Now, he (and some sketchy pal of his) and the cop are about 20' away from me, so my plan is to stand there as a near-bystander until a good time comes for me to chime in. A second bike cop pulls up and asks me and some actual random bystander what's going on. I explain to the second cop all the details, explain what's in the bag, and point out that I don't think the shirtless kid has even looked in the bag, so it he wants a little fun, he can compare my guess of what's in the bag to the kid's guess. Second cop goes over, looks in the bag, doesn't bother to ask the kid about it, hands me back my bag, and tells me it's good to go. All I can catch of the first cop and the kid is that the kid's claiming part of the story is me pushing him off his bike, but neither cop really seems to be believing it.

So! I head down to Christopher's and relate this story to the folks there (the manager and Nurse Nicky). In relating it, I realize, "Aw jeeze! The kid's now going to think that I called the cops, and he apparently hangs around that neighborhood, so.. yeah. I'll probably die tomorrow night"

But!

Then two bike cops show up downtown a half hour later, and I recognize them as the ones up atop the hill by the store. I wave them over, we talk about it a bit, and it seems my worries were fruitless since the kid had some outstanding warrant and is apparently spending at least the next week or so in jail. Oh, and they mentioned I could probably press Theft charges, but I declined. All the better so I don't stick in his dim and drunken mind as the guy who got him arrested (when, well...I didn't, really)

PS: ( Charming Key-Cozies From Archie McFee )

   I watch movies professionally.  In both senses of the word actually, I am paid by several organisations to do review films for them (Which is ACE) and I also watch a lot of movies.  The reason's pretty simple?

I fear the outside world.

The ACTUAL reason is even simpler.  I love it.  Always have done.  My dad likes to joke about the fact that I saw The Day The Earth Caught Fire (RUN, do not walk, RUN to netflix or play or whatever and get this.  Arguably one of the ten best science fiction movies you've not seen ever made) when I was about twelve and I've never been the same since.
  Thing is, he's largely right.  From where I'm sitting I can see a DVD sheld containing amongst other things Children of Men, Fargo, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Hot Fuzz and Hairpsray.  To my right there are two bookshelves groaning with just ridiculous amounts more and there's a DVD holder on top of the TV with this month's review copies in it for good measure (Which, by the way, are King of Kong:A Fistful of Quarters, Batman: Gotham Knight, [Rec] and Burst Angel Infinity).

   Anyway, my dirty little movie secret is that there is actually a sub-form that I love more than cinema; the good trailer.  Now, it's really easy to do a very, very bad trailer but a truly good trailer?  Is an art form all by itself.  Case in point (By the way if the link doesn't work?  It's the trailer for The Abyss):

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lJyRF0Fzl9Y

   It just has weight to it.  It communicates the fact that this is a big deal as a story and it was a hellishly big deal to get the thing filmed (Ed Harris refused, point blank, to talk about it for two years after filming finished by the way).

   A good trailer is an art form in itself and I watched this just a ridiculous amount of times (It was on the front of Alien Nation which I was oddly fond of too.  Did I mention I grew up on a very small island?).  The Fight Club and Seven trailers are also pretty impressive (I love the fact that the Seven one in particular sells it as a normal cop movie) .  Here you go:

Fight Club trailer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JOZ9u5rhZGw

Seven Trailer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yIBiVBkGwWU&feature=related

Then there's this, which is cheesy (It was the early '90s) but still does a lovely job of selling a magnificent film especially the major left turn it takes halfway through (Another run don't walk for your netflix queue or play if you've not seen it)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5m2Dnb2YLOk


And then, there's this.  Which I figure a chunk of you have already seen:

Watchmen
www.empireonline.com
  
   Which just hits like a jackhammer, especially how the images sync are composed to work with the music (The Beginning is the End is the Beginning by Smashing Pumpkins by the way), how the mood of the two interact.  There's a lot going on here even before you get to the movie itself or the concerns I know a lot of people have about how it's going to treat the source material.

   But regardless of that, regardless of the film itself, look at the trailer.  Look at all these trailers.  Each is a two minute long work of art and that visceral thrill, that sense of expectation you get from a good trailer?  I LOVE that.

I say this article earlier but couldn't post the link and video from work so saved it until now. It's odd seeing the Moon fly-by :p

From the New Scientist website:

"What would Earth look like to alien astronomers? If they had access to telescopes far more powerful than our own, it might look a lot like what the Deep Impact spacecraft recently saw from its vantage point 50 million kilometres away.

Over the course of one Earth day in May, the spacecraft snapped images every 15 minutes to produce a movie of the Moon gliding in front of our home planet, whose swirling clouds and continents rotated in and out of view."

Here's the links I promised earlier...

And Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog can be FOUND HERE and Acts 1 and 2 HERE, Act 3 goes live tomorrow (Saturday 19th July) and then they all get taken down late on Sunday (20th July) so watch them (or download them in itunes) quick! - but that's not enough for you. Here's the Teaser Trailer too...

"Honey, why don't you do something with my parents while I'm at work?"
"Okay."

In other weird news snakes are fragile wash, air dry.

And is it ironic where this accident occurred?

FOR YOU!

Thanks, everyone, for the interesting ideas and discussion yesterday — it was very helpful!

What I've finally decided to go with, is a combination of the "Sanity as Skill Check" and "Classic OGL (CoC-style) Sanity" models. Sanity will still be tracked as a 1-100 value, but the actual sanity check will follow the d20 "roll over" model. The character sheet will have a "sanity table" to make these values easy to track, something like this:



I'm still looking at ways to integrate sanity with the SWSE condition track; I'm thinking that perhaps blowing a SAN check by more than your Sanity Threshold will move you down -1 step on the condition track. Losing more SAN than your Sanity Threshold, besides putting you in danger of temporary insanity, will also move you down -1 step on the condition track.

Thanks again for the help! Even suggestions that I ended up not using, were a big help in sorting out my thoughts.

-The Gneech

you can have a second,

music video of the week no.2:



-=R286=-

Today I handed in my resignation for Games Workshop. A job I genuinely enjoyed and actually felt good about waking up early weekend mornings to do.

Unfortunately with the epilepsy it just wasn't feasible to do the job until I moved. One of those mature decisions made by my brain that pisses of what I feel.

Most of the time I fucking hate being epileptic. Theres my emo count for the day.

Christian protests may leave Philip Pullman's trilogy as one of a kind

Well, this upsets me, and annoys me.
i thought the premise was quite cool.

Stuppid christian protestors

-=R286=-

Ok, my LJ here at work seems to playing up so I don;t get my usual 'Post An Entry' Screen so can' currently do links and stuff... so they'll have to wait until later.

But just wanted to say two things...

1. Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - OMG. Fantastic. Joss Whedon is a genius.

2. The Watchmen Trailer - Looks F**king Fantastic, I can't wait :D

That is all. Hopefully I'll be able to post links when I get home and can share the love (although I know some of you have been watching Dr Horrible's blog already as I've seen you post your own comments and I've also seen links to the Watchmen trailer crop up today :p).

ktempest has put together an extremely well argued analysis of the Doctor, as he stands at the end of season 4.  As well as examining his interaction with the companions, she specifically looks at the 'You turn people into weapons' moment, the Doctor's ethics, why he's actually a bit of a jerk and crucially why, if anything, that makes him more of a hero.  It's a great piece, and it can be found here:

http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=721

Jeremy Jones recently had a chat with Jeff VanderMeer about the new Steampunk anthology and his other works...

Drop by the Flames Rising website to check out the new interview:

Jeff VanderMeer “Steampunk” Interview

-=R286=-

As a followup to my earlier post, what do you think of this, LJ braintrust? It's sort of a mashup of the "Sanity as Skill / Sanity Track" method, designed to have a similar flow to the classic CoC model.

( It's a madhouse! A MAAADHOOOUUUSE! )

Good points: This incorporates the downward spiral, players rolling the dice for their sanity checks, some granularity of effect, and consistency with the SWSE mechanics.

Bad points: Counting track steps, particularly for persistent steps, may be a bit clunky. Also, instead of the slow, inevitable trickle of CoC-style, this system tends to lose fairly big whacks of Sanity at a time. (1 point of a 1-20 scale is like 5 points of a 1-100 scale.)

What do you think, sirs? I'm open to questions, comments, criticisms, or suggestions!

-The Gneech

Dark Heresy was mighty! My commissar normal member of the Imperial Guard smites corrupted badness very efficiently :D Burn it with FIRE!!

And now, sleep, for tomorrow (eeek, today... oops) is Maelstrom and my coach leaves at 8.50am :O I must be awake enough to inflict my doomy long sermon I wrote earlier on the Smithites :D :D

Back on internets on Monday! *flops*

This Sunday for more fun and games! :)
The GameForce Network Presents:
GAMEFORCE : LONDON

Next London Meet: Sunday 20th July (And every third Sunday of the month)
Time: noon to 6pm
Venue: The Black Horse, 6 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1HH (Turn right off Oxford Street - http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?postcode2map?code=W1T%201HL)
Price: £2
Nearest Underground: Tottenham Court Road (Central & Northern Lines)
Games Played: RPGs, Board and Card Games, TMG and CCGs
This months Tournament & Demonstration Games: Arkham Horror Demo
Entry also includes automatic entry into the Games Raffle to be drawn around 5pm..

GameForce: London is a brand new games club in Central London catering for Board & Card Gamers, Roleplayers and CCG/TMG players!

Taking place every third Sunday of the month the club aims to provide a regular meeting place for gamers and a friendly environment to play games both familiar and unfamiliar.

For further information please contact Angus Abranson on info@gameforcehq.org or phone 020 8346 2327 (9.30am to 6pm) or join Gameforce Community on Livejournal (http://community.livejournal.com/gameforce/)!!

Alternatively join the Gameforce Yahoo Group by sending an email to GameforceHQ-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Grab a game and Come and play!

Future Dates:
17th August - `Gameforce: London @ The Black Horse, Rathbone Place
21st September - `Gameforce: London @ The Black Horse, Rathbone Place

Not sure what they were but we had four military jets fly over Finchley this evening when I was waiting for the bus home (about 8pm). Having just seen a video clip on the BBC from the Franborough airshow  the planes did look like the new F22 Raptors. But then again I have absolutely zero knowledge of military jets (or any type of plane) so it could have been pretty much anything (not Stealth Fighters though as they're distinctive enough that even I recognise them!).

Anyway, it was an odd sight to see them flyover and then have the noise of their passing hit and linger :p

Today has been most bizarre. I had a restless night suffering from abdo/chest pain that was aggravated every time I move in my sleep. I had popped something yesterday at work and was in excruciating pain for about fifteen minutes before settling down to an annoyance.

This morning I was finding most tasks difficult and I was ordered to present myself at the Infirmary for a check. Very strange being on the receiving end I must say.

I got a very thorough check up which proved to be enlightening. My blood pressure was through the roof but the doc reassured me this was because of the pain I was in. Otherwise despite my weight I seem to be in tip top condition, in fact although I joked about the excess fat I was carrying the medics described my build as "heavily muscled"; talk about diplomatic.

So after poking and prodding and x-rays and blood tests it appears I've torn my anterior abdominal wall and perforated my diaphragm. Pumped full of drugs (not used to opiates, I've been spaced all day) and sent home.

So now I'm in pain if I'm sitting (but not lying or standing), belly breathing, twisting or stretching, bending, coughing or bearing down. It's bloody annoying. And distracting.

Per kesh's recommendation, I checked out the 4E Disease Track rules today for possible adaptation as a sanity mechanic. While I can see what they were going for, and it looks like a good mechanic, it doesn't really capture the kind of experience I'm looking for. But it did lead me to think about other possibilities for a sanity mechanic, and here's what I've come up with:

( Bwaaaahahahahahahahaaaaaa! )

What Do YOU Think?

Poll #1225156
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which Sanity Mechanic Should Gneech Use?

-The Gneech

Angus beef burgers with bits of jalepeno pepper in them.

I regret nothing!

I contacted a handful of game designers a week or two ago and asked them if they would be interested in writing a short essay on the creation ideas/process of their game for Flames Rising.

I got a couple of interesting replies back, some with questions, some with ideas and others with interest, but no time. Anyway, it looks like the project will be going forward.

I got the first submission already from Preston DuBose at 12 to Midnight, which is about some of the design goals and ideas that went into their upcoming ETU: Degrees of Horror project.

I should have the first essay up on the site next week...

This morning I put up the curtain rail in computer room and banged nails into the wall for pictures to go up in my room seeing as I had the hammer with me. Then I walked the dog, who was naughty and ran away. I got a lot of exercise running after him!

Have packed for Maelstrom now apart from gummi weapons, alcohol and wash-kit type stuff. My mum got me a great big bag to fit everything in, which is handy, as I don't have to fight with giant tent plus loads of bags - just giant tent and the one big bag. And maybe the weapons bag but that depends on what I take, I am going to try to fit the swords in the tent bag...

Sorted out costuming for Saturday night, I found my doomy dress of swoopyness :D

Have refreshments and nibbles ready for tonight's Dark Heresy game which got relocated to my house as the pub is having a darts competition. I really want to steal some of the crisps or the chocolate cake thingies now :D

And now I wonder if I can get the printer to work... *downloads things*

A new preview of the Exquisite Replicas RPG is up at Flames Rising:

Exquisite Replicas Preview: Mental Imbalance

We've got more previews for Exquisite Replicas and an early review on the way, so stay tuned. I'm working on a couple of short demos to run at GenCon, so if you are interested let me know.

We'll also have mini-demos at booth #2115, with the new book in-hand.

I need a haircut.

-The Gneech

In preparation for cosmic horror fun, I tootled around the internet a bit until I found Yog-Sothoth.com, which is a website theoretically devoted to Lovecraft but in actuality devoted to CoC. This site is liberally peppered with interesting reviews and a few fluffy articles, but mostly seems to have audio recordings of game sessions featuring a gaming group that consists to two pairs of married archaeologists (!) plus a GM, all of whom are from the north of England. The net result is that it sounds like Tony Slattery running a game for Jim Broadbent, Christopher Eccleston, Emma Thompson putting on a northern accent, and, well, another Emma Thompson putting on a northern accent.

I've listened to two of these. The first I won't link to because it's a scenario I have in mind to run myself; the second is Dead Man Stomp, a 1920s Chicagoland jazz-oriented scenario in the CoC rulebook which is a neat story but is riddled with plot holes and very difficult to fit a typical party of pasty white CoC investigators into. [1]

So far, it's seemed like largely an exercise in frustration, leading me to wonder what, other than the classical British love for a rotten evening, is leading them to continue. Both scenarios, one an hour long and the other two hours long, have lurched stop-start-stop as the GM fumbles along reading straight out of the book, the players search desperately for a plot that seems to keep trying to kick them out, and then all hell breaks loose at the end and everybody dies. Believe it or not, there's also a recording of the complete Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign in an amazing 26 two-and-a-half hour episodes. I don't know if that's the same group, but honestly I'm not sure I can subject myself to it.

(The only reason I would, really, is that Masks of Nyarlathotep is generally hailed by fans and haters alike as being more or less the pinnacle of Call of Cthulhu, but is currently out of print and either costs $200+ from collector-gougers, or can be bought as a PDF from Chaosium for $25. That's ... pretty steep for a PDF. 0.o So I think it's gonna be a while before I can get ahold of a copy. But 65 hours of wandering around trying to find the storyline? Oh, honey, I dunno...)

Still, I suppose it's comforting to know that gamers across the pond are geeks as well.

-The Gneech

[1] I found myself biting my tongue to avoid crying out at work when the players identified Louis Armstrong as the guy who played Baloo in The Jungle Book. Then they decided that he couldn't have played Baloo, so he must have played King Louie, which is only slightly less horribly wrong. In retrospect, it kinda fits the situation the characters were in, tho.

  As most of you know, I dig the spaceships.  LOTS.  We're not just talking the traditional classics here either, I mean, sure, the Falcon, the TARDIS, the colonial Viper, the Eagle, the Serenity are all magnificent, functional designs. 

   But, I'm fond of the slightly left of centre ones too; the Hammerhead from Space:Above and Beyond, the old GI Joe Firebat (Somewhere I still have the old RPG file I put together which had Firebats launching from reconditioned Red October-class nuclear submarines to take out space debris.  Yes.), the FC-302's from Stargate and Moya from Farscape are all gorgeous designs.

   Some of the stuff at this blog:

http://conceptships.blogspot.com/

is at least as good.  Go, look, drool, enjoy the pretty.

I do not know what it is about this game but I find myself coming back to it time and again. I play for short stints and get dissalusioned and then after reading the books and mulling over it again decide to give it another go.

I am not sure whether its my characters or just the way the game has been taken from paper and put into the LARP atmosphere. It may be because its one of those games that works better on table than on foot.

I was even tempted to buy the Silver Ladder book the other day, even if WOD books are horribly written.

Has anyone else had similar experiences? What positives and negatives can you see in the game?

that the closer I get to a vacation, the dumber the customers get?

For lilmissnever = The Octopus on Yo Head Flickr group.

For