For those unacquainted with the role-playing game mentioned in this week's FFN, there's a quick run-down of the basics for Synnibarr (as well as a few other, ah, "interesting" sourcebooks) at the RPG.net Wiki. There are even a few for sale via Amazon at various prices (and it managed to get a three-star review from someone, which seems a tad generous). I first heard of it thanks to this image from one of many motivational poster threads.

It's Christmas Eve Eve, and we're supposed to drive an hour or two on Christmas day, so I fully expect the force field surrounding our city to fail and allow in the blizzard that's supposed to blow through. I think I can say that the holiday has well and truly morphed from what Norman Rockwell envisioned into an event where I include visits with three to six other families (perhaps more, depending on how you count) and my big present is Cristi and I deciding to finally replace our 20-year-old washer & dryer (under mild protest. I mean, if you don't drag the sheets over the rust spots, they work as well as ever, right?). My siblings and I all agree that we won't break our checking accounts buying gifts for one another, but instead we buy either "group gifts" (food & drink) or donate to a charity in their name along with getting their children something fun to play with. However you celebrate or whatever you do, I hope everyone has some fun and safe time off to enjoy a little relaxation and something good to nosh on. And if you somehow think there's not enough stress, you could always decide to hit the malls on December 26th. :)

Or you could buy a T-shirt that I whipped up and somehow forgot to mention: LoLCats, HO!" Somehow, redubbing an episode of "Thundercats" in LoLspeak sounds somewhat intriguing, especially if you could make it seem that the mutants were confused by it and that it was Mum-Ra's annoyance at it that fueled his desire to destroy them. :)

Back to the usual items of interest: I've long told people upset by actors that say things they disagree with to separate the thespian's work from their private lives. Tom Cruise made that very difficult with quite a few well-publicized antics (though one of the remixes that resulted was quite amusing). That said, this trailer for his next film looks like a fun time. He may be kinda messed up off-screen, but he's got talent.

Here's something for the fans of British comedian Bill Bailey and "Have I Got News for You." Last week, Liberal Democrat MP Charles Kennedy was on the show, apparently the first MP to do so after a scandal involving other members of Parliament claiming some rather outlandish things as expenses (I believe the more famous ones were a duck pond, a moat, and a tower on a castle). Anyway, Bill was goading Mr. Kennedy into saying his colleagues were, ah, "less than honest" and suggested it would be remixed on YouTube and become a hit. Well, it's not on YouTube, but the mix does exist (using Bill's voice, samples from previous jokes about monkeys and octopuses, and the show's theme music).

Now I must away to help Cristi wrap [DATA EXPUNGED] for the nephews, so until Christmas Day's posting, here's:

- A bit of "hard" science for fiction to argue over: ten ways to travel in deep space and the physics of space battles.
- A guy decided to see what his cat, Kookoo, got up to during the day, so he put a GPS receiver on Kookoo's collar and compiled a video of the results.
- And since the season is 'tis-ing, from the nuts at "Everything is Terrible," here's The Majesty of Christmas Music. Sanity checks may be required.
- This is the time of year when people forward that text file about how fast Santa's sleigh has to go to reach every house and what happens to him and the reindeer after physics are applied (it's not pretty). So instead, I'm posting what most likely happened to the Ewoks after the second Death Star blew up in close proximity to the moon they were living on.
- Two rather offbeat holiday traditions: watching Donald Duck in Norway on Christmas Eve and watching a a sketch called 'Dinner for One' in Germany for New Years (at least, as of 2005).
- How about a new holiday tradition: Infectionator: Xmas Edition where you can not only generate zombies, but you can try to have Santa join your army of the undead.
- It's all a matter of opinion of course, though what intrigued me about the worst comics of the year (of which this is the second page) is that the winner(?) was a bizarre storyline from the "Mark Trail" comic strip.
- A coffee grinder might seem aggressive enough for many coffee drinkers, but this espresso machine is for those who find Chuck Norris a bit wimpy.
- The Vatican now says that his holiness is now his copyrightedness. Get to those "Pope Rooms" at Buca Di Beppo before they're closed down, folks!
- Artist of engine-driven oddities, Stan Mott would have surely been a huge tabletop gamer. I would love to see a "Car Wars" supplement based on his work. :)
- We end with a game called Space Ace, though it has nothing to do with Don Bluth. It's a flavor of the old vector-graphics "Lunar Lander" games, except you're flying through a maze of tunnels collecting dots while trying not to touch your highly volatile hull against the walls.

The post explaining what this is all about. Oh, and you guys totally rock.
Payment date: 12/23/2009
Payment amount: $405.00
Confirmation number: 09122227482227

I didn't realise until I came out of the cinema how appropriate it was that Avatar be released as a solstice movie. Not that there's anything specific in themes, just... it feels right. My Solstice present to myself, taking myself to the movie.

Howard Tayler mentioned he didn't expect any surprises in the storytelling. He shouldn't, and neither should anyone else, really. Cameron tells old-fashioned SF stories. What makes him special is HOW he tells them, not WHAT he tells.

Avatar is, indeed, FernGully, and Dances With Wolves and goodness, nobody's mentioned it's Lawrence of Arabia. It's also several hundred years of Roman, English and American history (versus the Celts, Irish and Native Americans) - as a sample. No, it's a retelling of some very old story elements, both in and out of the genre. No contempt with this familiarity, though, not from me.

Which is why this virulent, spittle-foaming, pseudo-Christian review puzzles me so much. ( In which Corgi can't help but to comment on several of the more irrationally-stated points in the 'review', and hopes Google might get the comments back to the virulent so-called writer. SPOILER WARNING HERE. )

Back to less stomach-churning considerations, now that I've got that out of my system. You gotta love a movie where the hero is Not Stupid. No, he's not perfect or anything, but he's well-trained, strategically clever and learns from his mistakes. He knows how and where to ask for help when it's needed - which is Ever So Much More Not-Stupid. He's also got a will like a Green Lantern. We have more of Cameron's typical female characters, which means they are A: not typical B: stronger than steel C: doing ordinary jobs and sometimes extraordinary jobs, just like the men.

The cast are all wonderful. Of course that's CCH Pounder! It almost could NOT not be her in that role. Sigourney Weaver looks even more wonderful as a Na'vi, and Stephen Lang is disturbingly charismatic, despite his character's other... 'qualities'. This cast were worked over worked just as hard as Cameron's previous casts; there's a story about how Sam Worthington wasn't able to react physically to an explosion with quite the desired energy, so Cameron whapped him with a big rubber stick at the vital point for the motion-capture to get the right kind of flying-body.

The depiction of the Na'vi themselves is absolutely amazing. Perfect suspension of disbelief, perfectly natural motions - and it's easy to forget how big they are, proportioned like basketball players the way they are. Only seeing them next to normal-tall Terrans does their hugeness become apparent. The translation of the Terran features into a Na'vi face is flawlessly done; everybody still looks exactly like themselves, only... blue and kitty-nosed and pointy-eared. Look carefully - there's a point I didn't quite pick up on while watching the movie that the Pandorapedia shares. The Terran-Na'vi hybrids have, due to their genetic splicing, five fingers and toes at the end of each limb. The native Na'vi have only four of each. (Considering that the predominant animal life, both terrestrial and aerial, are hexapodal - I'm starting to wonder how native the natives actually are. Could they be a seeded race? And are they mammals?)

I confess I went all verklempt when there was applause when the credits started rolling. When was the last time you heard anybody applaud a feature film without it being a special screening?

Good news from the wikipedia article, by the way. Apparently if this does well enough, and I think it will, the Cameron has two sequels in mind. Gods! Where could he go from here? I'd love another visit, though.

And I can't wait to see Green Barsoomians now.

Marmaduke. This is a comic I thought was occasionally funny 'round about when I was eight. Of course, there were no webcomics back then, and if you wanted any graphical representations of humor, you got your folks to buy books for you or you got nothin'. And nothin' was what you got with Marmaduke, pretty much. The premise is that a Great Dane does something outrageous (and that's "outrageous" in a 1950's media sense of the word, the furthest extent of which would be catching a glimpse of a madien's slip as a breeze ruffles her calf-length skirt) in one panel and the humans involved explain why it's funny. However, I'm just an amateur when it comes to explaining Marmaduke, so thankfully someone else does so on a regular basis, as does another someone else.

Why do I bring up a single-panel vortex of un-funny on the comics page? They're making a Marmaduke movie. I'm not kidding. The the trailer is on this page at Slashfilm. And it looks like they're "updating it for a new generation" or something. Either he's going to talk in the film, or this is a "Kangaroo Jack" style trailer where the animal star only speaks in ads. But quality wise, it really shouldn't matter. This film didn't have to be called "Marmaduke," because nobody was out there wishing for Marmaduke to make a big-screen appearance. Any "big dog" character would have had the same effect on the bottom line, the studio wouldn't have had to pay the comic syndicate a dime, and my head wouldn't hurt thinking about the other films that must be in development based on "Barney Google and Snuffy Smith," "The Lockhorns," and "Ziggy." In fact, I can think of several comic strips that would make better movies than "Marmaduke," under certain conditions:

1. The Far Side. Already proven to be watchable in "Tales from the Far Side," this would be the animated movie for families where the grown-ups are nerds and the kids are ones you'd suspect of liking David Lynch if they knew who he was. How it would work: Gary Larson must write it or pick the cartoons used as source material. Further, it's not going to be a huge hit in the box office, but it will sell steadily on DvD forever, like a Monty Python movie. Also, the little 'bits' making it up will circulate on YouTube until the end of time.
2. Calvin & Hobbes. If there's one comic strip just about everyone wishes hadn't stopped, it was Bill Waterson's epic about a boy terror and his imaginary(?) friend, a stuffed tiger. They should have hucked "Dennis the Menace" when looking to the funnies and picked up Calvin, but... How it would work: Give it to Pixar and let them work on it without interference. Send Waterson to them in a locked crate so they can study him at leisure. If anyone tried making this in to a live-action film, it would fail so hard that audiences would be killed by the shrapnel.
3. Bloom County and/or Doonesbury. I put these two in one category for the "how it would work" section. Bloom County was one of the first newspaper strips to start doing things that a lot of webcomics now do on a regular bases: Introducing aliens, mad science, random celebrities, etc. and still making it all work instead of looking like the author is dredging the bottom of the creativity well. Doonesbury, for all the criticism lobbed at it from its political targets, had some really good and poignant runs. Alongside "Snoopy," Zonker Harris was one of my favorite comic characters ever, and I discovered his uncle Duke long before I ever heard of Hunter S. Thompson. How it would work: In both cases, making any kind of movie from this would have to be set in its heyday. That means no post-hiatus Trudeau and no "Outland" Breathed. These are the only projects I could think of that might do better without their authors, allowing directors who are fans of the features in their prime to do stories set in the 70's and 80's using the casts of these features.

And of course, there are loads of webcomics out there that deserve a whole string of feature films more than Marmaduke does, starting with Girl Genius getting a three-picture deal with Peter Jackson directing.

The second movie trailer I saw that crushed the other half of my soul was the one for 'Cats & Dogs 2.' The first film looked like it was almost a good idea which got saddled with lame jokes that sounded like they came from a Disney "made for our cable channel" movie with voiced-over puppies. The sequel appears to not only continue the trend, but seems, in spots, to suffer from a lower budget. I can pick out several "stuffed animal we're supposed to think is real" shots, and they re-use the "my owner is a crazy cat person" gag for the villain... again. But at least its a "new" franchise and not a remake, I suppose. And the writers (or maybe just the guy who came up with the title) have seen at least one classic James Bond film...

But all is not gloom and doom. I listen to very little music radio anymore, and when I was doing so recently, I heard a rather jaunty tune on a local "alternative" station (which they do tend to live up to; they don't sound like anything else on my dial, but I do live in Kansas City, so there you go) called "Fireflies." It's a synth-pop feel-good piece of bubblegum, and so I thought I'd share. Looking it up on Wikipedia, I saw that it had been a top Billboard hit, so I'm probably quite late to the party, mostly because I've been busy chasing kids off of my lawn. In hunting down the video, I also came across a one-man acapella version that was pretty decent as well.

I just realized that I've been very lax in getting new issues of ps238 up in the store, and that'll be rectified sometime tomorrow. In other comic happenings, I'm informed that North 40 was nominated for an award at Comicmonsters.com, with voting starting in a few days if I read the site correctly. The juxtaposition of the nominees' subject matter with the festive season doth please my ironic bits. I think if you win, you're given the soul of one of the other contestants... or a night's stay in a haunted asylum. I wonder if there's a cash equivalent? :)

While I hire a witch to help with the voting (what could go wrong?), here's some mystic portals to other realms:

- I'm a special effects nut from way back, starting with Ray Harryhausen and blue screen. But it's almost scary how often new techniques are used in seemingly mundane scenes. This is to preface you for this demo reel from Stargate Studios, showing how often their talents come into play in popular TV shows and movies.
- Even though his colleagues have been calling him "Sir" for some time, Patrick Stewart is to be knighted. Would that make him Sir Captain, Sir?
- A British court has ruled that Stormtrooper costumes from Star Wars aren't "sculpture," which enjoys 75 years of copyright, but "industrial design" that only gets 15 years, which means the guy who designed the helmets in 1976 can keep doing selling them.
- Way of an Idea is a puzzle game where the goal is to foster an idea in the head of a scientist by guiding an apple in its descent towards his head.
- Impressive stop-motion animation in Western Spaghetti.
- The "Snuggly" blanket-with-sleeves was apparently involved in a road accident with Underoos and they couldn't figure out which part went where.
- Penny-Arcade is getting started on what appears to be a short holiday series, though it's a little Illithid for some tastes.
- A classic ice-cutting-to-save-vikings game gets another installment in Icebreaker: The Gathering.
- Who knew the use of a tape measure could be a superpower? I think he may have found inspiration from a classic XKCD strip.
- Try your skills at Eeniebounce: Bounce your smiley face, collect all of the stars, and rebound off of numbered and colored platforms a specified number of times to progress. It's harder than it looks.
- And we close with something for all you holiday bakers out there (myself included): Gourmet magazine's favorite cookie recipes from 1940 through 2008.

Thank you, the two of you who've helped already! I'll be updating this as appropriate.

I'm putting this here so I only really have to explain once, and just leave shorter posts with the link here elsewhere.

( A long story about tumours, trips to Gainesville in the dark, cars full of dogs and desperate funding. )

( LLADRO STATUARY FOR SALE )

Today is the Winter Solstice. YAY! The days will start getting incrementally longer. WOO HOO!!!!

I wanted to mention the sunrise this morning. I was driving in well before dawn and was able to see the first colors of the new day creep over the Bergstrasse Odenwald (high elevations in the area). Washed out pinks and some purples. It was rather nice. It almost made up for the black ice that was all over the roads today.

Yes, the driving conditions were pretty bad while I was on my way to work. Crossing the Main River I hit a patch of black ice and slid a little ways. Luckily I was not going very fast and was able to get it right back into control. I slid again a few miles later but again, not too bad. The other occupants of the Autobahn with me came in two distinct categories. Those that would go 40km per hour and those that would go 200km per hour. I saw quite a few of the latter in the ditches, trees, and fields not long after they passed me.

It’s been snowing for the past few days and looks like it will continue until next Saturday. The kids get their White Christmas! I’m just hoping for a WARM Christmas. :D Speaking of which we are all ready to go for the kidlets. Christmas eve we’re having the Reuben Sandwiches that are customary in my family. Christmas Day we have a turkey and all the fixings. I’m hoping Malinda's gift gets here before the day but if not, I’ll wrap a picture of it and put that under the tree. Which reminds me, I need to pick up a bottle of wine.

Saturday was the 'Super Saturday' here in the European Icebox. Malinda and I gleefully dropped off the kids to play and made our escape!

Since we were unable to attend a function recently I figure that Malinda and could go play tourist at a German Christmas Market. So we headed across the Rhine to Mainz and drove around until we found parking near the Dom (German for Cathedral). We took an elevator up from the depths of the parking garage and appeared in a pedestrian mall. The first thing I notice is the electronic sign telling me it was -7 degrees Celsius. YEOWTCH! I, of course am bundled in my long coat with scarf, gloves, and Ushanka (Russian hat). Malinda is rather less well dressed. Seems she forgot her gloves and hat. Or rather, say they grew legs and walked off in the house. Things have a habit of doing that in our place...

Anyway we wander around a bit and see some WONDERFUL things; wooden ornaments, spices, FOOD, and some ABSOLUTELY gorgeous glass critters. There was a glass dragonfly that I wanted to get Malinda but it wouldn't survive at our house. Too delicate. So after wandering a bit, Malinda and I head over to the Dom (as it is warmer than outside). The were having a concert of religious Christmas Music. Wonderful sounds of a choir in a cathedral. It is easy to see how music had such an affect on the liturgy. The acoustics were amazing. We listened for a bit and warmed up then went back out into the cold and looked around a bit more. Mostly by this time we were looking for a restaurant. In our search we stopped and got Malinda a new hat and pair of gloves. :D That vendor was doing a BOOMING business. We found an open restaurant and we went it. It was a Doner place. A Doner is kinda like a gyros but Turkish instead of Greek. And it is very good. We had a couple and some hot tea.

After we ate we went back out into the cold and looked around a bit more. Then we decided that we had had enough and found our car and headed back across the river. We hit a couple more stores and went back to the house to warm up and relax before we went to get the kidlets.

We picked up the kidlets and took 'em home and fed 'em and put 'em to bed. Just in time for the babysitter to show up. Yes, we FINALLY found a babysitter! WOO HOO!! Why did we need a babysitter? Well, one of my Co-workers was having a get together at his place. We went and have a great time. The food was wonderful and the company most congenial.

We made it home about 10ish and fell into be.

We had two dates in one day. Not bad says I!

"Honey Maid" has turned on us. Like all people getting up in years, the Maid is getting smaller. This might seem an odd thing for me to harp on, but wifey-poo has this great (and incredibly simple) recipe for toffee bark, (minus the nuts, sometimes with cinnamon) and it calls for graham crackers as its "crust" (she's also a "name brand" shopper, so it might take surgery to switch her to another crispy carbo), which was fine... until this year. The old crackers, about 1/8 of an inch wider, fit perfectly in the rimmed baking sheets we were wont to use. Now, cracker surgery has to be performed to get a "wall-to-wall" fit, which just adds to the stress of holiday entertaining. Were this a recipe where one could scarf raw cookie dough as an emotional salve, that would be one thing, but these are graham crackers: they need other stuff to be edible*. So Nabisco had better fess up and fix this problem or the torrent of complaints will no doubt destroy their baked-good empire.

* after you reach a certain age, that is. Kind of like how you stop eating vanilla wafers unless they're used as a topper for some kind of viscous pudding-based organism.

Sorry. Sugar rush. Too much peanut brittle (on sale near every freakin' cash register for a buck a box... right next to the chocolate covered cherry cordials. I'm doomed). Anyway, since I'm having to fend off addiction, I've got something that could return long-vanquished monkeys to a few backs. Among the computer game deals I saw this week was one from "Good Old Games," the place I acquired the first two "Fallout" titles: You can get a metric ton of Might & Magic for about twenty bucks. Somewhere, in my deep past, are the graph paper maps I made for the original M&M game on the Commodore 64. I even used colored pencils to denote which part of the map was mountain, which was forest, etc. I loved that game, as it was about as close as you could come to D&D on the computer back then, but also because it didn't try to steer you away from danger. The whole world was open, pretty much, and my 6th level party happened upon a dungeon that led to some kind of major demon convention. I got to read the room description right before they wasted every one of my characters (probably for not having a pre-reg 4-day badge). I also recall wondering why my cleric, who I had casting "raise dead" spells every other minute, kept dying in his sleep, requiring me to hit the nearest temple. Apparently, there's a cost for bringing people back from the grave, and my formerly youthful holy man was now over a hundred years old. I remember thinking that was kind of awesome. Then I made more maps, and I don't remember much else until "Doom" came out, I think...

And speaking of games, the holidays have hit the two superhero MMOs. In the City of Heroes Winter Event, all of the old classics are back (snow beasts, candy cane collection), and so is the skiing. That dratted ski slope was something I just couldn't get the hang of, even when playing late at night where nobody could see me eventually miss a curve and plummet to my super-doom.

Over at "Champions Online," they've got an event that shares roots in CoH (large boxes you open that usually earns you an attack from something lurking within) but with an hourly-spawning villain (hourly for the whole "world." Players monitor several feeds to find out which instance the master bad guy has appeared in) and action figure pieces to collect. Unfortunately, as there are five or so figures players want, and they all have three pieces, and the pieces are hard to come by, the chat window scrolls by like the ticker on CNN crossed with an auction house Twitter stream. More disturbingly, it appears to snow indoors in some places. There are "charities" your player can support by giving up game cash, and some heroic players are donating to real-world charities for each "gift" you send them via the game's e-mail system. Some of the aforementioned boxes give you items like a Holiday CD or a pair of Festive Socks, and they can be donated to raise actual funds for causes. On a geek-reference note, I was delighted to see that the "Matching Pen and Pencil" item has "just the thing I need, how nice" as it's description. I love that song.

Back to movies and "livin' the dream." A while back, I linked to a short film shot by a budding filmmaker in Uruguay who showed alien spacecraft and robots demolishing buildings and generally getting all 1950's invasion in everyone's face. That tale has a happy ending as Sam Raimi has hired the kid to make a $30 million feature film! Also from the same alert reader (thank you, Mike!), Stephen King will let you option any of his short stories for a dollar, provided you're an aspiring filmmaker or student. Any future Frank Darabonts in the house?

So now that you know to ask for a high-def camera equipment for Christmas, let's look at what the 'net has for us this weekend:

- Need to make a stocking stuffer and you have extra yarn lying around? How about crocheting a 'Yip-Yip' Muppet alien?
- What's the weather like where you are? No, I mean, what's it like in 'Star Wars' terms?
- The new "Star Trek Online" game has Zachary Quinto lending some of his vocal talent.
- Speaking of "Star Trek," no longer can the show be ribbed for always dismantling the communicators in the first ten minutes, because (language warning) just about every movie and TV show does it now.
- A fast-paced simple (yet sometimes challenging) time-waster: Obey the Game. Try to pass a hail of mini-games where you either follow the instructions or do the opposite, depending on what you're ordered to do.
- A rather amusing list of (probably college dorm-based) 4th edition D&D spells. I especially like #56.
- "Lipdub" films, of massive numbers of people lip-syncing to a song, are nothing new... unless you filmed the whole thing in reverse. Whoa.
- It's "Spot the Difference" time with Goldilocks: Twisted.
- A classic sci-fi remake ("Day of the Triffids) and it's got Eddie Izzard with a gun? This had better be on BBC America or there will be a terse letter or two!
- And just because I like flying saucers, here's a game called Moo Beam. Guide your flying saucer to the next cow to abduct without flying off of the screen.

This made its way into my email this morning and I thought I'd share.


****************( Read more... )

<3 ZzZzZzZz... --Kaja <3

Well the visit last night was relatively painless. :D Another month down. :D

Got the Armor vest completed last night. The pictures are below the cut. ( Read more... )

And dat’s all from de village of Skagnir. Yah, Shure, Youbetcha!

So I'm starting this festive holiday book called "Death Troopers," which, given the current trends in horror fiction, is probably about Star Wars Stormtrooper zombies in some fashion or other. I'm only a few chapters in, and I've noticed a few things:

1. I wish they hadn't named one of the main characters "Trig." I'm a bit of a news wonk, and I can't help thinking his mom was the former governor of Alaska. His last name is "Longo," which doesn't help, either.
2. Star Wars seems to be the last refuge for people trying to toss off comparisons that go "that's like a [planet]ian [made-up word] [animal name] trying to eat a [planet]ian [made up word] [animal name]" with a straight face. And that sounds about as natural as a Pelemaxian Tentacle Bird trying to eat an Atrisian Shredder Bat.
3. Nobody swears in Star Wars, even if the story takes place on a prison ship. The exception is when an alien says something in non-whatever-passes-for-English, and the best you get is a clinical description of what is supposed to be inserted where.

Geeky-snarking aside, it seems to be coming off as a decent "popcorn movie" novel. Nobody has even mentioned the Force yet, and if it (and the Jedi) are left out of the picture, I think that'd be kind of refreshing. I just hope we aren't going to see a follow-up novel, "Sparkling Vampire Troopers."

In other sci-fi stuff, i09 has listed its 20 greatest SF movies of the past decade, and I did enjoy a lot of 'em, especially "Primer" and "Serenity." I would have included "The Man From Earth," as well. And quite a few on that list are "sci-fi to varying degrees," but actual science fiction is hard to sell. I think the last hard sci-fi films (or at least, the less fantastical ones) I can recall were "Gattaca" and "2010," the latter of which still remains one of my favorite films. It's also fun to see who starts getting uncomfortable listening to John Lithgow hyperventilate while spacewalking over Io. :)

The trailer for "Iron Man 2" was just released, and I think Marvel's got another winner on its hands. I will say I'll be interested to see how "Whiplash" (the guy who turned Tony Stark's race car into a modular vehicle) gets around. That's a big thing with superheroes and supervillains: Transportation. Especially in this case, if you can't really disguise yourself instantly and you don't have a fast getaway, how do you expect to last more than however long it takes for the first cop with a gun to show up? Even if you do leave, what's to stop you from being followed? We kind of give Batman a pass at this kind of stuff, because he's wonder-rich guy with super-high tech that can stop people from following a highly conspicuous car and what have you. But shirtless Russian guy with electric streamers should have a clever plan to vamoose, even if Iron Man doesn't have his armor handy.

There's also a new "Clash of the Titans" trailer. While it still follows the heavy metal concert theme, has a three word "slogan" embedded in it, and at times looks like two or three different movies, I have to say the design for the Kraken is pretty darn cool-looking. I wouldn't have minded that thing being the Cloverfield Monster.

And then there's "Robin Hood," or "something that looks a lot like the last King Arthur movie meets Gladiator." The trailer sets this up as "the story behind the legend," which seems to be code for "guys on horses with swords, yelling and chopping bits of each other off, set to rock music." Though in retrospect, rock music is preferable to Bryan Adams, I think.

I'll most likely be catching "Sherlock Holmes" on Christmas day with the other "kids" at our family gathering, and I'll dutifully report my findings. Until I can make it to 221 Baker Street, we've got:

- If you like things traditional and old-fashioned at your holiday meals, and you have less-than-perfect relations with your relations, here's some tableware that might come in handy.
- Nature, though sometimes seemingly cruel, can be quite the entertainer: It offers us octopuses who use coconut shells.
- I ran across some new interpretations of the Portal song, "Still Alive": First, version that sounds like a pop ballad, the other a techno remix by Raddox. Both YouTube links have info on getting free mp3s of each track in their extended info sections.
- Almost like a harbinger of the upcoming "Epic Disney" game, here's a collection of photos from 'River Country', an abandoned section of Walt Disney World, closed since 2001.
- From Adult Swim games comes Mountain Maniac. You're a crazed mountain man, using your hammer and (slightly steerable) falling boulders to cause as much destruction as possible.
- There are some out there who have gotten away with avoiding mandatory dress codes for too long. Next, we have to make them wear proper boots in bad weather.
- I'm not sure how "free" is defined here, but Steam appears to be offering Team Fortress 2 for free this weekend.
- How do silent medieval monks sing for Christmas shows? Quite creatively, it seems.
- Nerd-rapper MC Frontalot is quitting smoking, using a most unique method based on D&D.
- Shooting, physics, and removing blocks are all a part of Blosics. Knock as many blocks off of the screen as needed to pass each level, but watch out how many shots you use, as each costs you points.

So in a fit of ‘Insufficient Reluctance’ I am the new Seneschal of the Barony of Knights Crossing. :D It was an interesting meeting. Eventually it came down to Graf Maximillian and myself as the final candidates. We kept singing each other’s praises and finally had to resort to the most impartial method of all for choosing. No, we didn’t go fight in the parking lot, though we did consider it. We flipped a coin. Best 3 out of 5. I won/lost. :D I am still not sure I’m happy about it, but will do the best I can for the position. The up side to this is I am no longer Marshal!

We have Mormon ‘Home Teachers’ coming over tonight. This is starting to get problematic. They can’t come over unless I am there (Church rules about visits, etc) and I really don’t want to hear about it once a month (the home teaching schedule) whether I need to or not. I like most of ‘em as individuals. They are nice people, don’t get me wrong, but as Heinlein put it, “One man’s religion is another man’s belly laugh.” But I’ll put up with it for Malinda’s sake. :D

I do plan on working on armour tonight. Hopefully I get more done so that I can start using it. Gotta make some swords and finish up the strapping on the shields as well… Hmmm… How did I get so far behind…. :D

I went to the APO today (for those non-military it is the Overseas Army Post Office -Hence APO) and Malinda got a package so big I could NOT fit it in the car. It was the corner desk she had ordered from JC Penny several weeks ago. I had to take the stuff out of the box and piece it into the car. Guess I may be putting together a desk sometime soon...

And dat’s all from de village of Skagnir. Yah, Shure, Youbetcha!

<3 Today we finally saw the last of the mountain of pre-ordered books off to the Post Office! Thank you to all of our helpers, and to the wonderful customers who were so patient with us. Whew. --Kaja <3

We’ll do today’s entry Liam Style!

1. First, my apologies. No pictures of armor today. I got about a quarter of the work on it done when William woke up. As it was 8:30 and I didn’t foresee him going back to sleep before 10, I took him on to bed. :D Soon, though, I’ll have ‘em up. For me if nothing else… :D

2. I won’t be able to work on it tonight as I have a meeting to help figure out who is going to be the next Seneschal of our Barony. I am one of the candidates but we will see.

3. This coming Saturday is ‘Super Saturday’ so Malinda and I have 6 hours to ourselves. I have this cunning plan on what to do…. :D

4. Malinda has been inspired to a project. She’s going to make me a new fighting tunic utilizing some designs from the Oseberg Cart as decoration. I’m mildly frightened… :D

5. Checked on my GI Bill stuff last night. I am waiting on the Postal Service to bring me a Certificate of Eligibility so that I can submit MORE forms and possibly get funds disbursed sometime this century. Yeah, Good luck with that…


And Dat’s all from de Village of Skagnir! Yah, Shure, Youbetcha!

Everyone thank Alert Reader Michael for inquiring about a 2009 holiday card. Thanks to his prodding of my feeble brainmeats, it has been forged and awaits downloading and printing to fulfill its purpose. Sorry for them being so late in the season, but they do make great gift tags, too, right?

Speaking of the holidays, I noticed a couple of oddities when out looking over deals sites. As a sure sign that our technological advances are misplaced (and that money and taste don't necessarily go together), I've come across these wall-mounted gel-fueled fireplaces a couple of times. Granted, were I still working in a cubicle, I'd probably get one for the ol' office, provided I had a written guarantee it wouldn't set off the sprinklers. And really, if we've finally made fire you can hang on the wall, where are my torch sconces?

Also, there's "Tony Hawk: Ride." For those unfamiliar with this item, it's a video game that simulates skateboarding via a skateboard that interfaces with your game console. This game has also taken a royal drubbing on almost every review site, the critics pointing out its overly sensitive sensors (that can be set off by pants cuffs or nearby furniture), difficult gameplay, lackluster locations, and a pretty high price point of $120. One deals site I look at can give an impromptu chart of the game's decline into bargain-bin territory in very short order, falling to as low as $70 in under a week.

But speaking of games, many sequels had trailers come out on the intertubes, including "The Force Unleashed 2." I liked the previous installment because (1) it had a good story, (2) force lightning, (3) tossing stormtroopers, (4) and force-lightning stormtroopers and tossing their bodies into other stormtroopers. So while another chapter in this troubled young man's life is welcome, I would like to see fewer quicktime events. For those unfamiliar, the game would give you a major opponent, like a Jedi master. To defeat him, you'd do the usual action-game stuff of running around, using your light saber and force powers to do damage, sometimes playing some kind of timing game with a background obstacle (say, dodging a giant plant-monster's swinging tentacles). But when you got near the end of the fight, the game turned into "Dragon's Lair" where you had to press the right buttons at the right times to execute a series of moves that have nothing to do with the controls up to this point. The idea, I assume, was to give a dramatic send-off to your foes, but if you screw up, your enemy gets some health back and you have to wear them down all over again. Also, like a lot of games that give you some kind of "choice," in this case to be on the Light Side or the Dark Side, the sequel has to pick a decision for you to continue the story. I'm kind of reminded of the old "Clue" movie on video tape that came with three endings. I'd be highly amused of "Force Unleashed 2" started off with "it could have happened this way..."

Now I have to get back to clearing space for the Christmas tree (and hucking an aquarium. Look for it cheap on Craigslist soon) which, for some reason, involves moving a piano. While I interact with tinsel, here's some other shiny objects:

- Have you ever wondered what a live-action Simpsons opener would look like in Estonia? We have some good news for you...
- I might actually watch Wimbledon if it adopted a similar theme.
- Attention TV show makers: enough with the 'enhance the image' stuff. You can't pick a face out of a pixel, so just stop it.
- Though I'm sure this game was for Halloween, here's Roly-Poly Monsters. Use your bombs to destroy every roundish creature on the screen in puzzling ways.
- There's something wrong with advertising in America if we're missing out on cereal commercials like this.
- As was pointed out in the comments last entry by Loswick, there's a new Simon's Cat episode! Sadly, it's only first part of a 2-parter, but still...
- The blogger behind "Serial MMOgamy" has had her Lord of the Rings Online account suspended for quite vague reasons, indeed. I haven't seen customer service that heartless since trying to convince a Texas utility that I lived in another state and didn't owe them money.
- C'thulhu loves his Mr. Potato Head. Perhaps a noggin of hollow plastic is the only one he can be himself with and not drive it to madness...
- Arcanorum awaits! Pilot your medieval helicopter with smashy-arm, swinging it around to destroy all who oppose you!

It’s been a busy busy week. Mostly for Malinda though. Being the PTO President and the Den Leader for the Cub Scouts has the potential for messing up your schedule. Especially since I had to work extended hours last week in support of an incoming project. It was overtime so THAT’s a good thing – the last couple paychecks have been rather thin. My company pays for Richard’s tuition to the DoDS School but counts the $24,000 as income. Apparently they have to get the taxes on that income paid before the end of the year. Luckily they spread it out over three paychecks so that the pain lasts longer….

But the thing of most importance to me (probably not to you, though) is that I was working on Armor yesterday! WOO HOO!!!!

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And dat’s all from de village of Skagnir. Yah, Shure, Youbetcha!