monday since last post... which makes today... sunday?
Hello campers. Miss me? :o)
I needed a few days to recuperate after Double Edged Sword, partly because so much went on, partly because I was exhausted going into that event and three days with minimal sleep, continuous improv/command decision mode and high-visibility didn't help. Crew were enthusiastic, organisers did wonderful stuff and prop wranglers made us look good doing it. There will even be a sequel as well.
However, I must tip my hat and smile at the refs and the people who made it possible (alabandical ,sm0keyb ) in an event that ran the gamut of weather from sun to snow and some gorgeous night-time hail that looked like it was straight out of a Frank Miller comic, it also ran the gamut of encounters from an intriguing skill challenge or three to all-out-pagga and endless waves of Jaffa.
Next event is in June book early to avoid disappointment.
In other news: viral batteries using nanotech to create positive and negative terminals. They've even started calling them Frankenbatteries; which is just ironic considering no body parts were used in it's manufacture. We didn't know about this for the Kala'ai.
If you don't think poetry can be dark, you need to see this. Edge by Sylvia Plath.
Wanted was not what I expected. The characters (unlikeable as they are) have charisma, there are nice concepts (green Kryptonite contraceptive for the win!), knowing nods to the auteurs and yes, the punchline is one of the funniest I've seen. Yet I've heard a lot of raving about how radical it was and while yes, the idea of a world without heroes is intriguing it just... I don't know... didn't confront basic logic issues like 'why aren't ordinary people getting their armed forces to stomp the out-of-line villains into the ground?' It also commited the cardinal sin of retroactive narrative. You see someone getting his face blown off by a gun and then no explanation of how they get better.
I like the movie more for having read it though - it's not faithful but the core ideas are there and it's oddly faithful to the mood. Weird.
Ronin is an entirely different proposition. It came out while I was at Uni and I never managed to get to read it. Having done so now I wished I had. To say this is the inspiration for Weapon X is possibly an understatement. Miller as a writer has his foibles but this is early Miller so these aren't too obvious. What I particularly liked was how seamless the narrative transition between feudal Japan and the dystopia was and there are levels in this you have to re-read to catch. I'm amazed it came out roughly at the same time as Akira.
And a movie of this would be... magnificent. Zack Snyder are you listening to me? Are you? Do Ronin next. I double-dog-dare you.
This weekend has been a bit of a marathon session - I make no apologies about that. Despite the glorious sunshine I are been mostly helping people out, celebrating birthdays and getting up to general mischief. I've discovered a new tipple - St. Helier's Pear & Blueberry cider which is very smooth indeed (admittedly the gnome hammer squad are having fun right now and the lovely sunshine is doing a very credible skewer through the eye impression) but it was worth it y'know.
I needed a few days to recuperate after Double Edged Sword, partly because so much went on, partly because I was exhausted going into that event and three days with minimal sleep, continuous improv/command decision mode and high-visibility didn't help. Crew were enthusiastic, organisers did wonderful stuff and prop wranglers made us look good doing it. There will even be a sequel as well.
However, I must tip my hat and smile at the refs and the people who made it possible (alabandical ,sm0keyb ) in an event that ran the gamut of weather from sun to snow and some gorgeous night-time hail that looked like it was straight out of a Frank Miller comic, it also ran the gamut of encounters from an intriguing skill challenge or three to all-out-pagga and endless waves of Jaffa.
Next event is in June book early to avoid disappointment.
In other news: viral batteries using nanotech to create positive and negative terminals. They've even started calling them Frankenbatteries; which is just ironic considering no body parts were used in it's manufacture. We didn't know about this for the Kala'ai.
If you don't think poetry can be dark, you need to see this. Edge by Sylvia Plath.
Wanted was not what I expected. The characters (unlikeable as they are) have charisma, there are nice concepts (green Kryptonite contraceptive for the win!), knowing nods to the auteurs and yes, the punchline is one of the funniest I've seen. Yet I've heard a lot of raving about how radical it was and while yes, the idea of a world without heroes is intriguing it just... I don't know... didn't confront basic logic issues like 'why aren't ordinary people getting their armed forces to stomp the out-of-line villains into the ground?' It also commited the cardinal sin of retroactive narrative. You see someone getting his face blown off by a gun and then no explanation of how they get better.
I like the movie more for having read it though - it's not faithful but the core ideas are there and it's oddly faithful to the mood. Weird.
Ronin is an entirely different proposition. It came out while I was at Uni and I never managed to get to read it. Having done so now I wished I had. To say this is the inspiration for Weapon X is possibly an understatement. Miller as a writer has his foibles but this is early Miller so these aren't too obvious. What I particularly liked was how seamless the narrative transition between feudal Japan and the dystopia was and there are levels in this you have to re-read to catch. I'm amazed it came out roughly at the same time as Akira.
And a movie of this would be... magnificent. Zack Snyder are you listening to me? Are you? Do Ronin next. I double-dog-dare you.
This weekend has been a bit of a marathon session - I make no apologies about that. Despite the glorious sunshine I are been mostly helping people out, celebrating birthdays and getting up to general mischief. I've discovered a new tipple - St. Helier's Pear & Blueberry cider which is very smooth indeed (admittedly the gnome hammer squad are having fun right now and the lovely sunshine is doing a very credible skewer through the eye impression) but it was worth it y'know.