Greybeards & Grognards

A Year of Horrors

2011-06-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

I think of myself as a horror fan. I read magazines like Rue Morgue and Shock Cinema. When I found out that Famous Monsters of Filmland had risen from the grave I bought an issue even though it was $13 and funds were tight. I have an opinion whether Gary Oldman, Bela Lugosi, or Leslie Nielsen made a better film Dracula. I want to know why Damian Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, hasn't teamed up with John Constantine.

Yet I consider myself a dabbler. I don't watch all that many horror movies, maybe five a year. Ditto for novels, and in the case of novels there's a lot of questions regarding categorization and hair-splitting and tight or loose definitions of genre: the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series is definitely within the paranormal romance sub-genre, but most of them have genuine moments of suspense and enough gore to satisfy many splatter aficionados. Is that good enough to call it horror? Twilight on the other hand, is a horror only to feminists and lovers of good prose.

So, I've decided to start a project. For the next year, I will try to once a week view a movie, read a book, or read a comic book within the horror genre. I will report back to you my findings. I will probably be using a broad definition of the genre that includes supernatural horror; mystery/suspense/psychological/thriller; monster mashes, like Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman or Van Helsing; paranormal romance; dark fantasy; morbid poetry like “The Raven”; scary science fiction, like Day of the Triffids; maybe even a little Japanese kaiju eiga,like Godzilla or Gamera.

Who knows, if I can keep it up? I start a lot of projects and then get distracted.

I did finish reading a novel yesterday that I'm going to count toward this project, and I'm writing up a review on it. So, that's one week down already.

I am Very Disappointed in you Ms. Quinzel

2011-06-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

Funds have been short. I haven't picked up my comics from the Outer Limits in a couple months. Today I had 3 bucks and bought one: Issue #21 of Gotham City Sirens. This is not a full review, just a short comment. It contains spoilers, so if you want to be surprised by the ending of a 3 months old issue of a C-list in terms of fame and sales comic book read no further.

I liked the initial premise of Harley breaking in to Arkham to kill the Joker. It was high time she did something like this. I was disappointed in the ending where Joker says he misses her and all is forgiven. Way to be a strong woman there Harleen... Not! Of course, this could be an attempt at a realistic depiction of Stockholm Syndrome or Battered Woman Syndrome or something.

Review of The Young All-Stars Issue #5

2011-04-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

Review of issue # 5 of Young All Stars

What Is It? A comic book in DC's “New Format”. Approximately 24 story pages, all color. Cover date is October 1987.
Plot Summary: It's 1942. World War II is happening. Some youngsters adjunct to the All Star Squadron are in Hollywood/The Los Angeles area for a dance/bond rally. Intragroup squabbles cause a pair of them to leave early. They end up at the closed Santa Monica Pier Amusement Park.

Another pair of these Young All Stars tail them. Axis America, a group of super-powered saboteurs, fight the four All Stars. Three of the four All Stars are knocked out and captured by fight's end. This leaves Dan the Dyna-Mite to lead the rescue effort. And there's the cliff-hanger ending.

What's Good About It? Writers Roy and Dann Thomas write stories that combine a Golden Age feeling with certain Modern Age sensibilities. Just to bring up, a random example: Internment Camps for Japanese-Americans. Today we can look back at them as a mistake. At the time, very few dared to speak up against them. Well, Roy and Dann Thomas do try to bring up some of the moral points against Internment Camps, yet the script still conveys a sense of World War II patriotism.

The letters page is another small point in the book's favor. I like to read them. It gives a sense of what the fan community was like before the rise of the World Wide Web.

What's Not So Good About It? Some of the WWII-era patriotism comes off weird to my sensibilities. Maybe it seems a bit jingoistic or something of that nature.

What The... Moments: I'm not sure as to whether it was the massive ret-conning of the history of the DC Universe in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths or something else, but the casting seems to involve rather a lot of knock-off characters. There's Flying Fox (a Batman knock-off), Iron Munro (a Superman knock-off), Fury (a Wonder Woman knock-off), and Neptune Perkins (an Aquaman knock-off).

Who Needs It? Superhero fans, fans of DC's 80s-90s Secret Origins series,and fans of Roy Thomas's writing should find this book to be worth their time.

Rating: 5 Stars (out of five)

But Wait There's More

2011-04-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

I have this sort of pet theory about employment:

Almost every job has an obvious component that you are aware of and that gets mentioned in the interview. Take a fast food job for instance, going in you expect that the job will involve either making food or ringing up orders for food and collecting money.

The remainder of this theory is: almost all jobs also have a somewhat less obvious component, often one that might make you think twice before accepting a job offer. To continue the fast food example: Quite a lot of it is dealing with the aftermath of having customers in the store- wiping down tables, restocking condiment packets, sweeping floors, changing trashes, and washing dishes. It's amazing how much time goes to things like that. In my experience at Burrito Gong and Sandwich Emperor, I've found that on a typical day at least half the day is spent at this clean up work.

If I have a point, not always a certainty, it's this: next time you're at a job interview and it looks lie it's going well, ask for a written list of all duties you might be asked to perform. Then think it over carefully. Also save the list and have fun pointing out- I didn't sign on for this.

Speculative Fiction, notes for a lecture I didn't actually deliver

2011-03-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

I spent some time deciding how much contextual detail was needed to share this. I think I could summarize the story thusly: I was asked whether I would like to participate in an event intended to promote literacy. I said sure, why not.

The format and topic of my presentation was left entirely up to me. I knew the audience would be parents with their children, but wasn't really given any numbers or age range. I decided to write a short (fifteen minutes or less was my estimation) lecture on the joys of speculative fiction, written for an about first grade or higher audience.

When I saw what I was dealing with as far as an audience, a lot of toddlers and a very small number in my intended age range I cut things down considerably: if I talked a whole five minutes, I would be surprised.

This is the full version of the notes I had written for this lecture:
So how many of you saw at least one of the six Star Wars movies? Or maybe one of the Lord of the Rings movies? Or Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia? Did you leave the theatre going- “Wow! What an exciting world! I wish I could spend more time there!”

Well, I want to share one way that you can. I'm going to talk a little about one of my favorite kinds, or to introduce a new vocabulary word, genres, of books: speculative fiction. Genres, again that's a word meaning kinds or types or categories, can be big or little and can even contain other genres that are smaller. Speculative fiction is a big genre that contains the smaller genres of science fiction, fantasy, supernatural horror, and with Twilight being the latest big thing, paranormal romance.

Fantasy is any work that involves magic or the clearly impossible: Harry Potter, both the books and the movies, belongs in the fantasy genre. So do the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. Star Wars might also be called fantasy, with the force being just another word for magic. Star Wars does dress itself up to look like science fiction, though.

Which gives me a good segue into science fiction. The science fiction genre tries to stay within the rules that scientists say the world works by and then adds an element of speculation. It asks questions often starting with the words "what if?". For example: "What if technologically advanced aliens made contact with Earth?" or "If technology keeps progressing at its current rate, what will the world look like in 500 years?". Even though Star Trek sometimes becomes another example of fantasy in space similar to Star Wars, it mostly stays within the science fiction genre. The Day the Earth Stood Still is another good example of science fiction. Oh, and The Day of the Triffids (when I was doing this lecture I was wearing my Day of the Triffids shirt).

Supernatural horror uses the magic and impossible stuff from the fantasy genre... Here's another vocabulary word: trope. The stuff in a genre, the defining elements, are also known as tropes. Elves, magic swords, and magic rings are tropes of the fantasy genre. Space ships, laser guns, and robots are tropes of the science fiction genre. Supernatural horror uses elements that are tropes of the fantasy genre, like vampires and werewolves, and uses them to try and tell a story that creates a sensation of fright, or well, horror. Dracula is supernatural horror. Most of Stephen King's better work, such as 'Salem's Lot, The Stand, and Christine, are supernatural horror.

Paranormal romance uses tropes from the fantasy and supernatural horror genres in service to a romantic plot. Again, vampires an werewolves would be good example tropes. Twilight is probably currently the most well known example of the paranormal romance genre. The Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris, which were adapted into the TV series True Blood, would be another example.

So, why do I like speculative fiction so much? Well, the real world can get to be a drag sometimes and a good book, particularly a speculative fiction one, can provide a bit of an escape into another world for a while. It can make your heart pound with excitement or laugh or even feel a bit angry or sad but in a good way. Everything you go to the movies for, except the popcorn, can be found in a book. In fact books are better because:
1) they're cheaper (libraries loan them out for free and Good Will and other thrift stores sell used books cheaply).
2) Anything can happen in books. They aren't held back by the limits that movies have as far as special effects. It's like having the absolutely best computer animators and other effects wizards work for free.

Now, I'd like to share a short passage from one of my favorite speculative fiction works ever, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (my original intent was to read the entirety of a short chapter pages 89-91 of the hardcover omnibus edition that I own, the bit about the whale and the bowl of petunias. Instead, I cut it down to about a page, just the actual thoughts of the whale and the bowl of petunias without the rest of the setup.).

[Let's Read] Legends & Lore 2e Installment 2

2011-03-05T12:45:00.000-08:00

Quote:
Originally Posted by Legends & Lore
When reading and using Legends & Lore, it is important to keep its intent and purpose firmly in mind. This book is not, in any way, a judgement on the value or validity of any religion practiced in any part of the world, either currently or in the past. It does not encourage or discourage belief in any of the deities listed herein, nor does the omission of any religion reflect in anyway upon that religion's value or validity. Such judgements have no place in fantasy role-playing.

This disclaimer may have been sort of obligatory, but it's kind of interesting. It is a way of saying: Just because Thor and Zeus are in this book and God/JHVH/Allah and Satan/Lucifer/Azazel aren't doesn't mean we do or don't believe in any of the aforementioned entities or are trying to influence your beliefs about them in any way. I think this book, and maybe TSR of this era more generally, come off as worrying about offending certain segments of Christianity (and maybe Jews and Muslims too) but aren't too afraid of Asatru Heathens, Hellenic Pagans, Shintoists, and Hindus.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Legends & Lore

Nor does Legends & Lore make any claim to being a scholarly work. A comprehensive study of the mythology of even one culture would fill many volumes of this size.
Another disclaimer that this book is for entertainment purposes only, for external use only, not to be taken orally, void where prohibited, warranty void after 90 days... It might be necessary, but it's getting kind of repetitious. Anyone who uses this book on the works cited page of their research paper for ninth grade world history gets what they deserve.

That comment about comprehensiveness and page count does put me in mind of something that I noticed: each iteration of the official deities book for (A)D&D loses pantheons. Apart from the legal issues surrounding the Cthulhu and Elric chapters of the 1e Deities & Demigods, this book (2e Legends & Lore) lacks the chapters on the Babylonian, Finnish, and Sumerian mythoi that 1e Deities & Demigods had. Similarly the 3e version of Deities & Demigods loses the American Indian, Arthurian, Aztec, Celtic, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Nehwon chapters that had been in the previous versions.

Let's Read Legends & Lore 2e

2011-03-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, before you get much further, this is a cross-posting of something that I started as a thread on RPG.net:

I am not one hundred percent sure what a Let's Read thread is. It seems to be one guy giving sort of his review notes for a large work bit by bit with commentary from the peanut gallery. I thought I'd try one for Legends & Lore, the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition version. There doesn't seem to be any sort of committee or approval process: Just one man with a mad idea, seeing who else will bite. Well, this is my mad idea, who's gonna bite?

One note: I do not have internet access at home. I can almost certainly get to the library once a week to use the internet. When I do so, I will update this. So, probably weekly updates. Not the hectic daily schedule (un)reason is doing on his Dragon threads. In case you're wondering: I am typing this in wordpad from notes I handwrote out in pen earlier, copying the end result RTF to a flash drive and taking the flash drive to a library, where I will copy and past it here.

Page 1: I think most people skip the title page, but that's a shame.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition
Legends & Lore
Then there's a nifty, big drawing by Jeff Easley reproduced from the cover in black and white without the text from the cover cluttering it up.
At the bottom it says: The all new, fully revised edition of an AD&D game classic!
One of the things I love about this title page, is the classic dragon-shaped ampersand (or ampersand-shaped dragon) in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition logo. Seeing as to how it was replaced with a more normal ampersand for the Player's Option books and 3e used a different version, it can be argued that the demise of the classic dragon-ampersand was the beginning of the end.
Hooray for aliteration too.
The exclamation point at the end of the blurb is their own. I guess it's somehow part of the sales pitch.
The image is pretty nifty too. Clerics of rival Gods engaged in epic battle while their Deities cheer them on. This is what D&D is meant to do. Also it's easier to find Easley's siganture on the black and white reproduction of the cover artwork here than on the actual cover artwork. Jeff Easley was one of the artistic treasures of the late 1e to early 2e era.

Pages 2 and 3: Contents pages with the credits, copyright notice, and company address crammed in at the bottom of page 3.
Again another are that might be normally taken for granted, but let's take a look at this for a moment. This is a good table of contents page. Every individual God covered is easy to find here and thus find in the book.
Looking at the credits I see it was designed by Troy Denning and James M. Ward with additional design by Timothy B. Brown and William W. Connors and edited by William W. Connors. I am jsut this side of positive I have seen at least three of these four names elsewhere in connection to RPG products, with Timothy B. Brown being the one exception that doesn't really ring a bell. I could of course, actually verify this by looking through my library a bit to cross-check these names against other books I have, but that would take more effort tahn it takes to sit at Wendy's and drink Dr. Pepper and listen to Ben Folds Five on my headphones while I jot this down in my notebook. I wonder if I could get any money for that bit of product placement.
These credits are exceptionally specific in some places, listing credits for things like keylining, typesetting, icons, and cartography (what the heck is keylining?) and vague in others: Cover illustration doesn't get its own credit line. Instead I had to search the image for an artist's signature, in this case Easley's, and then check it against all the names credited for color artwork.
The copyright of 1990 indicates that this is early in 2e's history, seeing as how the core books just came out the previous year. I turned nine in the summer of 1990.
That brings me to a little confession: For me, this is not a book I am already quite intimately familiar with having owned and treasured for many years and read cover to cover more than once. I bought it on ebay a year or two ago, and while I have looked into it here and there, I haven't given it even one thorough cover to cover reading yet.
Wow I mined three content-lite pages for two pages of handwritten notes and according to a recent print preview of this as an RTF, a solid page of typed up text.

Ok. Page 4. The Introduction. The real book begins to begin.

Originally Posted by Legends & Lore
There comes a desperate moment when every hero looks skyward in search of divine favor, when he raises his arms to the heavens and calls upon the cruel fates to spare his life.
Who hears him?

You could do worse for a sales pitch than this. It explains why DMs would want this book and why players of non-Priest PCs would care at all about what's in it.

Originally Posted by Legends & Lore
It is a complete rewrite from top to bottom, with many completely new entries. Even the old entries have been researched again and examined in a fresh light.

More sales pitch/justification for this book's existence. Oddly enough, I had a copy of the 1e Deities & Demigods (a later printing without the Elric and Cthulhu material) for a good number of years before I acquired this one. I never bought the 1e Legends & Lore because it looked like too much rehash from Deities & Demigods. I was always a little disappointed in Deities & Demigods because it was sort of just a turbo-charged Monster Manual. Before Spheres and Specialty Priests there wasn't really a good crunchy reason to specify your Priest PC's God. Now with this book and the 2e rules in general there is.

Originally Posted by Legends & Lore
No doubt, some readers will take issue the content of some of the entries themselves. In a project of this nature and scope such disagreements are unavoidable.

[sic]
Actually I'm not sure where the [sic] should go, or if I should have just inserted a "with" in square brackets[] into the phrase "take issue with". Besides pointing out a typo, I wanted to say: Got that right! Between this book, 1e Deities & Demigods, 3e Deities & Demigods, and probably 1e Legends & Lore (although that one I don't really know, never having owned/read it), I have never seen a good official (A)D&D handling of the Greek God Hades in their Deities books. I'll get back to that one, if I survive to the Greek Gods chapter.

Take That You Fiend!

2011-03-01T16:17:00.000-08:00

Etiquette, manners, and customs are human constructs. We can create new ones. We can modify or discard old ones. The fact that we rarely do says something about us.

Likes and dislikes are rarely entirely sane and rational. They are also personal. I don't like nickels.

I have worked fairly steadily in the food service industry for a bit over five years. One of my jobs was at a fast food place that I shall call Sandwich Emperor. I was frequently assigned to the task of order-taking and/or collecting money from the customers.

One of the things about this job is that employees were expected to count down their drawer themselves at the end of the shift before handing it over to management to make the count official. I didn't like counting nickels. Quarters make sense: four of them make a dollar. Dimes make sense: two piles of five make a dollar. I'm a very visual counter: I sort things into piles and then count the piles. Pennies make perfect sense: each one is worth one.

Nickels bother me: it takes four piles of five to make a dollar. So, I made it a sort of secret goal of mine to run out of nickels by the time my shift was over. This led me to a new practice. If a customer wasn't one I was especially fond of, I'd make sure their change was as heavy on nickels as possible. An even ten cents change as two nickels instead of one dime, for instance.

People in customer service jobs put up with a lot of crap. We need a way to express our frustration with more subtlety and good taste than serving the customers sneezers. I propose that anyone in a cash-handling customer service position adopt my practice of giving out change that's heavy on nickels as a subtle sign of displeasure.

Review of Arion Lord of Atlantis Issue #1

2011-02-03T12:09:00.000-08:00

Review of Arion Lord of Atlantis Issue #1

What is it? Arion Lord of Atlantis issue #1
Comic book. Glossy cover. Non-glossy interior. Color throughout. Written by Paul Kupperberg with art by Jan Duursma. Lettered by todd Klein. Colored by someone credited only as Tatjana, I'm assuming Tatjana Wood. Co-edited by Ernie Colon and Laurie Sutton. 23 story pages. Dated November 1982.

This plot summary contains spoilers for a 28+years-old c-list DC sword and sorcery title that I picked up from a fifty cent box. You have been warned.
Plot Summary: The story kind of picks up in media res from the Arion backup stories in Warlord. Arion is astrally projecting, and fighting the embodiment of a star. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Arion's body is possessed by his enemy Garn Daanuth.

This presents Wyynde, Arion's loyal sword-swinging companion, with a dilemma. You see Garn/Arion is threatening the female member of the group, who does not seem to be named in either dialogue or caption boxes throughout the entire issue. Wyynde stabs Garn and Arion's body receives a near-fatal wound.

By issue's end: Arion's body and soul reunite, and he recovers form his near fatal injury; Arion defeats the star; and Arion's mentor Caculha dies.

What's good about it? There was definitely plenty of action. The artwork was crisp and clean with as much realism as you can get in a sword and sorcery book where a giant woman made of fire appears. Todd Klein's lettering is always beautiful and this book is no exception. While there was no letters page, as such, there was a text page asking for letters and explaining how the creators of the book came together to create it.

What's not quite so good? I am not incredibly familiar with the Arion backup stories in warlord, having read very few of them, and I was somewhat confused by the events of the book. This could have been fixed with a few recap captions or dialogue balloons.

What the ....? moments: It's 45,000 B.C. more or less and the king of Atlantis has situation room with a giant television screen: archaeology and evolutionary biology both say this absurd.

Who should get it? Sword and sorcery fans.

Rating: 3 stars

Method Of Acquisition: I believe it was the fifty-cent box at Apparitions.

The Bright Shining Hope For The Future: Buggy Technology

2011-01-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

Well, work is a subject I've touched on before. It's kind of an inexhaustible well of stories about how crazy people can be, life's little frustrations, and the horrors of modern technology.

I have probably mentioned that one of my jobs is as a cashier at a fast food place that I shall call Burrito Gong in order to protect the guilty.

Well today, the credit card machine stopped working again for half an hour or so. It does that about once a month. Sometimes customers want to know why the credit card machine is not functioning.

At one point I was tempted to say: Because James Cameron was right and the machines are taking over.

Now that I've had time to think on it though, the very unreliability of technology is our best hope against a Terminator future. Think about it if SkyNet regularly spontaneously crashes, the Terminators aren't going to be able to hunt down all that many humans.

Have A Happy Holy Day

2010-12-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

Well, the season is upon us once again.

I've got no objections to that.

I just want to wish everyone a (belated) Happy Hanukkah, a slightly belated Slammin' Solstice and Cool Yule (they were yesterday), a slightly early Merry Christmas and Triumphant Sol Invictus (they both fall on December 25), a Super Saturnalia (it started on the 17th and ends tomorrow), a Good Kwanzaa (starts December 26), and a Blessed Boxing Day (December 26).

Tell me what I missed.

In Memoriam to Grandma W.

2010-12-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

My maternal grandmother died recently. I'm going to miss her.

She had flaws and imperfections. I do not want to ignore that entirely.

I think her grandkids had a significantly different experience of her than her own children. To us, she was loving and attentive and probably sober.

One of my good memories, was that she was in a way my first employer. She had a paper route and hired me as her assistant. It was a rural route covering several miles of dirt roads, delivering a free weekly paper. She did the actual driving, and I folded and bagged the papers and put them in the tubes.

In a way, she was what I wanted in a boss. She didn't micromanage and she didn't intrude on my thoughts with a lot of empty chatter.

On the other hand, she didn't wait to make sure my arm was back inside the van before driving to the next house.

Anarchon- another Champions character sheet

2010-12-06T15:39:00.000-08:00

This is kind of a placeholder post. I am working on something serious and with a bit of depth, but it's not finished yet. My maternal grandmother died a two days ago, and I am writing something to memorialize her. It's not done yet.

In the meantime, here's this, my second try at creating a Champions character:

Costumed Name: Anarchon
Real Name: Mikail Goldman
STR: 14 DEX: 20 CON: 15 BODY: 15
INT: 16 EGO: 13 PRE: 12 COM: 8
PD: 4 ED: 4 SPD: 3 REC: 6
END: 40 STUN: 42

POWERS (& Skills, they don't seem to have their own space on the character sheet):
Acrobatics, roll of 15 or less (14 Points)
Find Weakness, roll of 12 or less (15 Points)
Martial Arts, two extra *1/2 multiples (28 Points)
Climbing, roll of 14 or less (9 Points)
Stealth, roll of 13 or less (5 Points)

Shield: Armor Power for 9 PD, 3 ED, Obvious Inaccessible Focus, Unbreakable, Universal Applicability, Miscellaneous Limitation- Only Protects Anarchon's front and left flank. (10 Points)
Shield: 6D6 Energy Blast against Physical Defense, Obvious Accessible Focus, unbreakable, universal, Reduced Endurance cost twice (now takes 1 END) (30 Points)

Armor: Armor 3 PD, 3 ED, Obvious Inaccessible Focus, breakable, universal (7 Points)

Gun: 4D6 Ranged Killing Attack, OAF, breakable, universal, Charges: 6 (22 Points)
Knife: 1D6 Physical Hand-toHand Killing Attack, OAF, breakable, universal (7 Points)

CHARACTER DISADVANTAGES:
Hunted By NSA, a Large Group, with Advanced Weapons and Trained Personnel, Fanatic (comes up on 14 or less) (30 Points)
Hunted By FBI, a Large Group, with Advanced Weapons and Trained Personnel, Fanatic (comes up on 14 or less) (30 Points)
Hunted By Michigan staties, a Large Group, with Advanced Weapons and Trained Personnel, Full time (comes up on 11 or less) (13 Points)
Goes Berserk (on a 14 or less) when the following words are mentioned: government, politics, political, party (in the political sense), Republican, Democrat, capitalism, mayor, governor, senator, representative, judge, cop, gendarme, police, bill (in the legislative sense), capitol, conservative, liberal, right wing, left wing, president, law (Common trigger); recovers on 8 or less. (30 Points)
Public Identity (10 Points)
Psychological Limitation- Hates Parking Meters, Very Common, will take Irrational Actions (such as attacking parking meters in preference to living foes that are actually trying to hurt him) (20 Points)
2 Dice of Unluck (10 Points)

Backstory, such as it is: Mikail Goldman grew up reading comics. At one time his favorites were the patriotic heroes, like Nazi Smasher and Yankee Commando.

Somewhere, his viewpoint began to change. He saw the people of America as wonderful and beautiful and worth fighting for, but the Nation/Government itself as an evil to fight. He started small: jaywalking and never putting coins in the parking meters.

One parking ticket too many put him over the edge. He decided to become a costumed vigilante dedicated to fighting the power and aiding the little guy. He wears a lightly armored costume and carries a shield that he sometimes throws.

He is on the run from the law. So far his worst crimes are Attempted Murder and Assault With a Deadly Weapon, along with a lot of vandalism and destruction of public property (his favorite targets for property crimes are parking meters).

The first Champions character I ever tried to build

2010-12-04T12:03:00.000-08:00

Costumed Name: Brick Breaker (named before I read the sample characters and saw Brick)
Real Name: William Wallace Standard
STR: 38 DEX: 13 CON: 25 BODY: 21
INT: 6 EGO: 12 PRE: 12 COM: 2
PD: 8 ED: 4 SPD: 2 REC: 12
END: 76 STUN:60

POWERS:
Instant Change (5 Points)
Density Increase started at 40 Points for +20 STR, +20 CON, +4 Body, +12 PD, +12 ED, -4" Knockback; Reduced END cost to 0, which made it 80 Points; thinking about it a little more: added a couple limitations: Only In Hero Form, and Only While Berserk, which I figure cut it back down to 40 Points again.

CHARACTER DISADVANTAGES:
Hunted By United States Army, a Large Group, with Advanced Weapons and Trained Personnel, Fanatic (comes up on 14 or less) (30 Points)
Unusual Looks (people react poorly on 14 or less) (15 Points)
Goes Berserk (on a 14 or less) when attacked; recovers on 8 or less. (25 Points)
Goes Berserk (on 11 or less) when made fun of; recovers on 11 or less. (15 Points)
Public Identity (10 Points)

(Brick Breaker currently has a surplus of Points, will reballance later; In fact, will probably rework from the ground up later as system knowledge and willingness to make judgment calls increases)

Backstory, such as it is: Dr. W. W. Standard was a promising bioengineer, hired by the United States Military to run one of those biological weapons research programs we like to claim we don't have. Through an act of sabotage, he was exposed to his own germ bomb. He mutated into a hideous creature and smashed up his lab.

Now he's on the run from his former employers, allegedly because of the danger Brick Breaker poses to the public. It's simply a fringe benefit that General "Earthquake" Jefferson will have some measure of personal satisfaction in obtaining revenge on Standard.

Le Mot Juste Sparkly as a Drag Queen on Ecsasy

2010-12-02T12:05:00.000-08:00

The French have an expression: "Le mot juste" a fairly literal translation would be: the right word. It means more than that, though. It implies a certain perfection of phrasing that is almost sublime. It encapsulates the idea better than any other wording could.

I am not certain this is an example or not, but the two ideas have gotten intertwined in my brain. Some words and phrases stick in my mind. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day..." "Now is the winter of our discontent..." "Alas my love you do me wrong..." "Once upon a midnight dreary..." "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!"

I was at a meeting of Ways of the Earth, a religiously-oriented student organization at a local university. I was no longer a student, but this was a group worth making the commute once a week just to hang with.

One of the other students at the meeting was a twenty-something female who was into belly dance. She had along a costume she was hand-sewing sequins onto. She mentioned that she had an upcoming performance with her belly dance troupe that the costume had to be ready for. Then she uttered the following words: "This thing has to be sparkly. I mean really sparkly. Sparkly like a drag queen on Ecstasy, sparkly."

That phrase "sparkly like a drag queen on Ecstasy" burrowed into my brain there.

Now, when, let's say I look at a display of Christmas lights and tinsel and other sparkly things my internal monologue goes: "Ooh shiny! In fact, it's not just shiny; it's sparkly like a drag queen on Ecstasy."

Mnemonics and Pluto

2010-11-19T11:19:00.000-08:00

I was thinking the other day.

Everything I remember from science classes is because of mnemonic devices. Unfortunately there is no mnemonic for remembering how to spell mnemonic. Until I googled it, my initial impulse was to spell it with a p as the first letter.

Anyways, most of what I remember from science classes is because of a mnemonic.

The spectrum of visible light: ROY G. BIV for Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo, and Violet.

Taxonomic classification order: Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.

The Nine planets of our home solar system: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pumpkins for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto.

Unfortunately Pluto no longer counts as a full-fledged planet, but has been demoted to minor planet. This rather spoils the mnemonic. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine is a sentence fragment.

So, Why Don't Bus Boys Get All The Girls

2010-11-08T16:03:00.000-08:00

Bart Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright): If this girl I'm seeing comes here, and she might, I wouldn't mind of you told her I was the kind of boy that does the dishes.
Homer Simpson (voiced by Dan Castellaneta, with a tone of derison and sarcasm here): Yeah, bus boys get all the chicks.
-The Simpsons, episode entitled "The Good, The Sad and The Drugly" written by Marc Wilmore and directed by Rob Oliver

So, as the above quote indicates, telling a girl you're a bus boy is not the best opening line. I am somewhat puzzled about the why of it. Being a bus boy, among other things, by trade myself, I think there's a good case to be made for bus boys.

Males and females are mysteries to each other. At least that's the gist of the vibe I get from books like Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, He's Just Not That Into You, and Bridget Jones's Diary. Part of it is until humans perfect telepathy, everyone is a mystery to everyone else. While an individual might get lost in thought from time to time, really foreign territory is someone else's brain. This foreignness increases exponentially when crossing gender lines, though.

So because we are alien to each other, males and females, who attempt to make the effort towards some form of heterosexual romantic relationship, have some complaints. Two complaints I have heard females make of males are:

1) He's not very domestically inclined; he's no help around the house; he never cleans up after himself.
and
2) He's got some BS macho attitude about being head of the household, the one in charge, etc. and so on, simply because he's got the Y Chromosome and higher levels of testosterone.

Here's where bus boys might be an improvement:
1) If you are a true bus boy and it has taken root in your soul, you will feel a natural inclination to try and pick up after yourself a bit because dirty dishes left on the table are WRONG in much the same way that a Christian would find a Satanic shrine WRONG.
and
2) Maybe it's different other places, but where I bus tables, most of my bosses are women. While, I think I've always been more or less a feminist, low on macho BS to begin with, following the orders and instructions of so many females has killed what little I had left. I am ready, willing and eager to accept a female as my equal or superior. If other bus boys are similar, then that's a second point in our favor.

So if bus boys might represent a slight improvement over the average male, why aren't they the most sought after mates on the planet? Or at least in the industrialized Western countries where bus boys exist... I have two somewhat inter-related hypotheses:
1) Money
and
2) Social status

Money, I'll try to be concise about. Bus boying alone will never get you rich. In the whole game of dating, mating, and relating, having some disposable income at your disposal is a help.

As for social status, that's almost another essay. A while back I read a book called Where Do Nudists Keep Their Hankies? It's one of those books of random facts that might be interesting. The whole book was sort of themed around sexuality and the whole weird mating dance that humans have built for themselves. I have since sold my actual physical copy of the book, so I am going from memory here, but this was a pretty memorable bit.

The book is presented in a sort of question and answer format. One question was something along the lines of, "why do women go for jerks?". The answer came from emerging scientific research. Among lower types of social mammals, like wolves and chimpanzees, females try to mate with a high status, as close as possible to the pack alpha, male. This ensures good genes for resultant offspring. Then the female will seek a lower status male to actually try to take care of her and her offspring.

There is no reason to believe these instincts and behavior patterns have entirely disappeared in humans. Now among humans, the type of aggressive behavior that allows one to rise to alpha status often comes off as jerky behavior.

Getting back to bus boys, we are almost certainly not the alpha of our local pack. We might not be the omega wolf, pushed to the fringes of the pack and forced to beg for scraps, either. The point remains that we are the guy approaching the alpha and asking if we can take away his salad plate so there will be room on the table for the main course.

Review of Rampaging Hulk Issue number 1

2010-10-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

Rampaging Hulk #1 Review

What is it? A comic book. Indicia gives a date of August 1998. Glossy cover, non-glossy interior, color throughout. Pages have no visible numbering. Contains a long lead feature and a short back-up. Gleen Greenberg wrote both stories. Rick Leonardi did the pencils on the lead, while While Denys Cowan did the back-up. Dan Green inked the lead feature, and Tom Palmer inked the back-up. Tom Smith was the colorist on the whole book, while Bill Oakley lettered both stories. Jaye Gardner was the editor, and Bob Harras was the editior in chief.

Plot Summary: The lead story is a flashback to an earlier moment in Hulk continuity. A caption somewhere claims six years ago, but it's a very comic book-time six years ago. Marvel has been publishing Hulk comics for well over thirty years, and, yet neither Bruce Banner or the Hulk has aged a noticeable amount.
Here are the defining features of the moment of continuity that this story is being retroactively inserted in:

Hulk is dumb and talks in the third person. This is before the personality-integrated smart-hulk phase.
Hulk is green. This is after he was initially grey, but before he turns grey again in the Joe Fixit phase.
Rick Jones is not acting as his sidekick.
His former girlfriend, Betty, is married to an air force Major named Glenn Talbot.
Basnner's identity as the Hulk is known to at least, General Ross, Betty's father, and Ross's Hulk-Buster team, if not the general public. This makes Banner a fugitive.

So, at this moment in the past, that never existed before 1998, Bruce Banner is working at the Brand Corporation under an assumed name. He attempts to use the company's Gamma Accelerator to cure himself of the Hulk. The Hulk-Buster team burst in and captures him while he's in a not fully either Banner or Hulk mid-transformation state. He's stuck in this half-state for a while. The Hulk-Busters take him to Gamma Base, where scientists study him to better understand what's happening to him.

Meanwhile, in his head, the Banner personality and the Hulk personality are having a spirited debate/knock-down-drag-out-fight for control of the body. Hulk wins and completes the body's transformation into Hulk. He escapes his cell in Gamma Base in seconds. Thus ends the main feature.

This brings us unfortunately to the back-up story. It feels like a PSA or Very Special Episode with a painfully obvious moral, what they might call Anvilicious on TV Tropes. Basically a large jock bully nicknamed Hulk is threatening a nerd kid. The real Hulk comes up and scares off the bully and then has a laugh about the divisive ways of humans.

What's good about it? It hearkens back to an earlier day of Hulk storytelling. I like Peter David's take on the Hulk a lot, but there is a virtue in the simplicity of "Hulk Smash!" stories. The artwork on both stories was good.

What's not quite so good? The back-up story. It makes its moral point in a rather ham-handed way, anvilicious as I've said before. It's also preaching to the choir. Comic readers are geeks much likelier to be bullying victims than bullies themselves. There's also no letters page or this-would-be-a-letters-page-if-we-had-any-letters-book-specific-text-page that books use in the first issue.

What the ....? moments: Once the Hulk's transformation is complete, he busts out of his "Hulk-proof" cell in seconds. This is the best that the government can do?

Who should get it? Dedicated Hulk fans/completists.

Rating: Averages out to two stars. The back-up story and lack of a letters page brings it down.

Method Of Acquisition: Possibly, the twenty-five cent bins at Gold Mine, either that or the fifty-cent bins at Apparitions or the seventy-five cent bins at Tardy' Collector's Corner. All of them are somewhere in the greater Grand Rapids, Michigan area.

Review of Ravenloft Carnival

2010-09-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

I reviewed this one over on rpg.net the other day and thought I'd x-post it here.

What is it?

A 64 page softcover with a color cover and a black, white, red, and grey interior. It's not quite an adventure (at least in the sense of what WotC/TSR usually did/does in that category...). It's not exactly a setting book (at least in the sense of what WotC/TSR usually did/does in that category...). It contains a lot of NPC stats, but it's not an enemies book/rogue's gallery (at least in the sense of what WotC/TSR usually did/does in that category...).

It describes a sort of organization/ pocket domain known as the Carnival. The Carnival is over-all a benevolent organization: In fact, it's run by a celestial.

This book refers the reader to the following products/accessories: Champions of the Mists, The Nightmare Lands Boxed Set, Carnival of Fear novel, Domains of Dread, Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III, and Van Richten's Guide to Fiends. You can live without them, of course, but for the fullest full story...

The book is constructed as three in-character narratives with the relevant game-speak off in sidebars. In the Carnival setting, a phenomenon called the Twisting makes a long-term resident's outer appearance match his inner nature. Besides already being reflected in the NPC descriptions, twenty examples for how to use the Twisting on PCs are included.

The first chapter is narrated by Tindal, the main barker. He likes the Carnival and conisders the Twisting harsh but fair. He is completely loyal to Isolde. This chapter covers most of the Carnival's more or less good guys among the regular troupers.

The second chapter is narrated by Madame Fortuna, the Gyspy fortune teller. This chapter discusses the Vistani's role in the Carnival. Fortuna is also on Isolde's side. She posits the theory that Isolde is literally an angel.

Chapter three is narrated by Professor Pacali, the barker for the Hall of Horrors. This is the chapter about the Carnival Troupers who could outright be called villains. Pacali hates Isolde and plots against her. He believes her to be a fiend.

The last chapter contains five scenarios.

Finally the absolute last page, gives stats for Isolde. She's a Ghaele, a variety of Greater Eladrin, a Chaotic Good Celestial. As a powerful extraplanar being in Ravenloft, she's effectively a demi-Lord with her own travelling pocket domain.

What's good about it? It's an entertaining read. As I said earlier, most of the book is in-character narration. Also, the chapters open with quotations from literary sources intended to set the tone. In a way, and I mean this mostly as a compliment, and it is not an accusation of anything like plagiarism or unoriginality, it feels as if WotC here took a page from White Wolf of this era's playbook in how to present a supplement.

What's not quite so good? The alleged adventures are more like long adventure hooks. There is a distinct lack of maps or special boxed text meant to be read aloud by the DM attached to the adventures. In this way too, it's like they took a page from White Wolf's playbook on how to present a supplement.

What the ....? moments: Cover copy that downplays Ravenloft nature of the product despite references to: Champions of the Mists, The Nightmare Lands Boxed Set, Carnival of Fear novel, Domains of Dread, Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium III, and Van Richten's Guide to Fiends.

Who should get it? Ravenloft fans; dedicated AD&D 2nd edition DMs looking for something novel to do to the PC group (check out the list of suggested Twisting effects starting on page 27); fans of the carnival noir subgenre of horror (I'm not sure how widespread the term is; I got it from a Nancy Collins column in White Wolf's Inphobia magazine).

Ratings: Using RPG.net's rating system I gave this a 5 out of 5 for style and a 3 out of 5 for substance. On my personal five-star system for over-all quality I give it a 4.

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14946.phtml

http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=8497

A review of Quasar Issue #38

2010-08-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

Quasar #38 Published by Marvel
review by JustiN Taylor

What is it?
A comic book. Glossy Cover. Non-glossy interior. Color throughout. The last story page is numbered 30, but the page numbering system is also including ad pages, so probably around twenty-some odd story pages in actual point of fact. Indicia gives a date of September 1992. Cover has a small logo in the upper right corner indicating this is an Infinity War crossover. Credits are: Mark Gruenwald-- Writer, Greg Capullo-- Penciler, Hary Candelario-- Inker, Janice Chiang-- Letterer, Paul Becton-- Colorist, Kelly Corvese-- Editor, and Tom DeFalco-- Editor Extreme.

Plot Summary: Quasar and a character known as Contemplator are in a place called the Dimension of Manifestations. Quasar returns to Earth; Contemplator elects to stay behind. Upon his return to Earth, Quasar checks in with the Avengers.

The Avengers are off to fight a cosmic disaster of epic proportions (the whole Ininity War thing). Cicrumstances require them to call in extra help from Alpha Flight and the various X-teams plus the Hulk. They mystically teleport to an alien planet.

Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch are there teamed up with Thanos, a known villain, in order to combat the bigger threat of Magus (the whole Ininity War thing). Things degenerate into the inevitable two-super-teams-meet-each-other-for-the-first-time-and-get-into-a-fight scenario.

There's also a side plot about Quasar's girlfriend stranded on an alien planet.

Tangent: I have a comic box that I labelled Box Infinity. This is not a comment on the size of my collection: Rather, it's the box I use for Marvel-published "cosmic"-flavored books. For example, Silver Surfer, Quasar, Infinity-event (Gauntlet, War, Crusade) crossover issues of any title, and everything Adam Warlock, especially Warlock and the Infinity Watch. One of the reasons I picked up this issue was because it belongs in the Infinity Box for two reasons simultaneously.

What's good about it? There were a few nice little twists on a fairly standard scenario, like Quasar using a force field bubble to delay the almost inevitable fight. Some of the dialogue struck me as decently clever.

What's not quite so good? It's a fairly standard scenario. It's a little bit confusing. Every bit of plot in the book is continued from somewhere. None of these multiple plotlines are resolved completely either.

What the ....? moments: It's a 90's D-list Marvel title tied in to the big crossover event crammed with guest stars, and somehow they manage to leave out Spider-Man, Punisher, and Ghost Rider.

Who should get it? Quasar fans, Adam Warlock fans, and those who absolutely have to have every Infinity War tie-in issue.

Rating: Three stars (on a five star scale).

Method Of Acquisition: Fifty cent box at Apparitions.

Review Of Hardware Issue #1

2010-07-12T10:15:00.001-07:00

Review of Hardware Issue #1 Published by Milestone/ DC Comics
Reviewed by JustiN Taylor aka khyron1144

What is it? A comic book. Glossy cover, non-glossy interior. Color throughout. Was originally available in deluxe bagged edition and non-bagged regular edition. Bagged version included a poster, trading card, and other extras.

Plot Summary: Curtis Metcalf is a genius. He works for Edwin Alva. Alva paid Metcalf's way through college, in exchange for him agreeing to work for Alva Technologies.

Curtis finds out Alva is corrupt and tied to organized crime. Curtis builds a suit of super armor and becomes a superhero fighting Alva's criminal enterprises.

I suppose this is as good a place as any to mention that Curtis Metcalf is black, and Edwin Alva is white.

What's good about it? Adding color diversity to superhero comics is a good thing. The script is engaging. Curtis's dialogue is not the exaggerated picture of blackness that say, Marvel's Luke Cage's is.

What's not quite so good? It feels like all set-up for the future and no real action.

What the… ? Moments: Just the basic problem of super armor’s implausibility. Not technologically or physically, but legally and socially. If Bill Gates built what is in effect the next generation of fighter jet in his basement workshop, there is no way the government would let him keep it for his own private use.

Who should get it? Anybody who likes a good story told in comic book form.

Rating: 4 Stars (of five)

Method Of Acquisition: The seventy-five cent box at Tardy's Collector's Corner on Burton Street in Grand Rapids, MI

Review of Youngblood Issue #1 Published by Awesome Comics

2010-05-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

Youngblood #1 (published by Awesome) review

What is it? A comic book with a glossy cover and interior and color throughout. Alan Moore is the writer. Steve Skroce is the penciler. Lary Stucker is the inker. Richard Starkings & Comicraft did the letters. The colors were provided by a company called Awesome Colors.

Plot summary: A secret government organization is scheming to get ahold of an alien from another dimension. An alien wiht no physical form of its own that possesses people. It works.

The alien possesses a soldier guy in the secret underground base and escapes. Youngblod, a superhero team gets involved. Suprema, a Supergirl knock-off, gets possessed. There's a fight. The good guys win and Suprema gets unpossessed.

What's good about it? It's done-in-one rather than kicking off a multi-issue story arc.

For a fairly cookie cutter superhero story, it is executed well.

The attempts at witty dialogue actually made me smile.

Steve Skroce's artwork vaguely resembles Rob Liefeld's without being a slavish imitation.

Rob Liefeld's personal involvement with the book seems to be minimal. He simply owns the characters, and he drew one or two of the twelve variant covers.

What's not so good about it? You remember that cookie cutter comment? Well I meant it. This book could have been done almost as well with any of DC or Marvel's superteams, like the JLA or Fantastic Four.

In fact, I think variants on this theme have been done with the Fantastic Four.

The other problem is this is Volume 3, Issue number 1 of Youngblood. Besides being a bad example of the chromium age tendency for excessive first issues of a single property to increase after-market value, it opens with action and contains very little exposition to explain who these characters are and what they do. I have a vague memory of having reading earlier versions of Youngblood, where the team was government sponsored. Now it appears to have gone private. Only two of the team members are at all familiar to me: Shaft and Suprema.

What The...? Moment: Twelve variant covers. That's just excessive. Now aren't we all glad the 90s are over?

Who Needs It? Youngblood fans. Suprema fans. Anyone who wants to see an Alan Moore superhero comic with no obvious element of irony or deconstruction or commentary on the genre.

Rating: 2 stars (on my five-star scale)

Method of Acquisition: 79 cents from the cheap comics bins at The Outer Limits in Wyoming, Michigan

Review of Sidekicks: the Substitute one-shot

2010-04-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

Review of Sidekicks: the Substitute one-shot

What is it? A comic book. Glossy color cover, non-glossy black and white interior. Published by Oni Press. Indicia gives a date of July 2002. Written by J. Torres. Art by Takeshi Miyazawa. Lettered by Brian O'Malley.

Plot Summary: There's a high school for super-powered kids. The new substitute teacher is a reformed supervillainess doing community service. She is is initially distrusted and students try to prank her. Hi-jinks and hilarity ensue.

What's Good About It? The dialogue is clever and is where most of the humor comes from. I also like the artwork. The manga-inspired look isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I think it works here.

What's Not So Good about It? This is my first exposure to these characters and I feel it does not make a great jumping on point. I have no idea who these characters are and what their powers and personalities are. I also had some trouble telling them apart visually at times.

What the... Moments: Why manga-style artwork? An indie humor book has enough going against it to not want to limit its audience further, and there's a certain amount of irrational dislike against anime and manga out there.

Who Should Get It? People who like the movie Sky High or the comic PS 238 are likely candidates. Archie fans who also like superheroes. Superhero fans who aren't averse to the high school comedy genre.

Rating: 3 stars (on a 5 star scale)

Method of Acquisition: Part of a five comics for $2 grab bag at 21st Century Comics and Games in East Lansing, MI

Review of Darkseid one-shot

2010-04-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Review of New Year's Evil Darkseid One-Shot

What Is It? Single Issue of a comic book, glossy paper for both the cover and the interior, color throughout. Cover dated February 1998.
Plot summary: Darkseid is missing, presumed dead by some. Desaad is trying to hold together an interim government until Darkseid returns. Virman Vundabar attacks this government, hoping to usurp Darkseid's throne for himself. During the inevitable fight, a giant statue of Darkseid animates and holds the combatants in place, while delivering a stern lecture about how New Genesis is the true enemy.

What's Good About It? The artwork, layouts by Sal Buscema, pencils by Keron Grant, and inks by Ray Kryssing, with letters by John Workman and colors by Noelle Giddings; looks rather sharp. John Byrne is the credited writer and he delivers some dialogue that has wonderfully cheesy melodramatic comic book villain qualities. It also showed off two Apokolips natives, that I'd heard of from Who's Who entries and RPG sourcebooks and similar, but had never actually seen in action: Virman Vundabar and Kanto, the Assassin.

What's Not So Good About It? I have no idea where this Darkseid is kind of, but not really dead storyline comes from. Other than cover date of February 1998 giving me a clue to an approximate era to start looking for back issues from. Nothing in the book mentions what longer-running series this one-shot spins off from or ties into.

What The... Moments? It's a one-shot titled Darkseid, yet Darkseid himself does not make an in-the-flesh appearance onscreen, as such.

Who Needs It? New Gods completists. John Byrne fans. People that want a slightly less complicated take on the New Gods character's than Grant Morrison's handling of them in Final Crisis.

Rating: 2 stars

A Few Short Thoughts on relatively recent political news

2010-04-12T16:17:00.000-07:00

I wake up most mornings to NPR news on my clock radio. One of the places that I work, the bartender like to turn the TV to Fox News at about the time that Glen Beck is on. I have heard a bit about the health care debate from both ends of the political spectrum, I think.

Here's my take:

It reminds me of the second verse of the Underdog theme song:

When in this world the headlines read of those whose hearts are filled with greed,
Who rob and steel from those in need,
To right this wrong with blinding speed goes
Underdog!

Anyways, I think both the liberals and the conservatives would relate those words to the health care issue, but have strongly different definitions of need, greed, and rob.

Review of Solo Avengers Issue #14

2010-04-09T11:34:00.000-07:00

Two notes:
1) These are mostly finds from the cheap comics bins, so they are from many years ago, sometimes.
2) I am copying the format I use for reviews of RPG productson rpg.net, except instead of the five-point style and substance scale, I use a more generalized five star scale where zero is horrid; one is bad; two is acceptable; three is good; four is great; and five is amazingly awesome.

Anyways: review of Solo Avengers #14

What is it? A single issue of a comic book published in 1984, color throughout, glossy covers, non-glossy interior. It's sort of an anthology format book with two stories. A Hawkeye story is the lead feature, as it always was in Solo Avengers/ Avengers Spotlight and a She-Hulk story is the backup feature. Both stories are around 11 pages once you subtract ad pages.

The stories briefly: In the Hawkeye story, Black Widow infiltrates an A.I.M. base and just before she is captured phones Avenger's mansion. Hawkeye is the only one home to get the message and he goes to rescue her. Hawkeye fights the A.I.M. goons and rescues Black Widow. The heroes find out A.I.M. has a strange elaborate plot that involves collecting brains in jars. The alleged cliffhanger ending involves a giant robot activating and being about to attack the heroes.

The She-Hulk story involves She-Hulk arguing a case before the Supreme Court because besides being a superhero, she's also a lawyer. She-Hulk is arguing that the Mutant Registration Act is unconstitutional. Titania, a superstrong and nigh-invulnerable villainess, is on a rampage outside the courtroom. Since She-Hulk is the only superhero nearby, she has to go fight Titania.

What's good about it? It was cheap, only 75 cents. The She-Hulk story was funny and sort of clever.

What's Not So Good? The cover was bit deceptive regarding the Hawkeye/ Black Widow story. I was expecting more of a true team up, but Black Widow was out of the action for a large bit of the story.

What The... Moments The basic format of Solo Avengers. Who thought splitting a normal length book in half and giving the first half to Hawkeye always and then a random Avengers-related backup story was a good idea?

Rating: The Hakweye story is two stars, the She-Hulk story is four stars. Together they average a three star rating.

Review of Ravenloft campaign settign boxed set

2010-04-05T15:20:00.000-07:00

This is an x-post of something I wrote for rpg.net: a review of an old campaign setting boxed set for the pnecil and paper RPG version of Dungeons & Dragons:

What is it? A boxed set containing: four full color maps, one clear plastic hex overlay, 24 cards with color art on one side and black and white text on the reverse, and a book. The book is a soft cover with a color illustration on the front cover and a black, white, and red interior. It weighs in at 144 pages length with the last seven pages being Monstrous Compendium-style monster stats pages.

Most of this review will concentrate on the book. The cards and such are nifty and nicely done, but the meat of this product is the book.

The book starts with an overview of gothic horror as a genre, including a suggested reading list. White Wolf did this fairly routinely in their original World of Darkness line, especially Mage: the Ascension, but this is somewhat out of character for TSR of this era. Recommendations include Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and H. G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau but misses The Castle of Otranto and The Monk.

The next section is a broad overview of the Demiplane of Dread, another name for the Ravenloft setting. Includes the Tome of Strahd, an excerpt from the setting's premiere vampire's journal. Also a timeline and suggested means for getting into Ravenloft and hints of possibilities for getting back out again.

Following this is a chapter on how characters change in the Ravenloft setting. It is not a friendly environment. Paladins can't detect evil in Ravenloft. A Domain Lord's control over the local wildlife is stronger than a ranger's influence on his animal buddies. Turning undead is harder. Demi-humans face xenophobia from natives of the Demiplane of Dread.

And then there's the Powers Check. Evil acts may attract the baleful attentions of the Demiplane. This takes the form of a simultaneous blessing and curse, like a minor spell-like ability accompanied by a disfiguring physical change. Enough failed Powers Checks can turn a character into an NPC under the DM's control, possibly even the lord of a new domain.

Up next are Fear and Horror Checks. Fear for your life against long odds may make you drop your weapon and run away: that's a fear check. Seeing something disturbing can have a long-term effect on your mental health: that's a horror check.

Not too surprisingly, this horror-oriented setting has something to say about vampires and werewolves. Werewolves and other lycanthropes have a higher chance of transmitting their disease in Ravenloft: 2% per point of damage inflicted, rather than the standard 1%. Suggestions for changing weaknesses to things other than the standard silver and magic weapons are also made. Vampires in Ravenloft get stronger with age, gradually losing weaknesses. Suggestions are also given for customizing a vampire's powers and weaknesses.

Curses are the subject of the next chapter. Curses can be created by the power of the Demiplane itself without the need for a spell to be cast: possibly in response to an evil action or as a response to someone's desire for revenge. Curses are powerful, yet limited.

The next chapter is on gypsies. The Vistani are a group of gypsy-like people native to Ravenloft. Vistani can lay curses, divine the future, create potions, and travel freely.

The next section is on fortune telling. Suggestions are given on how to use it without railroading the players. Also a broad overview of some fortune telling methods is given.

The next two chapters are spells and magical items. Alignment detection doesn't work. Creature summoning and dismissal work differently, in general, the summonig goes fine, but whatever is summoned gets stuck in Ravenloft and isn't happy about it. Undead are easy to create and hard to control. Some spells and items require a Powers Check to use. Three new spells and about seven new magic items are presented.

Following this are Lands of the Core and Islands of Terror. These cover the geography of the setting. The Core is the Demiplane's main continent and then there are various islands floating around off of it.

Who's Doomed of Ravenloft is the next chapter. This contains bios and stats for a number of prominent NPCs. Mostly Domain Lords and other villains, but a few good guys too. One I didn't remember from previous readings is Gondegal, a Chaotic Neutral warrior. Others are like old friends, like Strahd, Ravenloft's first Domain Lord and sort of the iconic character for the setting. Or Rudolph Van Richten, the fearless monster hunter and author of numerous guides to hunting the nastiest of beasties. And Victor Mordenheim, Ravenloft's answer to Dr. Frankenstein and his twisted creation, Adam.

The next chapter is a few pages of family trees for the setting's prominent NPC families.

After that is Techniques of Terror. These are tips for the Ravenloft DM or really and horror game. Suggestions include: isolation, loss of control, and body horror.

Adventure ideas are the last thing in the book before the monster pages. This presents ten very short adventure seeds for an ambitious DM to flesh out himself.

And closing out the book are seven monsters. The geist is barely a monster; it might cause a Fear or Horror check. The Gremishka is a gremlin variant. Loup-Graou are a werewolf variant. Odem are a species of possessing undead. Strahd Skeletons are Strahd's beefed up skeleton soldiers. Strahd Zombies are Strahd's beefed up zombies; they lose their heads and arms easily but the severed parts keep fighting on their own. The Nosferatu is a vampire variant.

What about the cards? Three have a nice full color picture of Strahd on one side and reproduce charts from the rulebook on the other or similar information, like a list of monsters most appropriate to Ravenloft. Five have a family portrait of one of Ravenloft's important NPC families on one side and stats for an NPC from that family on the other. The remaining sixteen are pictures of and information about various Domain Lords's homes and fortifications and other important buildings.

What's Good About It? Techniques of Terror was a good idea. Other horror games could use GM advice this good. Strahd is another good point. It helps to be able to put a face on a setting, like Elminster for the Realms or the Companions for Dragonlance and Strahd certainly does that for Ravenloft.

What's Not So Good About It? Most of the following isn't really bad, so much as things that feel too thin or that don't seem incredibly useful: The Bloodlines Chapter, the Fortune telling chapter, the Gypsies chapter.

I'm not sure what purpose the Bloodlines chapter serves. Maybe a DM could tease a few adventure hooks out of it, but it would take some real work.

Fortune telling is such a big concept that it needs its own book or to be ignored entirely.

The gypsies chapter was thin. It feels like a warm-up to tease us a little before Van Richten's Guide to Gypsies or the half-Vistani race in the Domains of Dread book.

I would gladly have traded all three of these chapters for a full-developed adventure, even one as short as three pages.

What The... Moments? Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and H. G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau showing up on the recommended reading list. Hill House is twentieth century. Dr. Moreau is an early SF classic, but not exactly a gothic. Moreau was probably included because of Ravenloft's knock-off character Frantisek Markov.

Who Should Get It? Dedicated AD&D 2nd Edition DMs who have a thing for vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. Fans of gothic horror. GMs for any horror-game looking for good staging tips. As far as I can tell, the Domains of Dread hardback reprints almost all the good bits from the book, so unless you really want the cards or maps, owners of Domains can skip this.

Fortune Cookie

2010-04-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

This is kind of a placeholder/ filler until I have something deeper and more interesting to share.

I went out for Chinese/Thai last night for dinner (most Thai restaurants I've been to have also served American-Chinese-restaurant food too, like general chicken and chicken with broccoli and similar things).

I got a fortune cookie as is the custom at this sort of restaurant.

The message was:

Success comes in cans, not can nots.

A Review of Bring it On: Fight to the Finish

2009-09-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

A review of Bring It On: Fight to the Finish
By JustiN Orion Neal Taylor

The first five minutes made me say, “Okay nobody behaves like that in real life.” Nobody has an impromptu dance fight at the drop of a hat, as a for instance. Of course, I was rewarded with the reveal that it was in fact, a dream sequence. The fact that this was not the only point where I had the exact same incredulous reaction ought to count against it.

For whatever reason, I actually did enjoy this movie. It’s a sports movie about competitive cheerleading. It’s about a team of plucky upstarts versus a team of haughty established champs. Guess who wins?

The dialogue had problems. It tries to be hip. It comes off as feeling fake.

Christina Milian, the female lead, is according to the box cover copy some sort of singer when she’s not making movies. Somehow, she can act though. At least enough for me to buy her as a high school cheerleader, even though she’s somewhere in her mid to late twenties and never did any of this cheerleader stuff before making this movie.

As a sort of comedy most of the jokes kinda worked. The most effective one was in the deleted scenes, a scene where the cheerleaders fake a drive by shooting, though. I actually laughed out loud during that one. Most of the movie prompted only minor chuckles, if that.

Somehow I liked this movie overall. Call it three out of five stars.

Another political rant

2008-10-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

If anybody were to ask me what's wrong with the democratic republic system of government in the United States of America, which nobody will because I work at a Burrito Gong, I would say: lawyer politicians and professional politicians. These two problems serve to disenfranchise the common man by making the law inaccessible to him.

I mentioned working at a Burrito Gong. Our current store manager is a latina, and she hires mostly latinas and latinos. Many of them speak little English and have even less literacy in English. They often get put into the kitchen making food because they don't speak English well enough to ring up orders. The trouble is, they are often being taught how to make food by native English speakers with little or no Spanish language skills. Also, the electronic screens displaying the orders, once they are rung up by an order taker, so the kitchen crew can see what to make, are in English.

It's not too hard to imaginge that quite often orders get screwed up because the people making food don't understand why +ON ON ON (for add onion three times) means mucho seboya. Here's where I'm going with this: The law is a specialized language. Lawyers learn it well, if they are good at their job. Legislators make laws that apply to everybody, lawyer and lay man alike. Electing a lawyer to legislate ensures that future laws get written in legalese. This means that a lay man can look at a bill that his legislator wrote affecting his life, in possibly drastic ways, and have no idea what it means.

To make laws that will serve lay people, like folks who work at the Burrito Gong, well we need lay people legislating. There are a few barriers to entry though, one of which is professional politicians, that is to say incumbents who win and keep on getting re-elected. I believe that politics should not be a viable long-term career choice.

First we shouldn't need as much government as we get. I really think that law-makers should only need to put in three hour days and not every day, either. Now that we've got the basics down already: murder is against state laws and is either a death penalty or a life sentence, depending on the state; rape is against the law; theft is against the law with size of the theft affecting the severity of the charge which affects the sentence; there's really nothing that law-makers can do except build highways to nowhere in Alaska and allocate funds to the Lawrence Welk museum. And name post offices.

Second, law-making isn't real work, so it shouldn't really pay. Besides salaries, pensions, and health benefits paid for by people who work at the Burrito Gong, politicians have many unofficial streams of revenue available, including book deals, speaking gigs, and gifts from lobbyists.

This brings me to my third point against professional politicians, lobbyists. Lobbyists seek influence with politicians through gifts. Every time someone forces politicians to clean up their act by setting limits on what lobbyists can do for politicians and how, the lobbyists find new loopholes. No politician is aboe the influence. Time in this system is inherently corrupting.

Compassionate Curmudgeon

2008-09-15T20:15:00.001-07:00

Compassionate Curmudgeon

First let me state for the record that I am neither a Satanist nor a Buddhist. I find religion to be a fascinating phenomenon and try to find out as much as possible about it. Every religion, epsecially the ones that are more philosophies than religions, says something about the human race.

I started reading two books recently: The Devil's Notebook by Anton Szandor LaVey and The Art of Happiness by His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. Anton LaVey, was the founder of the Church of Satan. The Dalai Lama is the head of the Tibetan sect of Buddhism.

These books and the men who wrote them and the teachings they try to exemplify come from pretty much opposite ends of the spectrum. LaVey's Satanism is all about being a jerk if it suits you. Tibetan Buddhism, on the other hand, espouses loving kindness.

Despite these opposite approaches, I found myself nodding my head and silently agreeing with much of what both books had to say. This has led me to identify my own philosophical position: I am a Compassionate Curmudgeon.

My basic worldview can be summarized as follows:
I wish the human populace of the world well and I wish it well away from me.

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This Part 3

2008-09-15T20:15:00.000-07:00

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This Part 3: Garage Door Story

A more recent one. I won't say exactly when. I had to go to work at the Burrito Gong by ten in the morning. My dad had parked in the garage the previous night.

We went out to the garage on time, but then the garage door refused to open. After some investigation it is found out that the garage door is eletric and the circuit breaker for the garages had been tripped. The circuit breaker was in the apartment complex's central office which was locked and unmanned.

I did eventually get to the Burrito gong, after calling a relative who had moved to the neighborhood for a ride, and worked my lunch shift. My dad did find the manual over-ride for the garage door opener, which involves turning the key that normally triggers the electric motor really hard until a pull cord comes out, so I got picked up on time.

Then I worked an evening shift at an Italian restaurant where I bus boy. It was my first day to work with a new bus boy and I said it ought to be a slow evening and gave a sensible sounding reason. It was anything but.

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This Part 2: The Pheasant Story

2008-09-12T10:51:00.001-07:00

I really did have to walk five miles through the snow to get to school. Just once, though, not every day.

I was in tenth grade and going to a charter school way out in the boonies, about five miles from my house. I had missed the bus for the third time that week and knew my stepdad would be totally steamed if I came home for a ride. I didn't have my wallet with me, so I had no money to take the city bus. Entirely skipping that day of school simply never occurred to me. So, I started walking.

This was early in December. It wasn't snowing right then, but there was snow on the ground. I mentioned that it was about five miles, but did I mention that most of it was up hill?

Somewhere as you head from the city to out in the boonies, you run out of sidewalk. At about the point that this happens, a bird starts walkling alongside me. I am not an ornithologist, I have no idea what it is. It looks a little like a quail and is brightly colored kinda like a rooster.

It freeks me out to have this bird walking alongside me, so I try to shoo it away with the hardcover book I was carrying under my arm. In response to this, the bird starts pecking at my shoe. I'm kinda frozen, afraid that if I run that will make it go for my face. Eventually someone comes along and distracts the bird long enough for me to get away. I ask him what kind of bird it was and he tells me it's a male pheasant.

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This Part 1: Off To School

2008-09-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

Actually I doubt my mama ever said there'd be days like some of these. She is a prophetess and seer of the first order, but some things are so unlikely that they can not be predicted.

Like the first day of eighth grade. I knew where my morning bus stop was because it should be the same as for when I was in seventh grade. I knew what day the first day of school was. Somehow though, I never went through the orientation that should have occured before the first day of school. As far as I know they simply never sent us the information about when orientation was and so on.

So, I'm walking to the bus stop, and suddenly I see, I'm heading towards a giant ravening wolf, or maybe it was a German shephard, but anyways I'm heading towards it, and it's heading towards me, and it's not on a leash, and I'm very phobic about dogs. I duck down a side street and reroute a couple blcoks out of my way and make it to the bus stop on time.

Then when I try to get on the bus, the bus driver quite naturally asks to see my student ID. Now, one of the important things about the orientation process is that at the end, you have a student ID. Since I didn't go to orientation, I had no student ID. The bus driver refused to allow me to board the bus. This was in the pre-Colombine days, but some schools and bus drivers have always been more security minded than others.

I had an aunt living a couple of blocks away from the school bus stop, so I went over there and called home to tell my stepdad the story and get a ride to school. Not an auspicious start to the school year.

A Review of Micah by Laurell K. Hamilton

2008-07-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been awhile since the greybeard posted a review.

Judging by the cover artwork, I doubt that Laurell K. Hamilton's Micah has male Science Fiction geeks in mind as a core audience. Quite honestly it looks a bit like a romance novel. Despite the beefcakey cover artwork and romantic aspects of the plot, this male Science Fiction geek did enjoy the book.

Basically, Anita Blake, the vampire hunter and necromancer, has to travel out of state to animate a zombie to testify for the feds. Because of weird complications from being the human servant to a vampire, Anita needs to have sex on a fairly regular basis, so she brings along one of her boyfriends, Micah. Micah is a wereleopard, which is like a werewolf but with the transformation being from human to leopard rather than wolf.

Along the way, more about Micah’s origin is revealed. Lycanthropy, the catch-all term for shape-changing as a condition including among others werewolves, wereleopards, werehyenas, and wererats is transmitted as a disease by bites and scratches from an infected creature. Micah caught his case as result of a violent attack by a serial killer wereleopard who targeted hunters.

After a rather lengthy bit of dialogue and lengthy sex scene that kind of intermingled, we get to the animation that Anita was called out for in the first place. It goes wrong because zombies who were murdered in the first life have an unstoppable drive for vengeance once animated. This zombie died of a heart attack but believes that it was brought on by another person’s actions, so he feels like he’s been murdered. And that’s just about the end of the novel.

Why did I like this book? I think the intermingling of supernatural horror elements with other human feelings and even the sex and romance bits add up to something unique and kind of cool. It’s also interesting that Hamilton seems to have rules in mind for how the supernatural critters work in her novels even if they aren’t necessarily spelled out for us or clear to the characters involved. There’s also the fact that it is quite simply a good supernatural horror novel.

News

2008-06-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

With a little help from the copy center at Office Despot, I have successfully published the first issue of a zine. It's about 70% recycled material from this blog, though.

There are about fifty copies left of the first print run. A secnd printing and/or a second issue are largely dependent on the response I get to this one.

Anybody who would like a copy can email me or comment on this post or otherwise contact me. There's no charge, but I will glady accept reimbursement for my time, trouble, expenses, and to increase the likelihood of there ever being a second issue. My email is either:
khyron1144@gmail.com
or
khyron89@hotmail.com

I check both fairly often.

Cheerful Idiots

2008-06-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

I have figured something out working at the Burrito Gong. Bussiness-like, efficient customers who order, pay, and receive their food with the absolute minimum of interaction with me are the best. I don't like my job, and I'm not there to make friends. They might or might not actually like the food. I'd bet low price point and convenient location/ quick service are at least a part of their reason for going to Burrito Gong.

Second best is actually the angry jerks with complaints. They want the food a particular way, and we failed to deliver. There is justification for their behavior.

The worst customers are the cheerful, friendly ones, especially the ones who think they are funny or clever and try to make jokes. One problem is that there are no new jokes. For instance, if we are using the two window system for drive thru, and one of the cute teenage girls is the order taker at the front window, and I'm working back cash, it is inevitable that some cheerful idiot is going to make a crack about how different my voice sounds over the speaker.

In general the big problem is simply that cheerful people are simply irritating to misanthropic types.

Punctuality

2008-05-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

If you work in food service, especially fast food, you are probably what they call unskilled labor. This means that, after an hour of training, an orangutan could do your job as well as or better than you. Since you can be replaced by any warm body of vaguely anthpropoid configuration, the most importatn thing you can offer an employer is work ethic. One aspect of work ethic that seems to get overlooked is punctuality.

If you are scheduled, show up. Show up on time. On time is at least five minutes early. That's all there is to it. If you slide through the door about a minute late, you are a lazy communist who deserves to be fired.

Lists

2008-05-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

Don't ask me why, but I make lists. It doesn't really matter of what. My latest one is characters in superhero comic books with a costumed identity that involves the word Doctor, Captain, or Baron.

Doctors
Dr. Doom (Marvel Villain)
Dr. Strange (Marvel Hero)
Dr. Octopus (Marvel Villain)
Dr. Spectrum (Marvel Hero)
Dr. Druid (Marvel Hero)
Dr. Fate (DC Hero)
Dr. Occult (DC Hero)
Dr. Mist (DC Hero)
Dr. Midnight (DC Hero)
Dr. Thirteen (DC Hero)
Dr. Light (DC Hero)
Dr. Destiny (DC Villain)
Dr. Light (DC Villain)
Dr. Diehard (DC Villain)
Dr. Stratos (DC Villain)
Dr. Sivana (Fawcett/ DC Villain)
Dr. Smashi (Fawcett/ DC Villain)
Dr. Arcane (DC Villain)
Dr. Solar, Man Of The Atom (Gold Key/ Valiant/ Acclaim Hero)
Dr. Eclipse (Valiant/ Acclaim Villain)
Dr. Mirage (Valiant/ Acclaim Hero)
Dr. Strangefate (Amalgym Hero)
Dr. Gade, the Invisible Man (Defunct Golden Age Timely Hero)
Dr. Mystic (Defunct Golden Age Hero)
Doc Noble (Image Hero)
Doc Samson (Marvel Hero)

Dr. Arcane and Dr. Thirteen are both kind of cheats to pad out the list. Dr. Thirteen, the ghost-breaker, is not really a superhero. He was the protagonist of horror book where he went around disproving supposed hauntings. He is legitimately an in-continuity part of the DC Universe of superheros and supervillains, though, having appeared in the original Books of Magic miniseries.

Dr. Arcane is the name used for the Swamp Thing's long-time foe Anton Arcane, a doctor, in the children's cartoon series of Swamp Thing that aired in the 1990s. In the comics, he is mostly referred to as simply Anton Arcane.

Please note that although Robert Bruce Banner (The Hulk), Hank Pym (Ant Man/ Giant Man/ Goliath/ Yellowjacket), and Kurt Connors (The Lizard) have at least one PHD, they are inelligeble because their super-identity does not include the word doctor.

Captains
Captain Marvel (Marvel Hero)
Captain Marvel (Marvel Hero)
Captain America (Marvel Hero)
Captain Britain (Marvel Hero)
Captain Marvel (Fawcett/ DC Hero)
Captain Mary Marvel (Fawcett/ DC Hero)
Captain Marvel Jr. (Fawcett/ DC Hero)
Captain Atom (DC Hero)
Captain Comet (DC Hero)
Captain Speed (DC Hero)
Captain Action (DC Hero)
Captain Action Jr. (DC Hero)
Captain Cold (DC Villain)
Captain Boomerang (DC Villain)
Captain Nazi (Fawcett/ DC Villain)
Captain Truth (Defunct Golden Age Hero)
Captain Combat (Defunct Golden Age Hero)
Captain Fearless (Defunct Golden Age Hero)
Captain Planet (Cartoon Hero)

Barons
Baron Blood (Marvel Villain)
Baron Strucker (Marvel Villain)
Baron Zemo (Marvel Villain)
Baron Winters (DC Hero)
Baron Sunday (DC Villain)

A Disturbing Thought

2008-05-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

I work at a fast food place. We serve fake mexican food. Burritos, tacos, etc.

The most common filling for our tacos is ground beef. The ground beef comes to us in plastic bags that are inside cardboard boxes. The outside of those cardboard boxes contains an ingredients list.

Think of it an ingredients list for ground beef taco meat. One of the ingredients is carmel color. Our groundbeef needs help to look like ground beef ought to look like. Tell me that's not a little disturbing.

Another food service rant

2008-05-20T08:32:00.000-07:00

Another great truth of life hit me recently. The reason service sucks in the food service industry is because the people working in the food service industry are resentful. What are they resentful of? Being treated as a gopher by anyone who happens to be nearby.

It starts small enough. Somebody requests something that is small and perfectly reasonable on its own. After a while though, there get to be a few too many of these perfectly reasonable requests and the next becomes unreasonable from the food service worker's perspective.

There's an easy way to combat it. Never ask for a favor from anyone working in food service whether you're a customer or a co-worker.

Another Political Rant

2008-05-19T17:26:00.000-07:00

I realized something today. I dislike unfairness, injustice, inequality, and inequity. I'm also not a big fan of dishonesty. This may be why I find concepts like anarchism and socialism interesting. They are intended to be a means of making things fair for everyone.

The Democratic Republic with a Capitalist economy is supposed to be the free-est, fairest, best system possible. Yet, unfairness persists. Take the United States of America... please! (rimshot sound effect)

The United States of America is supposed to be founded on the premise that all humanity is created equal, even though it took about a hundred years before the government recognized the created equal status of non-whites and females. Yet certain people within the United states are not equal to others.

Let us assume you have an annoying neighbor. You or I coudln't order a tactical nuclear strike on this annoying neighbor. However, the President of the United States of America, if he found Canada to be an annoynace, could order a tactical nuclear strike against Canada. This is an inequity.

I have never been treated to an expensive dinner by a lobbyist. I hear it happens to congressmen all the time. For me, a fact-finding mission is a trip to the public library using the city's mass transit system, paid for out of my own pocket. For congressmen, fact-finding missions are essentially vacations to five-star resorts on tropical islands, and it's paid for by lobbyists. This is an inequity.

Yeah, I know, we all get a vote to decide who is going to be treated to these privileges. That's a nice idea, but an even nicer idea would be to give them to all of us.

The Anomalist

2008-05-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, the other day I went to the friendly, but not exactly in the neighborhood, used bookstore. Among other things, I found and purchased the first issue of a publication titled The Anomalist. It says it's the summer 1994 issue, and I have no idea if any others have been published or if it's still a going concern. I'm still working my way through it, but the first article that I read was Martin Kottmeyer's "The First Extraordinary Claim", a sort of debunking of certain myths surrounding the round Earth hypothesis.

The short version is, yes the earliest round-Earthers were the ancient Greeks, particularly the Pythagoreans, but the round Earth hypothesis was advanced more from poetic, aesthetic, mystical, and religious reasons than from any scientific observational data. In fact, Democritus, one of the Earliest scientific thinkers in the modern sense, was a flat-Earther when the round Earth hypothesis began to circulate.

The next article to catch my attention was "The Perils of Erasing Astrology From the Past" by Ingo Swann. It's partly a defense of astrology and partly simply points out that up until the middle Renaisance there was no practical difference between astrology and scientific astronomy. When those ancient Greeks, we so admire for getting the ball rolling on the science thing, looked to the skies, their main interest was in predicting things here on Earth.
So basically, this looks like fun reading, and I might have to start scouring ebay for more back issues.

Well, It's an Election Year

2008-03-04T13:06:00.000-08:00

Okay. I'm going to try an experiment. I'm going to send this letter to the front-runners for the presidential nomination. Results if any will be posted here.

Dear Sir (Or Ma'am in Hillary's case):

I am a registered voter who will be voting in the presidential election. I have concerns:

1. I am a working individual. I work two jobs in food service. What would you do as President of The United States of America to make my life as a working person better or more secure economically?

2. I am uninsured and have not seen a doctor in about five years. Are you going to do anything about health care in this country?

3. I'm a Pagan. The current President and his administration are extremely tight with a segment of Christianity that I feel is hostile to me as a Pagan. Are you going to be any better?

4. Why should I vote for you and not go Socialist this year?

By the way, I am sending a copy of this to the opposition. Any responses will be posted on my blog:

http://greybeardsngrognards.blogspot.com
and the first candidate to respond gets my endorsement.

Sincerely:
JustiN Orion Neal Taylor

I'm pretty much expecting nothing to come of this. Email gets read by staffers. Staffers weed out nut jobs like me.

The Disintigration of Western Civilization Part 3: There Are Too Many Worthless Holidays

2008-02-09T11:08:00.000-08:00

A holiday is meant to be a time of merriment and/or reverence. It should be spectacular. It should be a day off for more than just letter carriers and bankers. In the United States of America we have too many days marked on our calendars as holdiays that are none of the above.

When was the last time anyone threw an arbor day party? Does anyone other than bankers and postal workers celebrate Martin Luther King Day or President's Day? How many people curse Martin Luther King Day or President's Day because the bank's not open for them to cash a check or because the check that's in the mail is going to be a day later than expected?

Now, President Lincoln, President Washington, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are all admirable men who did great things for this country, but maybe we should do something to actually endear their memories to people, like give everyone except banks and the post office the day off. With pay.

There are a lot of saints. From what I understand there are days for all of them. For whatever reason, Patrick and Valentine are the only ones whose days are paid much attention by the American populace. I guess green beer and/or chocolate are popular.
Saint Valentine's Day is a total Hallmark holiday. It exists to prop up the candy industry between Christmas and Easter and the greating card industry after Christmas.

Saint Patrick's Day is something of a mystery to me. In what way did a Saint associated with the Catholic Church endorse green minty milkshakes? Other than that, I've got no problem with it. Any excuse to listen to my Pogues and Dropkick Murphys albums is a good excuse.

Arbor Day and Flag Day are the quintessential worthless holidays. Nobody throws a party for them. I think they don't even bother with closing the banks and not delivering the mail on these days, so really they are totally unmarked.

I have no idea how people react to Secretaries's Day. I work in fast food and as a bus boy. This means I do not have a secretary and I will never have a secretary. I imagine that having to get the obligatory card is an annoyance to those who do, but quite honestly if your position within a company affords you a secretary, I have no sympathy for you.

Super Bowl Sun Day has become a sort of unofficial holiday here in the U.S.A. I don't like football and don't care about wierd advertising that costs a lot of money to air. About the one good thing to come out of the Super Bowl is the Janet Jackson incident.

Independence Day/ The Fourth of July can be fun. When you mix drunken red necks with explosives fun often ensues. American freedom is also a nifty idea. Let me know when it arrives.

I like Halloween. It's an excuse to dress up the way I normally would: cape, skull jewelry, and black nail polish and then go out in public. There's also the free candy. Unfortunately, now that I'm over twenty, people frown on me trick or treating myself . In past years, I've gotten around that by borrowing my younger brother and his friends and claiming that I'm just escorting them.

Christmas is okay by me too. I like giving and receiving gifts. It also falls on Sol Invictus, so it's a holiday on a Holy Day.

All in all, though there are definitely too many worthless holidays.

The Disintigration of Western Civilization Part 2: U-Scan Must Die

2008-01-23T18:17:00.000-08:00

The Disintigration of Western Civilization Part 2: U-Scan Must Die

I work at a Burrito Gong. I get payed a little over seven dollars an hour (the state minimum wage plus a tiny merit-based raise) to stand behind a cash register and deal with idiots.

When I'm off-duty and buying pita chips and hommus at a grocery store, it is my turn to be someone else's idiot, but the grocery stores want me to be my own idiot. They have gotten rid of express lanes manned by people. Instead, they install U-Scan express lanes.

This leaves me with two unpalatable options. I can do something that somebody should be getting paid around seven dollars an hour to do and do it for free. Or I can stand in line behind three housewives who are buying the month's groceries for their twelve kids.

I usually choose to stand in the long, slow-moving line. If I've got time to go to the grocery store for my pita chips and hommus, I've got time to stand in line.

That's another problem with the U-Scan concept: it doesn't just represent the death of good customer service at a grocery store, it's also yet another symptom of the constant hurry that Americans live in. I never hurry. There's no point. There is no on-time and no late, there is simply when something happens.

Tomorrow, I will go to the grocery store. I'll pick up something cheap like a pack of gum. Then, I'll stand in line to have my pack of gum checked out by a human being. When I reach the cashier I will thank her for being there to deal with idiots like me. I encourage all of you to do the same.

U-Scan must die.

The Disintegration of Western Civilization Part 1: Somewhere There's a Starbucks With a Starbucks In It

2008-01-13T20:30:00.000-08:00

The Disintegration of Western Civilization Part 1: Somewhere There's a Starbucks With a Starbucks In It

Somewhere there's gotta be a Starbucks with a Starbucks in it. I mean like one of those Starbucks as its own place full-size restaurant things with one of those mini-Starbucks-in-an-alcove-things that they put in other stores in it.

Allow me to explain. I am writing this at the Jimmy John's in a strip mall. In the same strip mall at one end is a Meijer, a groceries and retail shopping in one place store not entirely unlike a Wal-Mart Supercenter; I don't think Meijer has spread much past its home in Michigan and some of the adjoining states. In this Meijer is one of those Starbucks alcoves.

At the other end of the strip mall is a Target. This target has replaced the normal Target snackbar area with a Starbucks alcove.

Two of them. In the same strip mall. There's only one place left to go.

Somewhere there's a Starbucks with a Starbucks in it.

Khyron's Tarot Journal Entry 1

2007-12-27T17:44:00.000-08:00

Tarot Journal Entry 1

I've heard that keeping a journal of your experiences can be a valuable part of working with the Tarot, or any other system of divination or system of magic. I thought I'd share mine. One more comment: my method of working with Tarot is exactly that, a method. My preference is to lay out a ten card modified Celtic Cross spread as the books that I've read show how to do, and then look up the book meanings of the cards that turned up. I know certain people who work more intuitively and go mainly off the visual impact of the card. For whatever reason, this is not my way.

This is from Frej Day, Dismember 21, AD 2007:

This is kind of a getting acquainted spread to see how I work with my new Wonderland Tarot. My focusing question is:

"How will my holiday season go?"

1. Present Position: Page of Flamingos (Flamingos from the Wonderland Tarot correspond to Swords from other Tarot decks).

Meanings: Vigilance. Agility. Spying. A discreet person.

My initial impression: I'm not especially agile, but I am quiet and observant. My role at family gatherings is often to sit quietly, reading a book, listening to others talk, and then interject a relevant remark here and there.

Post-Holiday reflection: That's about how things played out this year.

2. Immediate Influence: The Fool

Meanings: Thoughtlessness. Folly. Lack of Discipline. Immaturity. Enthusiasm. Naivity.

My initial impression: Could be Michael Thomas (my younger, younger brother).

Post-Holiday reflection: I didn't spend much of the Holiday with Michael Thomas. Mom was a bit miffed about Sky's behavior Christmas Eve. He left his skateboard at one friend's house and went over to another's, adding another side trek to mom picking him up.

3. Goal or Destiny: Judgement

Meanings: Atonement. Judgment. Rebirth. Improvement.

My initial impression: I do not always do well at Christmas. I sometimes develop a bit of an "Is that all?" attitude. I intend to do better than that this year.

Post-Holiday reflection: I think I did manage to do well this year.

4. Distant Past/ Foundation: The Sun

Meanings: Satisfaction. Contentment.

My initial impression: I've also had very happy Christmases past, like the one where I did get a puppy.

Post-Holiday reflection: I think my initial impression jibes well with the facts.

5. Recent Past: Six of Flamingos

Meanings: Misery. Concern. Unhappiness. Worry.

My initial impression: Depending on how recent, there's a lot of ways to read this. For example, I just came off shift at Taco Bell, a job I'm beginning to dislike enough to seriously consider quitting.

Post-Holiday reflection: As far as I can figure, the most significant source of misery in my current life is the Taco Bell. Today, I again left for the day mentally cussing out my boss.

6. Future Influence: Four of Flamingos

Meanings: Respite. Repose. Replenishment.

My initial impression: I get Christmas day off work.

Post-Holiday reflection: It was indeed restful.

7. The Questioner: Ten of Flamingos

Meanings: Ruin. Pain. Afliction. Grief.

My initial impression: I don't think I'm that bad off.

Post-Holiday reflection: I still don't think I'm best characterized by pain, ruin, and grief.

8. Environmental Factors: Knight of Hats (Hats correspond to Cups)

Meanings: Arrival. Approach. Advancement. Challenge.

My initial impression: No insight here right now.

Post-Holiday reflection: Getting there was a bit complicated. I don't drive. I made arrangements with my mom to get a ride but there was some miscommunication regarding fine details.

9. Inner Emotions: The Tower

Meanings: Complete and sudden change. Unexpected events. Disruption. Misery.

My initial impression: I was cautiously optimistic about holidays.

Post-Holiday reflection: I still don't know what disruption or misery I may have experienced.

10. Final Result: Three of Hats

Meanings: Resolution of a problem. Conclusion. Solace.

My initial impression: The Holdiays are a problem. A conclusion to them will bring solace.

Post-Holiday reflection: I do feel good to have Christmas over and done with now.

Happy Holy Daze

2007-12-03T19:27:00.001-08:00

Well, the Christmas season is upon us again.

Here are a few fun facts:

Jesus is the greek equivalnet of the name Joshua.

Christ is synonymous with the term messiah. Messiah means annointed king.

December 25th was Sol Invictus, the Feast of the Unconquered Sun, the big Holy Day of Mithraism, worship of the Persian sun God, Mithras. Sol Invictus was the day to celebrate Mithras's birth.

Nobody knows exactly when Jeus was born, but it's unlikely to be later than 4 B. C.

If it did occur during taxation time, as suggested in the Bible, Jesus's birth was probably during the fall.

Happy Thanks Giving

2007-11-28T19:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not posting anything new for awhile. I was away for Thanks Giving doing family stuff and then I've been working.

Happy Thanks Giving almost a week late.

By the way, until I can write a real review, let me say: MirrorMask is an awesome movie.

You know you're a D&D Geek when

2007-11-17T17:53:00.000-08:00

I had a dream the other night.

I dreamed that a lich, you know an undead wizard from D&D, came into the restaurant where I bus tables.

I made a comment to a server about how wherever this guy goes, meaning the lich, the weather goes from bad to worse. Now this kind of references both a lich's actual chill touch power or cold aura or whatever it is and just the depressing atmosphere around the undead.

The strange part is what really bothered me in this dream wasn't the presence of a lich in the restaurant, it was the server's failure to understand my metaphor.

Greybeards & Grognards 3: Assassins, Paladins, Image Problems, and Party Harmony! Oh My!

2007-11-15T20:12:00.000-08:00

I mentioned before that the assassin class was dumped in the 1e to 2e switch because of image problems and party harmony issues. I promised that there was an essay in there somewhere. Here goes:

I believe that D&D's image problem goes deeper than the assassin class. I also believe that, properly played, paladins are more disruptive to party harmony than assassins.

Assassins must be of evil alignment, but may be lawful evil, chaotic evil, or neutral evil. Paladins must be lawful good. Other than alignment restrictions, assassins have no particular code of conduct. In addition to being lawful good in alignment, paladins have a detailed code of conduct, including a flat prohibition against adventuring with evil characters and restrictions on adventuring with neutral characters. They can also detect evil, which prevents potential covert evil PCs from maintaining their cover.

Here's what the Players Handbook says of lawful good:

"Lawful Good: While as strict in their prosecution of law and order, characters of lawful good alignment follow these precepts to improve the common weal. Certain freedoms must, of course be sacrificed in order to being order; but truth is of highest value, and life and beauty of great importance. The benefits of this society are to be brought to all." (Gygax, P. 33)

Looking at this definition of lawful good, the supposed team player aspects are suggested but not quite spelled out. That is to say that the rules don't say that a lawful good paladin can't be a dick. Actually, under certain circumstances, the rules pretty much require it. For instance, if the party wants to hire mercenary NPCs for a particulalry dangerous mission, the paladin would be required to turn away evil applicants. This sort of behavior can have the rest of the party tearing their hair out in frustration.

Now let's look at what the Players Handbook has to say about the evil alignments:

"Chaotic Evil: The major precepts of this alignment are freedom, randomness, and woe. Laws and order, kindness, and good deeds are disdained. Life has no value. By promoting chaos and evil, those of this alignment hope to bring themselves to positions of power, glory, and prestige in a system ruled by individual caprice and their own whims." (Gygax, P. 33)

"Lawful Evil: Creatures of this alignment are great respecters of laws and strict order, but life, beauty, truth, freedom and the like are held as valueless, or at least scorned. By adhering to stringent discipline, those of lawful evil alignment hope to impose their yoke upon the world." (Gygax, P. 33)

"Neutral Evil: The nuetral evil creature views law and chaos as unnecessary onsiderations, for pure evil is all-in-all. Either may be used, but both are disdained as foolish clutter useless in eventually bringing maximum evilness to the world. (Gygax, P. 33)

Note that nowhere in all this does it say that, "Evil characters kill the rest of the party and take all their treasure at the earliest possible oppurtunity," or, "An evil character must be a jerk." The statement that, "Life has no value," for a chaotic evil character sounds damning, but the next sentence about a system of individual caprice seems to imply that the chaotic evil are not simply nihilists desring universal destruction; it sounds like it might imply a certain sort of anarchism, though.

I think I've made my position on the party harmony issue clear and given evidence for my opinion. You are free to agree or disagree with me. Now let's move on to D&D's image problem.
D&D has two major image problems outside the RPG community:1) D&D is seen as Satanic and2) D&D is seen as geeky.

I have, on occasion met people who see my D&D hobby as evidence that I'm a Satanist. Rational, well-constructed, logical arguments won't work in these situations because the belief is irrational and emotional. Really, there's nothing that can be done about it, but getting rid of the assassin class from the Players Handbook that these people won't read anyway is not that much help.

Others don't think we're worshipping the devil; they simply think we're weird and geeky. Honestly, I agree with them. Having a hobby at all these days is outside the norms of society. Having a hobby that involves thinking and reading and requires basic math skills is even weirder. Then there's the fact, that we are basically adults, playing pretend. It's hard to see normality anywhere near the D&D hobby. I'm fine with that. Looking at what's hep these days, I'd rather be a geek. Again, dropping the assassin class from the Players Handbook that those who look down on the hobby won't even read does nothing to help D&D's image problem.

Inside the RPG hobby, D&D is looked down on for a variety of reasons:It's too complicated; it doesn't encourage real character development or real role-palying; most D&D games end up in fractious and backstabbing contests to see who can get the most kewl stuff.

In some ways, the rules for various versions of D&D are more complex than systems that stress simplicity, like FUDGE. Dropping the assassin class doesn't really fix this.

Character development and role-playing are independant of the rules set. D&D can be as RP-intense as Vampire: the Masquerade, and Vampire: the Masquerade can end up in the same tactical swamp as D&D. Dropping the assassin class doesn't deal with this.

Backstabbing is somewhat encouraged by the D&D rules. If your character gets better when he gets a better slice of the loot or kills more monsters, then players who want to advance their characters at all costs will work against the rest of the party. Here's where dropping the assassin class helps, but I think it's a little bandaid on a huge festering wound.

Work Cited:Gygax, Gary. Players Handbook. TSR Hobbies. Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

I'm back, I think

2007-11-10T20:43:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is, but the onset of fall/ winter puts me in a miserable mood, but improves my writing output and quality.

I wrote the previous post in one night. I've got a good pencil draft of my next long subject going. I should have that up in a few days.

Civil War & What's Wrong With Comics These Days

2007-11-07T19:02:00.000-08:00

I recently read the Black Panther: Civil War trade paperback collection. I found it to be an engaging read. I'd recommend it to others who like political thrillers, espionage, and/or superheroes. I also read the Checkmate: A King's Game trade at about the same time. My overall enjoyment and evaluation is the same.

Despite the excellence of these two collections, they seem to perfectly illustrate a trend I don't especially like in comics: the post-90s, post-9/11, grimmer, grittier superhero comics. It probably started in the 80s with grim, deconstructionist superhero tales like Watchmen, Bat Man Year One, Bat Man The Dark Knight Returns, Miracle Man, and, depending on your definition of the superhero genre, V For Vendetta.

It went further in the 90s, with companies finding ways to make superheroes grimmer and grittier by either screwing over their marquee characters (Knightfall, The Death of Superman, Emerald Twilight, Age of Apocalypse), increasing the prominence of or introducing grim, psychotic vigilantes (Lobo, Azrael, the three regular Punisher books plus his guest appearance every month in someone else's title, Ghost Rider and Wolverine's similar omnipresence in the 90s), and turning villains into not quite heroes (Venom, The Thunderbolts).

Now after experiencing a bit of a slow down, the grim superheroes trend has kicked back into high gear again. I can't say it definitely started with Avengers Disassembled, but that seems to be a pretty key point. Since then, Marvel's House of M and Civil War and, on the DC side of the street, Identity Crisis and Infinitie Crisis have kicked it up another notch.

It's not that these are bad comics. They're not. They're intelligent and well written. The trouble is, these comics are too reminscent of the troubles of the real world.

Do I really need to read about a superhero civil war, spured on by a superhuman registration act precipitated by a disastrous explosion that resulted in numerous civilian deaths, when we've got two real wars and are heading for a third, while the nation is deeply politically divided, and the Patriot Act erodes our civil liberties, all precipitated by the real 9/11? No. I want to see the JLA and JSA team up agaisnt the Crime Syndicate of Earth-3. I want the bad guys caught. I want the world to be a bit more idyllic than our own.

I'm also tired of morally ambiguous superheroes. I like superheroes who do what's right. The Powers make them super. Morals makes them heroic.

Apologies

2007-09-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry any fans of my blog, if any. I'm working two jobs now, so I may have overcommitted myself just a bit. I promise to update as soon as I can, but that might not be for a while.

Khyron1144's Sobering Thoughts- August Fast Food

2007-08-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

This is minimally related to the geek culture subject matter that I normally write about, but I figure I owe the audience the wisdom I have acquired over the years.

I have figured this out after many years of going to fast food as a customer and a few years working there.

Great Truth of food service #1:
Unless you are talking an actual gourmet chef, like Bobby Flay or Wolfgang Puck or whoever off Food Network, food service is composed of people not talented, bright, and ambitious enough to be in retail. Consider that next time it takes ten minutes for your pack of gum to get rung, up by the soul-less, brain-dead cashier at Target. The guy who made your burger at McDonald's is probably lazier, stupider, and more apathetic about the quality of his work than her.

Great truth of food service #2:
Fast food is staffed by the dregs of the food service industry.

Great truth of food service #3:
If you have graduated high school and work in fast food, your life is going nowhere.

Final Crisis- Really?

2007-08-21T19:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, so recently DC has let out the "big reveal" that what the series Countdown is counting down to is something that's going to be called Final Crisis.

I liked Crisis on Infinite Earths. I like the old JLA/ JSA crisis crossovers from years gone by. I liked Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis. The cynic in me, though, says that this Final Crisis will not live up to the hype.

For starters, in what way will it be a final crisis? Is it really going to be the last time DC uses the word crisis in a miniseries title? Is it going to kill the DC Universe as we know it? Is it going to mean more Man of Steel and Year One- type retcons?

I guess I should just suspend the cynicism and see what happens. We will be in the able hands of Grant Morrison after all.

Greybeards & Grognards Part 1: Nomenclature and Manifesto

2007-08-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

Greybeards & Grognards Installment One: Nomenclature & Manifesto
ByJustiN Orion Neal Taylor
This is my blog on geek culture, particularly RPGs. I decided on the title Greybeards & Grognards because many of the more well-known RPGs and their rule books have alliterative titles, like Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels & Trolls, Castles & Crusades, or the Fiend Folio tome.

I think that perhaps I might start by defining my terms.

Geek: 1) Traditionally a sideshow attraction of a person biting the heads off live chickens.

2) Now it has come to mean someone who is in some way outside the norms of society, often by virtue of an unusual hobby or interest. Examples include comic book fans, Star Trek fans, those who watch a science fiction television program very regularly, and those who play RPGs.
Grognard: 1) A dedicated wargamer as in the hexmaps and cardboard chits wargames.

2) A wargamer with a tendency to grumble about the upstart RPG hobby.

3) An RPG player who got into a particular game at an earlier generation and is dissatisfied with the current generation, especially one who feels the need to discuss his dissatisfaction regularly. This can happen very fast in RPGs. The rather major D&D 3.5 rules revision came out only about three years after the launch D&D 3rd edition. There are now anti-3.5 grognards who got in at the launch of 3rd edition.

Greybeard: 1) Pretty close to definition 3 of Grognard.

2) Also, the player who has been around forever. This leads to much of the attitude described above.

When I posted this essay earlier on ENWorld, ther was a certain amount of controversy regarding definition number 3 of Grognard, especially in regards to the fact that it was the only definition given at the time.

Now that I've defined my terms, I can now get on with my geek manifesto.

We are here. We are geeks. We are tired of being an underclass.

I believe that now more than any other time in history, geeks have power. The biggest hit that NBC has is Heroes, which is a very geek-oriented show. There's a whole network theoretically dedicated to Sci-Fi. Somebody must have realized that geeks have money.

The troubles we as geeks face are twofold:

1) We're a fractious lot. The comic book guys hate the rennies. The RPGers hate the CCGers. The Heinlein fans hate the Harry Potter fans.

2) Not everybody will admit that they are a geek. Too many say, yeah I'm an adult, and I've read the Harry Potter series, but other than that, I'm normal.

If you have a geeky interest, you are a geek. You may hide it, but you are a geek. Come out of the closet. Admit to your friends and relatives that you are a geek. Look to other geeks for support. Only then can the healing begin.

Stand up and be counted.

The geek shall inherit the Earth.

I am a geek and a greybeard and darn proud of it.

This is not a Review of The Bourne Supremacy

2007-08-12T19:42:00.000-07:00

I saw The Bourne Supremacy on Friday and was considering doing a review. I don't think I've got anything new to say one the subject, though. I would say as everyone else has that the action was intense. The suspense was high, and the political intrigue was well-crafted.

I also don't think I'm going to be the first one to say, that Julia Stiles is an excellent actress and here she is, back for the third time as CIA agent NickyParsons, and they still don't give her enough dialogue.

Review of Puccini For Beginners.

2007-08-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, the greybeard leaves his cave and ventures forth to take in a flick. Once in a while, he feels compelled to write a review, either because the film moved him or because it seems likely to be otherwise overlooked. One warning: the movie is not typical geek fare.
Here goes:

A Review of Puccini For Beginners
Reviewer: JustiN Orion Neal Taylor

As far as I'm concerned this was the perfect post-90s romantic comedy movie. It deals with the tangle of issues related to sexuality and commitment that love theoretically entails for the post-90s crowd, but it makes them funny.

Plot Summary: Allegra, is a writer who loves opera; her best guess is that ten people read her book, but somehow it was nominated for a prestigious award; oh, and she's a lesbian. Samantha is Alllegra's girlfriend who breaks up with her at the start of the movie. Samantha keeps saying she's not a lesbian even though she is in love with and having sex with Allegra; she still has a boyfriend and goes back to him because she wants someone to grow old with and Allegra has commitment issues.

Allegra's friend Molly, drags her to a party to try and meet somebody new. In the midst of binging on the party's buffet to soothe her emotions, Allegra meets Phillip. Phillip is smart and charming and handsome and he read her book.

After a series of accidental meetings and the beginning of a sort of flirty friendship between Allegra and Phillip, Phillip enitces Allegra to go out with him by offering her tickets to Don Giovanni. After the opera date, they have sex.

Afterwards Phillip wants to keep going out with Allegra, but she resists both because she still sees herself as a lesbian and because of her fear of commitment. While dealing with the confusion engenderd by this situation, Allegra meets Grace. Grace is a beautiful straight woman (played by Gretchen Moll, the only actor whose name I can remember from this movie) who just had a bad break up with a boyfriend who was afraid to commit. After a flirty sort of freindship develops between the two of them, they end up sleeping together. Oh, and Phillip is Grace's ex-boyfriend.

And then in the final act: Molly talks Allegra into catering a party with her. The party is the engagement party of Jeff and Samantha, Allegra's ex from the beginning of the movie. And Jeff and Samantha are friends of Phillip and Grace who both end up at the party too...

A bit of an actual review that amounts to more than "It rocked": It was funny. It dealt with gay and straight characters evenly without resorting to stereotype. It ended happily. It dealt with sex in a manner that most people would find reasonably tasteful (i.e. no real nudity and an aboslute minumum of vulgarity). All of those factors combined to make it a movie that I would not hesitate to recommend to anyone that would not be offended by a movie that dares to portray homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle.

I think that's one more area where it succeeds. It manages to be a movie that deals with gay issues without doing it in a way that is confrontational and without unsubtly pushing a social agenda.

I do have to say that as a straight male, certain jokes that got a giant laugh from the rest of the theatre, did go right over my head, but I'm okay with that that. Every group has its own vocabulary and running gags.

Part 2 Who Dies?

2007-08-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

This one is going to seem strange. This is something that I started doing on various gamer messageboards, including my own, ENWorld, The Campaign Builders's Guild, and WotC's. The first in the series, needs a lot of revision before it's ready for sharing. So, I'm starting with the second one.

Grey Beards & Grognards 2 Who Dies (And My Life In Gaming Editions)?
By
JustiN Orion Neal Taylor

I am about 25 years old. I have been involved with the D&D game in some way since about the time I was nine. One of the earliest things that I got into the game with was the Ravenloft Realm of Terror boxed set. I thought at the time that games came in boxes, only being familiar with board games. I eventually also picked up the D&D Basic red box (at a Good Will, no less) and the board game-like version of basic D&D that had a paper dungeon map and heavier paper stock stand ups. I still had no idea what to do with Ravenloft at this time, but had read it backwards and forwards about three times that year alone. Eventually I used the rules in the book with the board game-like D&D set to create a dungeon on a piece of graph paper and had my dad try to play in it. I had no idea how to run an RPG or design an adventure at the time.

Flash forward to middle school and I've picked up the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide. I also met my friend Jarod, who is my only friend from that era I've stayed in contact with. I'm now a better DM, but I still don't understand what makes and RPG different from Hero Quest or Monopoly other than the possibility of playing it with only a graph paper map (no board).

In high school, I discover Vampire: The Masquerade and learn more about the RP aspects of RPGs. I believe there may be some cause and effect there. I run entire sessions of both Vampire and D&D with zero dice rolled and zero rulebooks consulted mid-adventure. I also run both games very tactically on occasion. On a road trip during these years, I pick up copies of the AD&D 1st edition Player's Handbook and Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia (sadly a later printing without the Elric and Cthulhu material).

I'm in my freshman year of college when the third edition of D&D comes out. I eventually acquire all three of the core rulebooks as well as The Creature Collection. It feels like a very different game system than I'm used to, but I still have a blast playing it.

Last year, I picked up an old issue of Dragon from the tail end of the 1e era. It contains the second installment of the Game Wizards column to be entitled "Who Dies?" The two "Who Dies?" articles are about the new 2nd edition of the game that's coming out. There are a number of points raised in the "Who Dies?" articles that got me thinking about how the 1e to 2e changeover may have differed from the 2e to 3e changeover.

Believe it or not, I do not want to start an edition war (for readers on my forum or the CBG and Jerod, this comment is mostly directed at people on the WotC boards). I have my preferences. You have yours. Different salves for different wounds.

One comment made in the second "Who Dies?" article is particularly telling, in my opinion. The author states that 100% backwards compatibility was a major design goal. He then goes on to state that any change from the previous edition will lower backwards compatibility from that 100% standard, so it is not an attainable goal. The highest possible standard of compatibility would be strived for, though. I honestly don't think that this degree of backwards compatibility was a design goal in 3e. This is just my gut feeling, but inverting the AC system and adding a new class that had never been in any version of D&D before (Sorcerer) are moves that don't seem like they fit with as much backwards compatibility as we can get as a chief design goal.

Another point he raises is that certain character classes had to be cut from the current edition, either because of balance issues (Barbarian and Cavalier) or for party harmony reasons (Assassin). He goes on to say such a thing is not that big of a problem for players loyal to those classes because they can be carried over from 1st edition rules, if the group really wants to. This indicates a fairly high degree of backwards compatibility. I believe this to be true. One could play a 1st edition Assassin in a 2nd edition game, if you had a willing DM and a 1st edition Player's Handbook.

It doesn't really work the same way for a 2nd edition to 3rd edition character. There may be a class called Fighter in both games. They might both use d10s for hit dice. They might both have wide access to weapons and armor, but they are not as mechanically identical as they should be to ensure a high degree of backwards compatibility.

If I have a point, and don't assume that because I took the time to type this up in Word and subject it to spelling and grammar checks and email a copy to my best friend and post it on my forum and x-post it here that I have a point, it is this: 3e is a cool game, but it does not maintain enough backwards compatibility to be thought of as essentially the same game as the previous versions of D&D.