Howdy, Spwug readers!
Today I wanted to do something a little different – something that would poke a little fun at one of my favorite game series and might liven your otherwise boring day at work.
And thus, my rpg-a-riffic mad lib (or “MadLetter” according to the site I used) was born!
Follow the link below, type in your answers, and have fun!
This weekend, I played the first game of Magic the Gathering I have ever played in my life. It’s odd to think that it’s been around for just about as long as The Simpsons, and that despite my natural inclination toward all things nerdy, that I would have never touched it thus far. Let’s face it, though. Magic hasn’t always had the most positive image. The last run-in I had with a Magic player involved a dark hall beneath Long Beach State and a wordy explanation of how it was the greatest card-based game since freakin’ Poker. I got out of there and never looked back.
But ya know, having played it now with normal people, I see why so many card-gamers have been drawn to it for the 9 (10?) editions it’s been around. It’s fun. It blows the other trading card games I’ve played out of the water, including the ill-recieved Marvel Overpower, and the little known (but pretty cool) Wyvern. There’s a lot to be said about a game that has existed so long it can actually come out with a parody deck on itself.
What I think is one of the game’s major attractions is the simple ability to customize your deck from so many schools of strategy. At first, it seems limiting to only play from one or two deck colors. Seems like it would take away from the viable strategies, and make you run into players who had much the same strategies as your own. But it’s quite the opposite – limiting yourself to one of the various deck colors – White, Green, Blue, Black, or Red – actually forces you to think harder about maximizing that color’s potential. And that can be done in so many ways; I’m amazed.
Having no cards of my own, I was playing my friend’s green deck, a deck centered around woodland creatures, like Elves, tree-beasts, and runic spells. The theme of the deck was to accrue serious mana, and be able to produce powerful creatures with the quickness. And it worked. To be fair, the decks my friends threw together were just that – thrown together, but that green deck absolutley destroyed them. I got to see first hand how important it was to consider a theme for the deck, and make all the cards work in unison. And my friend’s loss also taught me that you should check how many terrain are in your deck BEFORE you start playing with it.
I knew I had pretty much given in when I found myself reading the flavor text. I have the Enourmous Baloth to thank for that.
My girlfriend was given a red deck that I also got a shot at playing. This one used Blood Knights, Lava Flows, and a few other nasty things that were also absolutley decimating. And I have to give credit to my friends here: They had a hard time beating their own decks. All we were doing was playing them and asking the right questions.
The beauty of the game is definetly that it’s easy to learn, hard to master, the perfect balance for any gaming medium, be it cards, video games, or board games. It’s what keeps players coming back, and apparently, draws the ocassional new player in, despite the game’s aleady prolonged longevity. Although I haven’t bought any cards yet, I forsee it happening in the near future… as if I needed another nerdy obsession…
Greetings, Rescue Rangers!
Anyone who knows me knows that I am a chocoholic. It’s my Kryptonite; I am powerless in its presence. From Snickers bars to cup cakes, if it has chocolate in it it’s on its way into my mouth.
Don’t be dirty.
This past weekend I found myself enamored with a new kind of Chocolate, except I can’t eat this one. Well I could, but that probably wouldn’t agree with my stomach. I’m not a goat, nor am I one of those sideshow acts that can eat light bulbs.
Speaking of light bulbs, I really love this new movie from Thailand called Chocolate.
Yeah, wasn’t expecting that one, were ya? This is what happens when you fail to come up with a good segue into your chosen topic. Let that be a lesson to you. Now, let’s pretend this never happened and continue…
The plot of Chocolate is fairly simple and straightforward: Thai woman is in a relationship with Thai gangster. Thai woman falls in love with Yakuza boss and leaves Thai crime boss. Thai crime boss gets slightly agitated at this “Bachelor”-style decision and threatens Yakuza boss and Thai woman. Thai woman professes love to Yakuza boss, but says they cannot be together for safety’s sake (not the drink). Thai woman goes into hiding. Thai woman discovers that she is pregnant with Yakuza boss’s child. Thai woman gives birth to autistic daughter. Years later autistic daughter discovers that she can learn martial arts just by watching locals train or by watching martial arts movies on TV. Thai woman and autistic daughter adopt pudgy boy after saving him from bullies. Thai woman is visited by the cancer fairy. Pudgy boy and autistic girl hit the streets where pudgy boy exploits autistic girl’s talents for money to pay off the cancer fairy so she’ll leave Thai woman alone. Pudgy boy finds a list of businesses that owe Thai woman money. Pudgy boy and autistic girl visit each business to collect…
Are you getting this so far?
Okay, so the plot isn’t all that simple to explain in words, but on screen the set-up unfolds pretty quickly and lays everything out pretty simply. And almost none of it matters once Moom (pudgy boy) and Zen (autistic girl) start approaching businesses to collect the money they owe Zin (Thai woman). The movie immediately leads straight into what you wanna watch a movie like this for in the first place:
Autistic girl kicks everyone’s ass.
See, when Moom and Zen start shaking up the businesses, said establishments for the nessing of busies run back to who they work for for help – No. 8 (Thai gangster). And all of this action builds up to the final showdown.
I don’t normally do this, but I’m going to skip a detailed rundown to get right to the heart of the matter – this movie was frikkin’ awesome! The first twenty minutes are a little slow as the plot is set up, but once that part is taken care of we get to watch some incredible character development as Zen learns martial arts, her mother Zin tries to protect herself and her daughter even after falling ill, and Moom does his best to take care of both of them while at the same time trying to make money for Zin’s cancer treatments.
Once all of that has been dealt with, on with the ass-whoopins! You can literally feel the excitement and electricity in the air right as each business tells our unfortunate pair to scram. The choreography is incredible! All of the fighting is done with almost no wire-fu. Each fighting sequence is meticulously plotted and blocked. Several times I felt like Zen had learned martial arts from the Jackie Chan School of Foot-in-Face, as most of her moves were a dazzling blend of spins, flips, and using her surroundings to her advantage.
After watching the documentary included on the Blu-Ray, I was even more astounded. The actress who played Zen (Yanin Vismistananda) trained in gymnastics and martial arts for two years before filming started. Filming itself took another two years, partly because most of the martial arts action was full contact. There were a lot of injuries on set (a few of which can be seen during the closing credits).
Chocolate is a dazzling mixture of character and martial arts action. It’s just a fun film, overall. I enjoyed it so much that I had no problems at all watching it in the original Thai with English subtitles. And anyone who knows me knows I’m not a big fan of subtitles.
But I love chocolate.
The Don was able to snatch the Pebbles from the Flintstones.
Alright, guys and gals, it’s time to fess up about those past relationships. That guy you led on just to get with his hunky friend, that girl you dumped by texting, “iz not u, iz me,” those feuding supermodel twins you juggled over the summer – you’ve been a baddie.
But raise your head high once more, for one man has stepped forward and made your relationship failings a mere speck in comparison, and proven himself to be (among other things) a good ol’ fashioned jerkface – Jason Mesnick, better known as the latest bachelor from the show of the same name.
Never before has one bachelor caused such outrage that morning radio shows like KROQ’s Kevin and Bean take notice or the morning news has continued coverage (yes, you read that right) on the subject, like KSWB (San Diego’s version of KTLA) did this morning.
Feel like you’ve missed the boat? Here’s how Mesnick went from having the nation pour their hearts out to him, to wanting nothing to do with him.
Mesnick was one of two finalists on the latest season of The Bachelorette. He lost to a guy that I can best describe as Joey Gladstone from Full House with the ability to snowboard. Viewers around the nation were floored. Mesnick was good-looking, successful, and sweet – the “perfect” guy!
But Mesnick got a second chance to find love as the new Bachelor. Of the finalists, Molly and Melissa, he chose the latter, and they lived happily ever after…
…except not really.
Here’s where the fairytale ends and the drama begins. The Bachelor season usually ends with a show called After the Final Rose, when the happy couple comments on what happened during the season and what their plans are for the future. Not so with this season. Instead, the show was taped on a closed set, and in the first few moments, Mesnick revealed some details that should have probably been discussed with his fiancé first and a national television audience second. Among them, that he couldn’t stop thinking about Molly and his desire to end his current relationship. And shortly after, he did just that. He brought Melissa out onstage, told her it just wasn’t working out, and pointed her towards the limo waiting to take her away. Yep, we’re talkin’ real charmer here.
And after replacing Melissa with Molly, and mumbling a few appeals to viewers – something to the effect of “the most important thing is that we followed our hearts,” that was that.
Typical viewers were shocked, but for spoiler seekers, this was old news. For the past few weeks, different Bachelor blogs have predicted this exact outcome, relying on sources “working closely” with the show. They firmly believe this was planned from the beginning.
It’s common knowledge that the majority of the “relationships” on these shows lack any real depth. Most of the resulting couples stay together for a few months, then split. There’s not much draw to watch a show that doesn’t produce the results it purports. So, conspiracy theorists say, ABC did what most failing shows do – it added some seriously ridiculous drama.
According to popular conspiracy theories, Mesnick, Melissa, and Molly knew about the on-air dumping in advance. The story goes that Mesnick fell out of “love” with Melissa and yearned for Molly. To get her back, he was “forced” to dump Melissa on television… and he agreed to it. During an interview last night on Jimmy Kimmel, he strongly hinted at this “agreement.”
But ABC’s amazing plans may have severely backfired. Instead of viewers sympathizing with Mesnick, they’ve turned completely against him. Comments like “I wish I could marry him!” are now being replaced on fansites by a plethora of not-so-nice ones, calling Mesnick everything from “scumbag” to “f*cking a**hole.” A nation of women scorned by association – now that’s a scary thing.
Of course viewers realize that Bachelor is a reality show first and foremost, but really… low is still low. But is this the new “reality” for reality TV? At this rate, soap operas are going to have to spice things up a little.
I bet “Octomom’s” feeling pretty good right now. Considering today’s response, she’s definitely had some of the heat taken off.
Many of our readers are anime fans, so I thought that this article might be interesting for them:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090304f1.html
What price, anime?
I’ll admit – it probably wouldn’t take more than a poke to push me over the line and get to me sit down at a table to join a campaign of Dungeons & Dragons. That is, if I could find some (normal) dudes who already had a pretty grasp of the game to play it with. It’s the ultimate in geekdom, and if nothing else, I’m curious. But for a lot of geeks, nerds, and gamers, D&D is crossing the line. It raises a lot of red flags, and makes a lot of people cross their arms and shake their heads. It’s a board game, without a board? Isn’t the manual like 90 pages long? My kid brother plays that; he’s never had a girlfriend. Didn’t some inmate in the 70s use D&D to plot his escape from jail?
Well if you’re that guy with those concerns, or you’re the guy (or girl, I suppose) who would love to do some fantasy board gaming without the 90 page manual, have I got a board game for you. Journey back with me to 1989, when Milton Bradley released a fantasy board game called Hero Quest.
In Hero Quest, everything is laid out for you. There’s a physical board, physical characters, and while it IS dice-based, you don’t have to buy a set of d4s to d20s to play. The dice included with the game are simple – skulls indicate successful hits, and shields indicate successful defenses. Ideally, you’ll want 5 players. One dude who serves as Zargon, the evil wizard, (that’s the persona of the game master) and four brave heroes to assume the roles of the Elf, Barbarian, Dwarf, and Wizard. (Your wizard should be especially brave – he’s a push over.)
Above: The Barbarian and the Wizard take on the toughest SOB in the game, a gargoyle, and his orc buddies. Three skulls indicate 3 damage that someone’s gonna have to defend.
I think one of the major hurdles people have to endure with the notion of playing D&D is that the game is produced more or less from the game master’s imagination. In that case, you have to have a well-prepared, well-versed and creative dungeon master, (which is apparently hard to find, if you’ve ever listened to the horror stories) or the whole game goes up in flames. Not so in Hero Quest. The player playing Zargon should have the best working knowledge of the rules, obviously. But as far as what needs to be done, the whole thing is laid out in the quest book, and is revealed to the players as they move through the dungeons. The game comes with 14 quests to start with, and there are numerous expansions that were added later, adding more spells, artifacts, monsters, and assorted perils.
Therein, lies the problem. Like I said, the game was released in 1989, and those bitches at Milton Bradley have discontinued it. You won’t find it new anymore, but a keen eye can pick up a game system on Ebay for $30 – $50, depending on condition. Expansion packs are a bit more of a problem – the later expansions were printed in such limited runs that they can actually be found selling for upward of $300! I am always floored when I search for the long lost Elf pack I never obtained as a child.
But never to fear – the internet has come to the rescue. So dedicated are Hero Quest fans, that scans of every tile, card, rule book, and quest can be found on the internet and printed out by you to recreate the game in full. They’ve even expanded on the game with generally agreed upon rule sets, incorporated European-only rules, and created entirely new armories for the sole purpose of keeping the game alive for newcomers and veterans alike. For as scary as the internet can be, it is truly awesome when net dwellers go to work as a collective.
A given quest, assuming the heroes are working together instead of against each other, takes around 2 hours. I started up a game with my fiancé, her sister, and her boyfriend, and we’re just about through with the first expansion, Kellar’s Keep. Most of the time, we have a blast when we pull it out, and I recommend the game to anyone who’s ever wanted to enjoy some good fantasy role-playing without having to break out the dice set, the manual tome, or the long-haired cousin with the acne problem.
