BrainWyrms

Star Wars Spock Picard Doll, originally uploaded by Nomad Scry.

Jade spotted this one. She’s not into Star Wars or Star Trek. She still knew better than this craigslister.

Notice that the doll in question is NOT Spock.

Volume 3 ended last week. I haven’t decided if I am going to continue to waste the little bit of time I have on bubble-gum pop with practically no real redeeming value. I do enjoy watching the episodes each week (on Hulu.com) but it seems like the bit that made the first season so engrossing is missing somehow.

So I’ve been trying to work out for myself what it is that is detracting so hard. I mean, they are doing some things wonderfully right. For instance, the amount of story progression made in just a few episodes, sometimes in just a single episode, is a wonderful change from most shows. I love story arcs, but only when they get concluded satisfactorily. Which is, sadly, not what Heroes has been doing.

In one of his books on writing, Orson Scott Card said to reach into your shelf for ideas three times. The first time is a cliché and the second time is a personal cliché. The third time is something new. It feels like the writers of Heroes are only reaching up that first time. The ideas that have been ending up in the final shows are certainly not consistent with the everyday people turned into super humans base concept that the entire series is predicated on. Take the catalyst, the missing catalyst, for example.

Throughout the third volume, everyone has been fighting for control of the two parts of the secret formula. Once the two parts have been acquired, then it turns out that someone has a third part, a catalyst. And the catalyst is hidden in… (duh duh dunn) someone. The fact that it turned out to actually be exactly where everyone knew it was, was disappointing. But when it turned out to be a magical glowing mist, that basically broke the entire world construct. And they did that without a single blink. They reached up to the shelf of ideas and dropped the first one they grabbed into the soup of stories. It didn’t fit this story.

All of this just makes it really hard to continue to justify the time expense that watching Heroes is costing me. At least it is better than Sanctuary. But what isn’t?

(The sad thing is that I will probably end up watching more Sanctuary and more Heroes.  I have no scifi backbone.)

I don’t think this is old news yet, though I cannot seem to find anything in print that confirms what I heard in the latest D&D Podcast.   The closest I can find is a press release from Wizards that says “Organizational change is always difficult on those impacted”.

According to the podcast, the official D&D Podcast, Dave Noonan was let go as part of a restructuring. This annoys me mostly because Noonan and Mearles are basically the forward face of the latest edition of D&D. From what I have seen, 4E was represented by them. They had the answers and the reasons behind the answers. With the amount of crying about staying with 3.5 or moving to new systems, I don’t understand how Wizards or Hasbro could possibly consider it a smart move to get rid of half the friendly intelligent face that Noonan put forth as an ambassador of 4E.

Half the bloody reasons I wanted to get 4E when it came out, and still half the reasons that I want to actually play 4E, are a direct result of listening and reading what Noonan and Mearles had to say.

Gah!

Is it just me, or is the dice rolling mechanism amazing?

My last adventure, my dice rolls were as follows:
2
1
1
5
3
15

Two natural ONES! Aaargh. That’s even worse than my normal real life dice rolling luck.

I am a pathetic fan of the Farscape series.  I’ve been a huge fan since the first episode I saw, somewhere in the first half of season one.  Unfortunately, I moved in the middle of season two and never managed to catch up with the stories.  I would log onto SciFi.com and read the epidsode synopses, but that was never going to be good enough.

Eventually ADV began publishing the seasons of Farscape in a “two episodes per tape/DVD” format.  And I picked up the Pilot on VHS, and eventually the rest of season one, as it came out, on DVD.  I can’t remember exactly, but I think it was around twenty five dollars per release, and something like ten releases just for the first season.  I ran out of money and couldn’t keep up anymore.

And eventually ADV began releasing the whole thing all over again, this time in a “StarBurst Edition” with about seven episodes and lots and lots of extras.  Each season took three releases.  So season one was 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and season two was 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3.  I began collecting these, partially because they were cheaper, but also because I love the extras commentaries.  Of course, I was only able to get one here and another one many months later and sometimes I would forget about Farscape when something else had my attention.

Then last week, while checking on the order status of a gift to myself (Farscape Starburst 2.3), I noticed that Amazon had changed the message in my wish list.  It now said that the manufacturer had discontinued seasons three and four.  Oh dear.  See, the problem is that they had discontinued season one a while ago and I couldn’t afford to buy them… they sell used for a low price of sixty to ninety dollars.  I immediately starting filling my shopping cart with Farscape.

As it is, I ended up spending a hundred dollars on new and used Farscape Starburst Editions.  I was able to get 3.2, 3.3, 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 in new and used copies for between sixteen and twenty-two dollars each.  Unfurtunately, 3.1 was already sold out with no used copies available on Amazon.  When I went home I was agonizing to Jade that I had just wasted money but I vainly tried to self-justify by saying how much I was saving by buying now instead of waiting till each one was extremely expensive.  But I really didn’t buy into my own argument.

Until yesterday.  Farscape Starburst Edition 3.1 is now selling used for ninety dollars.

Now I am KICKING myself for not thinking clearly and pickup up a few extra copies to re-sell.  I knew that the price was going to get jacked up.  I could have made a return of 450%!  I almost never think to sell something, but this time… I really should have.

Oh well, at least I’m going to finally be able to catch up on Farscape, find out what happens in the Uncharted Territories, and maybe see what happens to Crichton and Aeryn… but I still need to pick up the PeaceKeeper Wars for that.

My initial impression of The Dark Knight last night was that I was not disappointed. In fact, I was really happy with it. Which is rather amazing considering just how excited and just how high my expectations were going into The Dark Knight.

Batman Begins is, off hand, my favorite film of the last few years. I haven’t recommended and pushed and watched and re-watched anything else like this since it came out. I’ve really enjoyed a few other movies,  strangely enough including The Prestige, but none to the extent of Batman Begins. So when I say my expectations were really high, I mean they were ridiculously high.

The last time I was half as excited for a new movie was for Jumper. I ended up hearing a review of it on the Totally Rad Show and realized that I was going to be horribly disappointed. So I watched it on video just a few weeks ago and it was so-so okay. Before that was The Bourne Supremacy, where I left the theater almost shaking in rage at the travesty done to The Bourne Identity as a movie and the Bourne series of books. And then there was Riddick. But let’s not go there.

Basically, my point is this; I had, despite my own best intentions to damp down my enthusiasm, reached a disturbing and unfamiliar level of excitation such that I had difficulty stemming my vibrations in order to sleep the morning before. I was literally like a child the night before Christmas. And I was NOT disappointed.

Unlike Iron Man, which apparently was a really awesome movie that I simply did not connect with emotionally on any level, I loved The Dark Knight. (I just have a hard time admitting it.)

<— There may be mild spoilers after the break —>

Read the rest of this entry »

I am finally up to page 26 of the 4E Player’s Handbook.  And so far it feels like a fun and simplified way to get new players and new DMs into the game and running faster than ever before.

It also feels more like a combat simulator/strategy game than like actual role-playing.

Isn’t it cute how they renamed the Bard class to Warlord?  I can actually imagine people wanting to play the class now that it doesn’t bring up burning nightmares of bad poetry.

PenChaft: Although I wish there was more Firefly, I’m glad that it didn’t go so
long as to get as tired as Buffy did.

Then again, if there had been more, there wouldn’t have been Serenity,
which was one of the shittiest pieces of full-length feature shit I’ve
ever had the misfortune to be subjected to.

Nomad Scry: You don’t watch many movies do you? Did you happen to see Riddick? Or The Horse Whisperer? Or … oh what was that fucking horrid movie… Steve Martin in… Novacaine, I think. That was WRETCHED. Serenity was not the best thing ever, but it certainly wasn’t bad. I mean, it didn’t have Jar Jar in it. Or Short Round. It was better than Iron Man. But then again, I just can’t connect to that character, so I am biased. Heh.

PenChaft: Riddick was fine, because I was with a friend and we were laughing at
Eomer’s hair.

I don’t watch films like The Horse Whisperer.

Serenity was just… it was Joss Whedon SHITTING on his fans. It was
one of the most disrespectful films - to the characters as well as to
the fans - that I have ~ever~ seen. ~Also~, the Reaver thing was SO
GODDAMN DUMB.

Iron Man was excellent! Its biggest flaw was a lack of action/srs bad
guys, not TOTALLY RETARDED STUFF HAPPENING FOR A FEW HOURS.

I’ve only seen episode 3 and half of… A New Hope? I think? The Death
Star blew up, I saw that bit.

Nomad Scry: I, uh, respectfully disagree. Riddick was the shitting on fans. Pitch Black was a brilliant film that has held up over numerous visitations. Someday I will rewatch Riddick as a FANTASY movie and it may be okay that way. But, as a sequel to Pitch Black, it is a travesty.

Another shit on the fan movie was The Bourne Supremecy (or whichever the second one was.) The entire premise of the trilogy is Jason/David and Marie surviving each other and surviving together. Killing Marie in the first act of the movie was, according to the director’s commentary, supposed to shake Jason out of the happy complacent place. !!?!?!!!??!! That’s why Ludlum had her kidnapped! ARGH.

Sorry, that one … I walked out of the theater angrily appologizing to Jade for “forcing her to see that pile of shit.” I was livid. Literaly.

Serenities biggest flaw was being predictable. It was telegraphed all over the place. It needed to be. It had to wrap up the entire universe in two hours. Pretty rough road when you just spent (how many episodes in the series?) hours opening the story world up and up… and then two hours to tie all the stories and characters together.

And the Reaver thing… was simply predictable. As long as Whedon didn’t want to introduce straight up magic, that is.

I don’t agree, obviously, about Iron Man. it was pretty. And shiny. Like metal shiny, not like Firefly shiny. But ultimately boring, because I simply don’t give a shit that a molly-coddled uber-rich jackass got pissy and used his inheritence to build himself a fighting suit. What a fucking wanker.

Which is utterly hipocritical of me, I know and don’t care, because I LOVED Batman Begins.

PenChaft: I didn’t view Chronicles as a direct sequel to Pitch Black. It was
more of a… spin off? I guess? in my head.

Haven’t seen any of the Bourne movies.

The Reaver thing’s not predictable, it’s ~DUMB~. When we walked out of
the cinema (I saw Serenity as a special preview screening surrounded
by fellow SF fans) we started dicussing how utterly dumb the Reaver
planet, the Reaver band, the Reaver backstory etc. was. NOT GOOD LOGIC
OR SCIENCE AT ALL ARGH.

But he didn’t HAVE to wrap it all up (and kill it all off at the same
time). He could have just had a glorified episode and WE WOULD HAVE
BEEN OKAY WITH THAT. And it’s not just the plot that annoys me and
makes me think he just didn’t care. There’s no touching on any Jayne
subplot/characterisation, several of their accents were ~horribly~ off
in the first third of the film. OH YEAH, AND THERE WAS ALSO (arguably)
RETCON.

Iron Man was fun! I saw it twice (first time was a free screening). It
was just ~fun~. And they’re going to deal with the alcoholism and
stuff in the next movies, and I can respect their reasons for leaving
them out of the first one, and it was just so ~fun~.

Batman Begins is, however, ~~~THE~~~ superhero origins movie. <3 <3 <3
You might like these videos:
http://greyreviews.livejournal.com/16936.html (also check out the
other I’m a Marvel/I’m a DC, they’re all funny)

I don’t like Superman, though. Now THAT’S a boring character.

Nomad Scry: http://www.epinions.com/review/Superman_Returns_44832383/content_301537005188

That’s what I have to say on Superman.

PenChaft: I’ve never liked the character, and then when I saw that travesty of a
film? UGH. Lex Luther was the only (mild) saving grace.

That kid was such an awful, awful, AWFUL plot device.

Nomad Scry: Did you watch any of that Kevin Sorbo scifi show? Andromeda or something? I don’t think there is much else that could have been done with the Reavers that wouldn’t have simply turned them into the Maggog. Which would have been pendantic and boring because it was just done. (And from the little I saw of it, done well.)

PenChaft: I haven’t, no.

Nomad Scry: One of the neat things about Serenity is that you can very clearly imagine it as the story told over a session of the Firefly RPG. So yeah, some of it is pretty geeky lame… which is what makes it better. Walsh dies, for fucks sake. Why, man, why! Heh.

So I dropped my comics subscription the other day.

And then I found out that the second season of the New Universal comic by Warren Ellis just started up again.

Waaaaaah!  I want my comics.  [pouts]

Today I started doing my comic catch-up reading. I kicked off my pile with Serenity Better Days 1 of 3. I can’t quite comment on the story yet, except that it is shaping up to have the potential for a good tale. What I can say is that the artist, the one with the pencil, is seriously good. I can see Mal and Jayne and well… everyone looks just like they should. I’ve got 2 of 3 lined up to read in the morning, and I’m looking forward to how this is going.

I finally got around to doing my WordPress upgrade AND I got the Akismet plugin going. I was getting really, no really really really really (ad nausem), annoyed with the 60+ drug-bases SPAM comments and trackbacks I’ve been getting on a daily basis.

Why does ‘basis’ look so wrong? Strange looking word, like it’s all mangled up after starting life ‘basic’… maybe merged with ’statis’?

And now, to wrap things up before I head into work, I am watching the new episode of Smallville. Which is nifty keen, but better still is that track that played during the dance scene with Jimmy and Chloe.  I don’t know who or what that was, but I quite enjoyed it and would like to at least hear it again.

I’m looking into the cost of buying a replacement screen for my Creative Zen V.  CASizemore had suggested a link to me a few weeks ago, but I’ve (shockingly) forgotten where that went to.  Right now I am checking out an eBayer with 3 for ~$30.  Maybe next week, especially if I can find a decent walk-through on cracking this case open.  My biggest concern is shattering the case itself.  That’s not something that I know how to go about fixing at all, whereas I am pretty certain I can plug and chug a new screen in.