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Meanwhile....

• 18:23 Avatar 3D was awesome. #
• 18:23 Now I have some time off. #
• 20:42 Man, I hate commercials. #
• 20:53 I have a day off and it's already going to be filled with errands. #
• 22:25 I now realize that I'm still not a fan of watching hockey on TV. #

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Meanwhile....

• 19:54 Waiting in line to see Avatar 3D. It better be good. #

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Cookies!

hrmmm... the cookies I have baked are not as good as the last batch and are merely good instead of being strangely addicitively fantastic. Ah well. I can be happy with good. I did a double batch too so I had better be.

Philisophically they are better actually as the cookie you have is always prefferable to the cookie you don't have.

Meanwhile....

• 13:30 @umlauthuth I guess because Boxing Day was on a Saturday. #
• 13:40 @thebitterguy Bazinga? Are you quoting The Big Bang Theory or did I say something clever? #
• 13:48 @thebitterguy My apologies I did not see your response. #

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Hmm. No one on ebay is listing the old Grenadier Star Wars minis sets.

It turns out I have nine of them stocked away in the darkest recesses of ACB (which are not that dark, so sucks if you're trying to sleep in). I have nine, and am missing the Rancor, Zero G troopers, Imperial troopers & Return of the Jedi sets.

Which is a shame, because Luke's stats as of the beginning of RotJ are always a mystery to me.

Of course, ebay doesnt' seem to have any listings for them, so I'm not sure if it's worth shlepping them up to Milton to set up sales, or if I should just trash them.

Nothing quite like getting home from the family holiday to enjoy the ripples running through the old FL for the new Guy Ritchie flick.

Naturally, Nick Mamatas hated it with a big post (no bacon metaphor, though), and Kate hated it with a slightly smaller, but much more passionate post.

Surprisingly, Ken Hite didn't hate it, but took a moment to ask some questions about it. And Patrick loved it.

And here's MGK's review, in one sentence:

Fairly irritating editing from director who has done demonstrably better work in this area overcome by excellent performances and dialogue from principal cast; also, Kurrgan!

I totally missed that that was Kurrgan.

I wonder what cookies I can make with what I have on hand..... I wonder if the corner store has flour....

Cynra gave me the GotY edition (with all dls, which were amusingly enough on sale today. Seriously, Microsoft: Fuck you too).

Now it's fun and all, but I'm suddenly uncertain if I killed Butch's mom or if that was a radroach. I feel very guilty.

Meanwhile....

• 22:07 @newmania What happened? #

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I saw Sherlock Holmes yesterday, grand fun.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Wrapping up projects for UDON and the semester at Seneca, I finally had a chance to see family and relax. Christmas zipped by and now Stacy and I are enjoying a nice bit of downtime before New Year's. 2009 was an adventure and a half. :)

Last night we cracked open the Arkham Horror board game she bought me for Christmas. My friend Cory raved about how great a board game it was when we worked together at PAX this summer and hearing him go on with glee about it made me put it on my X-Mas List.

With such a crazy work schedule and less social time than ever, running or playing a regular tabletop RPG has become a near-impossibility. I've had false starts on games, one-off sessions and played a few short run campaigns that have petered off. There's just too much stuff going on with our lives. Having some sort of semi-regular board/card game night would be a really nice substitute that's flexible in terms of who's coming over and what we'd be doing. I'm hoping we can arrange that in 2010.

Anyways, with board gaming on our mind, we tried out Arkham Horror. Opening up the box and seeing the massive amount of counters, play pieces and cards in the box is quite intimidating. You get a lot of material for the sticker price but it's quite daunting figuring out what each component does on the first play through. The game board is big and real estate intensive, the many little decks of cards spread out and the whole thing is overwhelming. Reading and understanding the rules is quite tough when the concepts are just abstractions and you haven't tried them yet in-game.

However once you actually start playing and the rules gel, the game is fantastic and very engaging. It's 100% cooperative, meaning that the players are playing "against" the game itself, which is represented by randomly drawn encounter card events. The players are all on the same team so there's a great deal of communication and strategy as everyone makes a plan to beat the Ancient One that looms on the sidelines ready to overwhelm the city of Arkham if you don't succeed. Having a fun group game with no sore losers or gloating winners makes it a top notch experience all on its own as far as I'm concerned. Add in a massive amount of depth and re-playability, neat game mechanics and the H.P. Lovecraft-driven atmosphere for its backdrop and the game is really, really good.

All in all, I'd recommend trying it with someone who's played the game before to speed up your experience the first time through. Thankfully Stacy and Joanna were ultra-patient as we slowly went through the first few rounds, finally leading to the "a-ha" moments where we began to understand how it all fit together. As such, the first half hour was a quagmire and the rest was a thrill as we finally started making it work and gaining ground against impending evil. Even though we lost in a climactic final battle, we didn't feel crappy afterwards or get a sense that the game was unfair. This morning Stacy was already talking about strategies for winning next time, which seems a very positive sign indeed. :)

Meanwhile....

• 18:21 @newmania As long as you want "early" you'll be fine using a cat as an alarm clock. #
• 18:22 @antonioespinoza I'm jealous! What parts of Europe are you going? #
• 18:23 Still very full and I haven't eaten since noon. #
• 18:23 It looks pretty nasty outside. #
• 21:38 @antonioespinoza Nice! Have fun on your trip. #
• 21:40 Watching a Christmas classic with my Dad and my cousin, Sam: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. #
• 07:31 Will my brain ever let me sleep in? #

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Meanwhile....

• 18:53 @RedPenOfDoom Happy birthday! #
• 18:55 It's time for Christmas finally! Resting after a hectic Christmas retail season. #
• 07:57 @adamjury Do you suppose those are real tattoos or temporary ones? #
• 08:02 @squideye If you have a cat why do you need an alarm? :) #
• 08:03 Up early on a Christmas morning listening to the wind outside. I wonder if the weather is as crappy as CBC said it would be. #
• 10:52 Christmas is always better if you're heavily caffinated or somewhat inebriated. #
• 12:49 I am full of food. #

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merry what have you.

i'm well lubricated. drunk that is. hope any who wish to be also are.

Stacy and I went to check out the early afternoon Imax 3D screening of Avatar today. I went into it unsure whether or not it would hold up to the hype.

Avatar is absolutely worth checking out in theatres. It's a visually stunning film that breezes past the "Uncanny Valley" effect in a way that I'm still trying to process. The world is fully realized and jaw dropping, the characters are substantial and never feel detached from their surroundings and the detail holds up to 6 story high Imax scrutiny with ease. It's absolutely clear that although this movie broke the bank in terms of budget, it's all up there on the screen. It's world building, through and through. The directing is brilliant, utilizing the 3D effect as a way to bring us fully into a place instead of firing out lots of spatial depth "gotcha's" as a gimmick. The visuals are encompassing and detailed without ever getting cluttered or unfocused.

The story, on the other hand, is so bland and straight forward as to be almost unmentionable. It's a Frankenstein monster stitched together from every "White Guy Becomes One With the Natives, but Teaches Them a Bunch of Shit Too" and "Nature Spirit Knows Best" story you've ever seen before. There are absolutely no story surprises and every single character fits into their rigidly defined archetype without fail. Stacy and I agree that given the budget involved every single compromise likely came from the story department, making the film obvious as a way to ensure the widest appeal across as broad demographic as possible. It's unfortunate that so much money went into its look without engaging a similar complexity in its story and characters.

I kept wanting to dislike Avatar when the dialogue came out in cliche gobs without any subtlety at all, but the richness of the world and the intensity of its vision kept me interested and engaged even when I didn't really feel like I should be. I'm a huge story prick and the eye popping visuals and texture of it carried me past 1 dimensional characterization that would normally be a game breaker for me.

Avatar is a technical milestone. You should go see it. Absolutely realistic fully formed digital characters are now a reality.

Meanwhile....

• 22:11 @zaccak Yay! Congrats! #
• 07:42 @antonioespinoza You having data issues with your @blackberry? #
• 07:46 @antonioespinoza Odd, I had no issues with my @blackberry yesterday. #

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Okay, not terribly appropriate to the season. But I got an ecard that reminded me of this bit.

“I’m going into space with Shatner’s face.”

“Bullshit. No, wait – you’re going to get a mask made?” Barry checked the edges of his: a latex Charlton Heston-Brad Pitt fusion thing.

“I mean his actual face. I’ve got a line on it. During the Panic, some nerds froze him so he wouldn’t cross over. It’ll blow my savings to get it but what the hell, eh? I’ll be gone for two years anyway.”

“Doesn’t that mean you could, uh . . .?”

“Nah, some rich asshole in Oakland has dibs on his brain. I’ll make do with my own cheesy impressions.”

“Chang’s not going to like it. It makes the whole mission look like a joke.”

“Are you kidding? Don’t you want to see Captain Kirk on Mars?”
The party ran long, as most do now that we've lost the knack for sleep. I said goodbye to Barry and went home on foot, but even though I stuck to the alleys they spotted me. Shamblers. They weren’t violent, just persistent.

“Brains.”

It’s not their fault. There just aren’t enough brains to go around. When the Panic hit, some of us were better, luckier predators. Jordan Jacek (God knows I changed that after the revolution – I don’t remember being that person anyway) got bit, didn’t get eaten, and managed to scarf down enough brains to graduate from shamblerhood. Swallow the brains, swallow the person; their little fragments knock together and give us rough identities.

My frags still argue.

Back in the day, Jordan ate a really smart physicist. Now I’m so valuable they’ve scheduled me for a Neuro-Plastic Learning session the day after tomorrow.

“Brains.”

Lewontin was the tech that day. He’s thorough; we had to watch interviews with the breathers. I know pure NPL doesn’t always pass everything along, but seeing them talk means you can’t dig in without thinking of exactly what you’re doing. Frags scream in your head.

At least I got a better idea of how important this mission is. Two of the breathers were farm-grown twentysomething savants, but one was an old, bona fide pre-Panic astronaut. If they were willing to lose her they must really want this thing to work.

In case you’re wondering, the actual NPL session tells you nothing about the source’s age, sex or anything else. They’re just slices of grey hard boiled egg stuff in what looks like a bowl of borscht.

I wanted some kind of silver cryonic capsule, with Shatner’s face reverently spread over an artificial scaffold. I got a dirty beer cooler. I drove that thing right to the shop.

The body guys and I designed the procedure to turn me into judo-chopping, gold-shirted Shatner. Shatner Prime. It didn’t cost as much as you’d think. The space program paid for silicone plastination. I put it off before, because changing a plas-job after the fact never works the way you want it to.

The formaldehyde/heat regimen left my skin a wrinkled mess and I still had some rot from the early days, so they discarded it from the neck down, except for my feet and hands. My frags twitched; I thought I felt pain. Once I concentrated on my still heart I felt like a fool. It went away.

I went for painted latex replacement skin, fake nipples and all. (Don’t tell Barry!) But that had to wait until after plastination, when they’d cement and seal it over everything. They took my breasts off and started rearranging the fat to create a more Shatneresque waist (thicker, but not too thick!) and shoulders. They even built up the triceps after staring at photo references.

“It’s just for mapping,” said Clevon. He was the plas artist. “The process replaces your fat with selected polymers. Vacuum sucks out all the moisture, so you’ll be left with the lipid cell structure, but we can make it as firm as your real muscles.”

They spent the most time on the face, bringing a youthful poise to its flesh. A living Shatner never would have survived the procedure.

“Do you want to attach it now, or after plastination? Afterward is safer.”

“Now.”

I felt ten points of penetration as the staples went in.

They showed me a mirror. It was a young actor’s death mask.

Then vacuum, like the journey to Mars. We don’t need air or pressure, just something to fill our empty spaces along the way.