Saturday, May 14, 2005

Gentlemen Gamers

Then it's agreed. We shall all wear our best suits to the convention. We shall usher in a new era of the Gentleman Gamer, and we will be the leaders of the new fashion.

So let it be blogged, so let it be done.

Friday, May 13, 2005

Mustard

Three Cheers to Jon with the Temp action jackson. I know what you mean about the explaining off long gaps of employment. When I had been out of work for eight months I would say something like... "Uhhhh... I was in suspended animation. I was programming a surprise during that sleep. Chef surprise. Im the Best. F You then."

David is so hard up to go to the Con he is considering driving up himself if Rudy isnt going up. Props to David for trying to make BooblaKhan. It depends on whether or not he can afford to get a new clutch before the drive. His current clutch is not good enough for the drive. He was super interested to play WFRP.

You know Jon, I used to HATE getting dressed up. I just was not into anything other than comfortable beach clothes. In fact, I didnt wear pants a single day in High School. Now I actually like being dressed like I care. Perhaps even stylish.

Bortz F. Bortz
I have job

Well, I picked up a short-term (probably 1 1/2 to 2-month) contract today at Leapfrog (the educational toy company). Who knows if it will lead anywhere or not, but I'm certainly relieved to a) have a source of income to knock down my debt (hard to do on unemployment!), b) have something to put on my resume, c) have something to do besides look at rpg.net and Futurama porn all day (although I'm sure I'll consider these the salad days in two or three weeks). Mostly I'm happy about b) though. My unemployment time was getting towards 7 months, and increasingly awkward to explain.

The only thing is that since this company is in crunch mode, I may well have to do some work on Memorial Day weekend. On the other hand, this won't change much for you guys since I'll simply be doing 10 hours of work in the East Bay instead of 10 hours of work at the convention running Twilight Imperium and Game of Thrones. Bring forth the Jagermeister and Goldschlager!
Damn, that was a long post I made last night.

I have to leave for a job interview in about 45 minutes. Man, I'm really nervous! At least I get to wear a suit. I have a weird enjoyment of wearing suits. Strangely enough, I also do not mind ironing.

I think I'll have a bagel and read some more you-know-what to settle down.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

A Grim World of Chocolatey Adventure

Heh. Glad my purchase brought a smile to your face Eric. As for me, I'm happy that after a year and a half of saying I was interested in the game, saying I was reading the 1st edition rulebook, encouraging you to run Enemy Within for the 10d6 crowd, playing Enemy Within with the 10d6 crowd and having lots of fun (including poor Heinrich's humiliating jig), saying how fun it was and asking you to run it again, saying the new edition of WFRP looked nice and I was interested in it, asking if you were planning on running it, saying that you should run it because it looked fun, mentioning that I liked fun and Warhammer was fun, stealing your dictionary and crossing out the definition for the word "fun" and handwriting in "see: WARHAMMER," and then returning it to your desk with the book open on the new definition for "fun," hiring a plane to skywrite "Warhammer Role Play Is Fun -- Signed Jon" above your house, altering my license plate to "WFRP4ME," legally changing my name to "Jonathan Kislev Funhammer," and mailing you a copy of the new rulebook with the developer's autograph in it, with the inscription, "Your friend Jon told me to tell you that this is pretty fun," that I have in fact apparently finally convinced you that I am willing and excited to play Warhammer Fantasy Role Play!

Hooray, and let the random character generation begin!

As for my copy, it smells like chocolate.

You know that smell Borders has? Not the urine spray in the bathrooms, but in the actual store where there's a faint, sweet smell? For whatever reason, this book is suffused with it. It's neither a good nor a bad smell, just there. I don't know what to make of it.

So far I've read the first hundred and six pages of the book and overall I'm very impressed. Some notes:

1. Very nice art and production values. My favorite touch is the border artwork depicting all manner of monsters, axes, skulls and violence in a style that I would describe as a combination of classic illuminated manuscripts and Sergio Aragones' margin drawings in Mad magazine. This is completely appropriate given the fusion of the old-world aesthetic and grim humor that seems to define the game.
2. Terrific writeups for the careers, skills, and talents. The writing and editing is generally very tight. Very few wasted sentences or filler, almost every line communicates detail about the world. I've read lots of RPG books, and few of them are this well-done.
3. The writeups for the races are short, but well-done. I especially like the foul-mouthed, pie-loving halflings. This is the first game I've ever wanted to play a halfling in.
4. Magic is great in this game. I haven't read all the rules yet, but basically being a practitioner of magic gives you great power, but starts you down a road of Faustian deal-making that in the end is likely to either get you warped by Chaos or nailed to a tree and burned by paranoid villagers. Good stuff.
5. Seems like a lot of complaints online have been about the Bestiary. Actually, I think it's fine for the purposes of this book.
6. OK, two minor downsides. Map of the Empire mostly useless because the binding obscures most of the map = boo. Character sheet not very well-designed, and also not available on-line = boo.
7. But that's it! Overall, lots of "yay's" and only the couple of "boo's." One of the better put-together books I have for sure. I really like the clarity of purpose in the books, and I appreciate the simplicity of the system.

Aaron, what do you think about getting a game together in the next couple of weeks? The intro adventure isn't a barnstormer, but it seems like a good way for me to learn the system, and it's also short enough that we could probably do it in one session. I'm sure I could get one or two of my roommates interested as well.

A Big Bucket of Sloppy Man-jam

I don't know if any of you read Ain't It Cool News with any regularity, but if you do you might find this Penny Arcade strip fairly amusing.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Why I am Happy.

There are so many material reasons that I am happy right now.

- Mike, Ryan and Denis gathered at my place for Blood Bowl! Can you believe it?!?!

- Angel (season 4) rules right now, and Buffy (season 7) ain't to shabby neither! No spoilers plz thx!

- CSI is a good show to watch. The comic is a nice fix in a pinch, too.

- Johnathen Bean Peterson purchased WFRP and even offered to run a game of it. Just let that one sink in for a bit. Let it simmer. Isn't that nice?

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Chronicles of Narnia

I don't know if any of you foos read these books, but I think I am going to take a look at them again. I have not read them since I was a little tyke. The movie is supposed ot be out on Dec 6th. Check out the trailer:

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe High Quality Trailer

I really do not remember anything from the books. I mean I remeber the door to Narnia being in a closet, but that is it.

Rude: What's the word on David and getting a ride to the Con?

D>M>

PS You may need to shorten the name of the trailer file. Seems QT has a bit of an issue with the name on my machine. When I shortened it, it worked fine.
Wow, that ryan guy is kinda an asshole

Pretty bad cartoon jon...

You know I had heard that about Hitchhikers movie. And in a way it sort of makes sense. A lot of the humor in the book is in the descriptions and not necessarily in the dialog. Which means most of the humor is not able to translate itself into the movie unless they had a narrator for most of the movie. But that would probably be silly. Boooo.. Oh well, re-reading the books has been fun.

Two new firsts for the Star Wars trilogy. One: it is the first PG-13 Star Wars movie. Two: It will be the first Star Wars movie not to premiere at the Coronet theatre in SF for its world-wide premiere. Maybe the closing of the Coronet, which has been eminent for several years now, put him a dark mood. Rumor has it he tried to save the theatre to no avail.

D>M>
"I love the lower races, and am at all times cognizant of the White Man's Burden." -- Ryan P. Walsh

Anyone else looking forward to some serious Jar Jar action? Man I really hope he's a little more present in the next movie. I really missed him last time around. Hopefully Star Wars Episode III: Attack of the Clones Part 2 will boast a little more Gungan comedy. Haven't seen him in the previews yet but I think Lucas is playing his cards close to the vest. Like when the Emperor says "Lord Vader -- Rise!" and Vader comes up on the trestle thing? I read a "spoiler" that what really happens is they raise the wrong one and Jar Jar is strapped to it and he says "Meesa no wanna be a dark lord!" Then some super funny shit happens, then after that they raise the correct trestle and it really is Darth Vader on that one -- that's when it gets pretty serious.

I saw Hitchhiker's Guide last night and was pretty disappointed. It just wasn't all that funny. It was more like a semi-amusing way to pass a couple of hours. A chuckle here, you know, a chortle there. But not much more. Although that wasn't the opinion of the middle-aged couple behind me. They would ROAR with laughter and then repeat everything.

"What's your name?"
"Slartibartfast."

"HOOOO HOOOO HOOO! 'What's your name?' 'Slartibartfast!'"

It was really weird. Least funny lines. ROARING with laughter. My theory is that they were big Douglas Adams fans, and also they were on their first date and were overly eager to prove they were having a good time. That's cute. Fuck them.

I conclude this presentation with a pornographic cartoon starring some of your favorite characters!

futurama_NWS.jpg