Current Ramblings

Thursday, July 02, 2009

And so I did.

I am now on Steam as AutobotTrixter. Be my friend.

posted@10:43 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments

Also I should get Fallout 3.

The only reason I find the Mark Sanford thing so very, very amusing is because he was being such a turd to Obama over the stimulus money. It is really, really amusing to watch him being completely incapable of keeping his mouth shut for like 10 minutes, though. I blame this on me being a horrible person.

Z-Con was awesome and fun! It was great having so many friends around hanging out and doing stuff, even if it got a little overwhelming after a while and I still haven't quite recovered from the sleep deprivation. Tomorrow I'm off work and Andrew isn't, so I'm pretty much gonna sleep 'till noon. Origins was awesome, and even though we were only there for a couple hours it prodded a little bit at that growing hunger I've had to do more gaming. Also I am obsessed with pretty dice. I'm still way more interested in the RP aspect than the number-crunching, but I find myself wanting to roll up characters for things I don't even have a campaign for or alternate characters for games I am involved in. Bloodaxe saw me leering gleefully at the updated rules for Nagai, who I am unreasonably fond of largely for having been introduced at the tail-end of the old Marvel Star Wars series (I have a long history of fondness for things from late Marvel comic runs.), and bought me the Legacy-era campaign-guide, so as soon as I get around to printing up some extra character sheets I will totally make one whether I have a place for it (him?) or not. Our apartment has had some serious cleaning done, and while it's still a bit small for entertaining on the level we tried with Z-Con, it's in pretty good shape for a modest tabletop group and/or to set up space for painting projects.

My latest random alt craving in WoW is a draenei hunter who I made solely to come to terms with my inner conflict between how much I like cats as a general rule and how overused and overpowered they've been in WoW in the past. She's another incarnation of my old well-meaning alcoholic Avalaa, white-on-white this time (she had blue hair before) and on Wyrmrest Accord for no real good reason. I was tempted to roll her up on Moon Guard because a lot of TB's Alliance went over there and I know they're still around, but in the end curiosity about the new server won out. But she's only level 5, so I can still be swayed. ;) I'll be taking her over to Dwarfland soon because I've done those quests once, years ago, and done the Draenei ones like a million times. Once she's level 10 she is totally getting one of those pretty white cats that used to scare the crap out of me on my very first character.

I also poked around Ravenholdt a little on my Death Knight there and drummed up some random RP just by being vaguely polite to another DK, but I'm clearly still having seperation issues with TB and just can't stay away from it for more than a couple hours tops. Even between getting my draenei to level 5 and saying hello to my Ravenholdt DK I had to log into TB just to make sure it hadn't burned down.

I should level a gnome, too, just to experience the world as huge and terrifying.

posted@1:43 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Fangasm!

So. Revenge of the Fallen. Spoilers ahoy!

The infantile humor was piled on thick, and I found what I thought were supposed to be the "kid appeal" characters to be reprehensible cretins, but it only mattered so much. I completely understand what the critics found confusing and nonsensical about the movie, and it was exactly why I loved it: It was a cartoon, an action cartoon with an action cartoon's high concept and dense internal logic. When I saw the new Star Trek movie I couldn't believe that it was written by the same people who wrote the first movie, but I can absolutely believe that this one was written by them. This is a geek movie, and if you don't have the geek chops to know your Jetfire from your Starscream you might as well just stay home. The first movie got all the pesky establishment of backstory and concepts out of the way, letting this one dive straight into robots beating other robots up over MacGuffins. Starscream, given more lines than you could count on one hand this time, got to actually be Starscream, there was a scene of a Decepticon base that gave me goosebumps, and I could have watched an entire movie about Jetfire. It had the Fallen in it! Despite being up way past my normal bedtime I was wired and grinning like a doofus. There were moments where I realized things I had read about hadn't happened yet and I was excited that this meant the movie wasn't even close to over. Too long? I could watch a season of this!

So yeah, I enjoyed it, much more than the first one. It's a high-concept geek (but not nerd) movie, and I can see where it would be easy for the uninitiated to get lost, but as someone who's already schooled in who's who and what's what I found it to be thrilling, if a bit cringe-inducingly juvenile at times.

Also Sideswpie's a hottie.

posted@2:58 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Truth That The Eyes Met Before

For all my cynicism and criticism of Michael Bay and the first Transformers movie, I find that as the new one approaches I'm actually pretty excited. I've spoiled myself flagrantly, reading io9's daily spoiler posts and an entire post summarizing some early leaks of the novelization. These have done nothing to make me think this movie is going to make any more sense than the first one, or for that matter to not think it's going to be an eye-rollingly written popcorn movie. I suffer no illusions that it will not be terrible, though I believe it will at least be a fun kind of terrible. I'm still excited.

A lot of what I'm excited about is the Bumblebee Blast Slurpees, the Snickers Nougabot Bars, the BBQ Double Stackticons. I'm excited that this week is some kind of crazy, surreal worldwide celebration of Transformers. And I only care so much that it's some completely reimagined version of the Transformers, because there's just enough there to make it real. The only real problem I've had with the movie designs is that they're associated with what I consider to be a piss-poor piece of fiction, and right now that just doesn't matter. What matters right now is that the characters and story that found such a firm footing in my imagination have taken over pop culture as a whole. Fifteen years ago I never would have expected this. Sometimes I still don't.

I have tickets for the midnight IMAX showing at Easton tonight, something I finangled a couple hours of off-time tomorrow morning for to give me a prayer of recovering in time for work. I gave in to my baser urges and bought Skids this past weekend, because despite the fact that he and his brother clearly have some sort of robot Downs Syndrome, despite expecting them to sum up everything that makes me groan about these movies, some part of me still really wanted his toy. (The dumb young character is supposed to be attractive enough to make up for it, Michael Bay! Duh!) I've got plans to see it again with a bunch of friends on Friday. And no matter how stupid I know this movie is going to be, I'm really, really excited about it.

I mean, seriously, it's about the Fallen. WTF?

posted@12:25 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forever more...

I've been making Andrew watch Robotech. I've come to discover that, unlike me, he did not actually spend his teenage years amassing geek knowledge. It was only within the last few months that he even heard of Urotsukidōji. I had to explain what the deal is with Magik from the New Mutants, and why Classics Hound came with Ravage. I suppose I can concede that my facination with cultural history is not the norm. Not everybody loves reading Cold War sci-fi for the historical significance. Not everybody's ill-spent youth was ill-spent digging through used book shops for old comic books and out-of-print Lensman paperbacks. But Robotech! I'm thinking this may need to be followed up with the mindfuckery of Neon Genesis Evangelion, though I've just been wanting to revisit that one myself since picking up the Unit 01 Revoltech figure at BotCon and then wandering LAX singing "Fly Me To The Moon" to myself in an incongruous Japanese accent. Also I am ordering the hell out of that new Transformers G1 special edition DVD set, and we are watching it.

I tanked normal Drak'Theron Keep with poor neglected level 75 Meg last night, and I think I've become much too attached to Death Knight mitigation cooldowns. They're like my security blanket.

posted@3:59 PM by:Trixter: 0 comments