How It's Going

I was thinking about Adventure #3 recently (good sign, it probably means that I will want to work on it again soon, though I'm not promising anything). I realized that I didn't like my original plan, and that might have contributed to why it became less fun and more work for me.

Now I have a much better idea of where I want it to go. If I can pull it off, which remains to be seen, I think that it will be the best one yet.

I just wanted to post to let people know how things were brewing.

If you previously read this blog, and you miss my random thoughts (and how could you not), I am posting daily at www.fatassceliac.blogspot.com. You can skip over the food and exercise parts, probably most people do.

Eat Less and Exercise More, FATASS!

Edited to move this post to My Fat-Ass Celiac Blog.

As far as Adventure #3, I have the first few scenes written, but, as this is purely for my enjoyment (and to learn HTML), I only write when the mood strikes me, and I just haven't felt it much recently. So, if anyone does happen to be excited about #3 coming out, I apologize for the wait.

Diskwars

I am thinking about setting up a forum for Diskwars on my site. It seems that every other site is either dead or very dead. I play about two to four times per year when I get together with my brother, so I don't have an active community, but I don't want it to completely die out.

Generally when we play, we pull random disks out of a bag and draft them, and we recently decided to try to re-cost some of the disks to make them playable. I know that a long time ago I saw something like a "great re-costing" where everyone came together to balance the disks. Unfortunately I can't find the copy that I made, or anything about it online, anywhere. If anyone reads this and has any information on that, please comment or shoot me an e-mail. Also, if anyone would want to see a live Diskwars forum, let me know that too, it might hurry along the process.

As one of the old Diskwars sites had as their motto...Cry Havoc and Let Flip the Pogs of War!

Prenzie Players

My wife and I went to see the Prenzie Players performance of Trojan Women last weekend, it was another very good performance. The play is a Greek tragedy about the Trojan women after the battle that takes the city of Troy. It fully lives up to being called a tragedy. Things are bad and they just keep getting worse.

I especially want to note the outstanding performances by: Scot Gehret (The Greek Messenger), he sold me on his horror at the terrible things that he was forced to do. Stephanie Moeller (Cassandra, the Oracle) she mesmerized with her prophecy and dance scenes, and probably got to play the most fun role of the group (I don't know why I think playing a slightly insane oracle sounds fun to me, it just does). Finally, Dee Canfield (Hecuba, Queen of Troy) gave a chilling performance of anguish at seeing everything in her life brought to ruin. Her final scene gave me chills.

Very well done by the director, sound & lighting, actors, and staff. As enjoyable an evening as one could expect from one hour of pure tragedy. If you like Shakespeare (and sometimes other classical plays) I highly recommend going out to one of their performances if you live in, or around, the Quad Cities. If you think that Shakespeare is boring, then let them prove you wrong.

We also tried to go to a current version of Oedipus Rex at Harrison Hilltop Theatre yesterday, but they were sold out and it was closing night. We thought that there would also be a performance on Sunday, so we weren't overly concerned about calling ahead to reserve tickets. I suppose that we will have to check more carefully in the future. We haven't gone there before, but it looks like a nice place to go, and the people at the door who shattered our dreams seemed friendly.

For those of you wondering about Adventure #3, I have the nuts and bolts finished up (i.e. the encounters and how I want them to go), but I still have to make everything sound pretty (or, at least, as pretty as I can) and code it, so it will still be a while (I won't give a time frame, because, if I have learned anything from GRRM, it is that you never ever post a release date).

Dollhouse Renewed Officially for Season Two!

Effin' A. Effin' Friggin' A.

Dollhouse 1:13 not airing!

Well, I recently found out that episode 13 from Dollhouse will not be airing on Fox. This is the episode that Felicia Day was going to be in, so it is extra disappointing to fans of The Guild. It was a stand alone, and it will be on the DVD, so the content will eventually be out, but the real concern is that if they won't put this episode out, then what are the odds that they renew for season 2? They say that this decision is independent of that, and maybe it is, but I am concerned that fox is going to kill another phenomenal show before its time.

We can always hope that another channel like SyFy will pick it up, perhaps cable is a better fit for the show anyway, since the network would exert less control, and the ratings bar would be lower. So, even if fox does get rid of it, we still might have hope. Unfortunately, here is an interview with Whedon that seems to imply that he won't be moving to cable if Fox doesn't renew.

EDIT: Upon learning of Dollhouse's possible fate, I looked up Legend of the Seeker and found out that it was renewed for season two. So that, at least, is good news.

On a less depressing note (I suppose that that is ironic), I just watched the Wrestler yesterday. I can watch several episodes of a TV show in a row, but movies I almost always need a break from in the middle (for example, Wall-E was a good movie, and short, but I watched it in two sections). The highest praise that I can give the Wrestler, is that I sat down and watched the whole thing in one sitting (well, I did speed by some of the blood).

Character Sheet (and more)

I have now put up my one-page one-sided character sheet on the *NEW* downloads page. In addition, I have also put up downloadable jpegs of the maps in the first two adventures. It feels good to get back to work on the website after a tax-season long break.

I have several things I hope to get accomplished on the website this summer, including Adventure #3, setting up a facebook fan page (woooo!), and numerous small things that I think will improve the site. Feel free to comment or e-mail me if you have any suggestions.

Exhausted

Well, I have things to say, but I am unable to put them intelligently right now, I just wanted to post something since it has been a month. Fortunately, April 15th is just 11 days (9 working days) away.

I made a one sided character sheet for 4E that I should add to my webpage soon, along with a downloads tab to find it.

I saw an online advertisement for Krod Mandoon on comedy central, and it looks like it could be funny (or terrible), so hopefully I will be able to add that to my list of shows to watch.

I'm out, I have my day off tomorrow, and I need it.

Did I fall asleep?

First things first, Tax season is now half way over, I am getting closer to having my normal life back! I should have time to design more adventures after April 15th. I'm just glad that I could finish up the second one before it started to get really busy.

Legend of the Seeker continues to please. I am now to the point where I have almost accepted the premises that are completely different than the book. Now I can enjoy it for what it is. The last episode was quite the sexy one. Hopefully we will get to see those two crazy kids get together in the future.

I was not a big fan of the first episode of Dollhouse. Frankly I felt like I was wasting my (precious little) time watching it. I don't know what it was, maybe my expectations were too high. The second episode, however, I really liked. Her date was pretty creepy, and the knowledge that the ...um... 'employees' can be hired out for pretty much anything without really understanding what they are doing bothers me more than a little. I like it. I also like the tag line after they get wiped, as you can see in my title.

Finally, I saw this picture. Now I realize that it is probably an old picture that most people have seen before, but I saw it for the first time a few days ago. Looking at them separately, even in the same picture, he looks very large, and she looks very small. However, when I could bring myself to focus on them at the same time, I just found it hard to believe that they are even of the same species. It is like one of the Nephilim standing next to an elf. Seriously, his hand looks like it is the size of her torso.

Gotta go take videos back. Tropic Thunder and Ghost Town both better than I expected. You'll have to ask my wife about the Bollywood ones.

Busy

Well, unfortunately, I've been very busy and unable to prettify my words in Adventure Two yet. I am an accountant, so I don't have a lot of free time right now. I hope to finish up this weekend, though.

In reference to my last post, I wanted to say that I enjoyed the paast few episodes of Legend much more. I especially liked the one with Queen Milena. That was pretty awesome (except for them slacking and not getting the box out of the cake sooner, I mean c'mon, they had several chances). Kalahn playing the Mord Sith in the other episode was cool too, though possibly for different reasons...

The Super Bowl was pretty exciting, though I was pulling for the Cards. I thought that the commercials were way better this year than they have been in the past few. There was even a car commercial that didn't totally suck (I think the first one ever), Hyundai! My favorite had to be the guy with the back end of the animal at work. It was a great juxtiposition between the guy in the corner office with the head, and him.

Well, I gotta go. To quote the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, "I sleep now."

Adventure #2

Adventure #2, The Slavers, is now up and running. At some point during the upcoming week, my wife and I are going to look over things and make the intro sound prettier, but it is up in at least v1.0 form. If you like The Slavers, then log on here and let me know, or shoot me an e-mail. If you don't, and have some constructive crtisism, you can also feel free to log on to share that too.

I must also admit, that I wasn't a big fan of the Denna episode of Legend of the Seeker, it felt rushed, I think. If they would have made it a two parter, perhaps combined with another small story at the beginning of the first episode, then I think that it could have been a lot better. My wife and I haven't had a chance to watch to past two episodes, so I can't comment on that, but hopefully we will have a chance to watch one today.

Killing Monsters

I am in the process of reading Killing Monsters: Why Children NEED Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence and I am enjoying it quite a bit (though I am only to the third chapter right now). Basically it talks about how some of the studies that were done in the sixties and seventies, which shaped the 'fear of violent media' culture of today, are flawed, and that it really can be good for children to have an opportunity to watch, read, or play with certain things.

Of course, I was already disinclined to believe that violent media causes violence (sounds like Blame Canada to me), so I am probably biased. Also, my wife an I don't currently have any kids, so I don't have any real life experience (except, you know, actually being a kid a while back).

If you want to look in to this book more, feel free to use the amazon link on my home page (or, use the gift card one if you just want to get a gift card), huzzah for kickbacks.

On the second adventure, The Slavers, I am now half way through the writing and coding. All of the maps are done, and the encounters and storyline are finished, so it shouldn't be long now.

Also, Legend of the Seeker comes back tonight, yay! New episodes for the next four weeks. Tonight, we meet Denna.