Category: Livejournal

I liked it better when it was called “Watchmen.”

So, if you’re a fan, you’ve probably already seen the trailer. But, in case you haven’t… well, there it is.

I starting reading the first book, got half way, said “This is Star Wars with magic,” put it down and never picked it up again.

Many years later, when the movie came out, I went to see it, fell asleep half way through.

When Neopets went to see the third movie (I skipped the second), I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it. My Potterphile friends did not. It was also the first movie–I believe–that I have seen without reading the book first. An unique experience.

So, watching the trailer for this one… I’m actually intrigued. I know the spoiler (I won’t give it away here), and in some ways, it makes me want to see it more.

So,

 (and the rest!), color me intrigued. How’s the book?

Following Jared’s example, I have thrown my hat into the “Challenge a Game Designer” thread over at Story Games.

Go ahead and make a challenge. I dare you.

EDIT: Story Games is suffering an internal server error. So, 

Kingdoms: A Little Game about Generations

 

Each player needs a Diary. You can have any kind of diary you want. You’ll also need correspondence. Envelopes, blank pages. Again, you can have anything you want.

 

The Narrator (GM) also needs a Journal of some kind.

 

In the game, you play a young prince or princess destined to inherit a kingdom. Just not yet. Define your character with a set of adjectives. You get five. Three Good, two Bad.

 

Use your Diaries for in-game actions and your Correspondence for between game actions. The games take place at social events. The players meeting for parties and gatherings, keeping track of events with their Diaries.

 

At the end of each event, each player reads his Diary out loud. The players then vote on which Journal is the best recounting of the event. That Diary is the “official” entry. Write it up in the Narrator’s Journal.

 

For any Conflicts, players roll dice. You roll three dice for any appropriate Good adjectives and subtract a die for any appropriate Bad adjective. The high roll wins the Conflict and narrates what happens.

 

No player may narrate another character’s death – only his own.

 

Play progresses with each  session representing a year. As time moves on, characters grow older. Eventually, characters pass away, leaving their children to play in their wake. (Or, in some cases, orphans.)

 

That’s the game off the top of my head. I’d like to add more. I probably will. And will probably have it for sale at Gen Con.

One of my favorite stories.

Someone tell .

In the wake of the Virginia horror story, another massacre has occurred. This time, halfway across the world.

In Iraq, as we slept, over one hundred people were killed in the worst insurgent attack since the US first invaded. Conflicting reports on death and injury counts.

This was in Bagdhad. Yes, President Bush, your “troop surge” is doing just fine.

More here.

The guys over at 2d6 in a Random Direction give a five minute review of Play Dirty. Good feedback, fun stuff. Fair and balanced.

I approve. Go check ’em out. (And not just when they’re talking about me.)

I just got spam mail from myself.

Spam mail from “john@wicked-dead.com.”

Anybody got a heads up on how that could happen?

Wow.

FUCK YEAH MOTHA FUCKA!!!

Just… wow.

It’s like booing a bad comedian off the stage. I don’t like Don Imus. I don’t like what he says, I don’t like what he stands for. I don’t like anti-intellectualism, I don’t like racism, I don’t like crudity, I don’t like vulgarity.

(I have no problem with profanity.)

If I don’t like what a radio DJ has to say, I turn the station. If I don’t like the program manager’s choice of songs, I turn the station. If I don’t like a commercial, I turn the station. If I don’t like what a comedian has to say, I get out of the building.

What Don Imus said isn’t new. He’s been saying that kind of crap for years. It’s just now that someone noticed.

But Don Imus isn’t alone. If CBS was pissed off about what he said, they are fully within their rights to fire him. This isn’t a free speech issue, it’s a commerce issue. Nobody is blocking Imus’ free speech. He signed a contract saying he would obey the rules CBS laid in front of him. He agreed to those rules, then broke them.

Of course, CBS is not totally blame-free, either. They knew what they were getting with Imus, just like radio stations know what they’re getting when they chose to broadcast Howard Stern.

But, anyway. The thing that really intrigues me about this whole thing is how much outrage there is about it. It fulfills a belief of mine that people really don’t know what’s being said over the airwaves.

I watch Fox News. Know Thy Enemy. When I complain about how completely obnoxious Fox News is, most of my friends dismiss me. “Yeah, but that’s Fox News. Nobody watches that.”

My father does. An intelligent man, my dad. A mechanical engineer. A science fiction fan. Well-read, well-spoken, bashful, successful, Lutheran. My dad. He watches it. And I can tell. When I was talking about the debacle in Iran, his face turned red and he said, “So you just want to let those bastards get away with what they did on 9-11, right?”

My dad. Intelligent, well-read. From Fox News, right to his mouth.

Over at Media Matters (not the most reliable source for non-biased information), they’ve gathered together a list of quotes that make what Don Imus said seem trivial. You can find it here. I’ll give you a couple.

“I never said that Hillary Clinton was a bitch. I said she sounded like one.”

Beck attacked victims of the (Katrina) disaster and the families of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying: “I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims.”

“[T]his Muhammad guy is just a phony rag-picker.” Boortz asserted that “[i]t is perfectly legitimate, perhaps even praiseworthy, to recognize Islam as a religion of vicious, violent, bloodthirsty cretins.”

Boortz said that (D-Georgia Rep.) McKinney’s “new hair-do” makes her look “like a ghetto slut,” like “an explosion at a Brillo pad factory,” like “Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence,” and like “a shih tzu.”

(Rush) Limbaugh claimed that “[w]omen still live longer than men because their lives are easier.”

On April 26, 2004, Limbaugh claimed that women “actually wish” for sexual harassment

Bill O’Reilly stated that Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf “should be baking pies, not running a major city.”

O’Reilly argued extensively for “profiling of Muslims” at airports, arguing that detaining all “Muslims between the ages of 16 and 45” for questioning “isn’t racial profiling,” but “criminal profiling.”

O’Reilly referred to Wiehl as “eye candy … for me,” telling Wiehl that she is on the show “because you’re good-looking, so I got somebody to look over” while he’s on the air.

Savage responded: “The idea of a gay rabbi is an oxymoron. Think about it: ‘Rabbi’ means teacher. You cannot have a homosexual teacher teaching boys how to be a Jew,” adding, “I’m not going to mince words for fear of offending homosexuals. They’re everywhere, anyway, trying to tell me what to say and what not to say and what to think. I know what’s right and what’s wrong. And that’s all there is to it.”

More Savage: “And what’s this sympathy, constant sympathy for sexually confused people? Why should we have constant sympathy for people who are freaks in every society?” adding, “But you know what? You’re never gonna make me respect the freak. I don’t want to respect the freak.” Savage concluded: “The freak ought to be glad that they’re allowed to walk around without begging for something. You know, I’m sick and tired of the whole country begging, bending over backwards for the junkie, the freak, the pervert, the illegal immigrant. All of them are better than everybody else. Sick. Everything is upside down.”

There’s more. So much more. Click on the link and you can watch/hear them all.

You never knew there was so much hatred in the world until you watch Fox News.