(On introducing new D&D characters)
Mr. Yellow
It’s a wood elf, rogue 3rd / druid 5th / and then the Dagger Shaper prestige class.
I think it comes out pretty cool. I am like an avenger of the forest kind of concept.
LOL
8:50 AM Mr. Silver
What's it for? A replacement if your mage gets his head knocked off?
8:59 AM Mr. Yellow
Yep.
The mage is way cooler, but I want a back up.
I figure I have a long drive to the game, so if I die, especially early in a game, I want a back-up ready to go.
9:00 AM Mr. Silver
That’s understandable.
9:01 AM Mr. Yellow
I still have to come up with his story.
I think he was an orphan and left the elven forests to go to a human city where he fell in with the wrong crowd, and ended up having to flee from civilization.
So he returned to the forest, got back to his roots, and became a druid.
It’s something to start with. I’m still thinking about it.
9:12 AM Mr. Silver
Perhaps I'll make my knife-wielding psychic "happy".
Origin stories always seem to involve trouble.
9:17 AM Mr. Silver
"Jack grew up in a loving home where there was plenty to amuse him, lots to eat, no enemies or marauding beasts, and everyone was generally happy. He learned the traditional martial arts and excelled at them, often winning at a respectable to high level in school competitions, but never letting it go to his head. He decided, before taking up a regular job, to go on vacation and see some sights. He's currently traveling with a decent amount of money just to see the world for a year or two before going home to settle down with his pretty girlfriend and do artistic leatherworking."
9:19 AM Mr. Yellow
Good back story.
9:21 AM Mr. Silver
"Hero? Who do I work for? I'm just on vacation."
I've been on a backpacking tour of Faerun and things got a little exciting a few times.”
Hehe
Treat everything as a “tour”.
9:40 AM Mr. Yellow
LOL
9:40 AM Mr. Silver
"We're going to delve a lost dungeon we found a map for."
"Excellent! I'm headed into town to get some more watercolors...I'll want a couple paintings to show Daisy what it was like and I keep running out of red with you guys.”
9:43 AM Mr. Yellow
Are you going to call him Twoflower and have a magical trunk?
9:43 AM Mr. Silver
I'll need a magic item to take photos with.
9:43 AM Mr. Yellow
Yes. Twoflower had a camera with a demon in it to make pictures.
9:44 AM Mr. Silver
Sounds like the sort of fellow.
Does he have any skills for surviving the usual adventure festivities or is Death merely bumping him all the time? "SORRY."
9:45 AM Mr. Yellow
The luggage saved him a lot, and he was being moved along by a god, so things seamed to just work out OK most of the time.
9:46 AM Mr. Silver
A "luck" hero.
Hehehe!
9:50 AM Mr. Silver
How about a special effect for the "camera": If he shouts "Hold it!" everyone has to save or they turn, pose and smile.
10:00 AM Mr. Silver
Perhaps he can force them to re-arrange positions and poses for “a better shot”.
10:11 AM Mr. Yellow
LOL
10:21 AM Mr. Silver
"No no...it's just not working. Ogre? Yeah you. You're just too tall...move back a step and shoulder the club...right. And now the guard with the poleaxe...step left and raise it high. Look angry. Good. Ok...I'm setting a 10 second timer to get in. Aaaand... (click)"
(Action resumes.)
10:29 AM Mr. Yellow
LOL
Mr. Brown
I had a dream I was in a game last night.
9:19 AM Mr. Silver
What kind of game?
9:19 AM Mr. Brown
Like you pick up guns, and there are zombies, werewolves, army men, and all sorts of other creatures. You have to kill them or they will kill you, and there is a meter that tells you how many are left.
9:20 AM Mr. Silver
Sounds "Serious Sam" ish
9:33 AM Mr. Brown
I also fell asleep with Cupcake Wars on, so had a dream I was living with somebody and we were in Cupcake Wars.
I also fell asleep with Cupcake Wars on, so had a dream I was living with somebody and we were in Cupcake Wars.
LOL
All thanks to Mrs. Brown turning the show on.
9:50 AM Mr. Silver
Were cupcakes and other baked goods enemies in the dream?
Mr. Silver
"Abduction" was more interesting than expected. Started out all kind of 'High school kid life' and then swung into spy thriller when he gets a social-studies assignment with the neighbor girl and they find his own picture on a Missing Children site with guess picture of what he looks like now.
11:48 AM Mr. Blue
Is that the one with the Twilight kid, filmed around Pittsburgh?
11:48 AM Mr. Silver
Yeah...he lived in Pittsburgh.
11:49 AM Mr. Brown
Kind of an un-climatic ending though.
11:49 AM Mr. Silver
There was a scene, I think they were calling it Virginia, which I was pretty sure was a section of the local Frisbee golf course.
11:50 AM Mr. Brown
LOL I didn't notice that!
11:51 AM Mr. Silver
It probably helps that I played the course a half a dozen times last summer.
Mrs. Silver said "Hey!" too.
I didn't find the ending so “un-climactic”.
They seemed to be setting up a sequel angle, but it was mild.
11:54 AM Mr. Silver
Me - "Here comes the train car fight scene homage to 'From Russia With Love'."
Mrs. Silver - "What?"
11:55 AM Mr. Blue
I saw the 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and decided not to watch it.
11:55 AM Mr. Silver
4%?
It was a LOT better than 4%
11:56 AM Mr. Brown
Yes.
11:56 AM Mr. Blue
“Abduction was universally panned by film critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 4% of 92 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 3.3 out of 10. The website's consensus is, "a soulless and incompetent action/thriller that not even a veteran lead actor could save, let alone Taylor Lautner."
11:56 AM Mr. Brown
That’s critics for ya.
11:56 AM Mr. Blue
4.5 rating on IMDB.
I usually check that stuff first. Maybe I shouldn't, but if IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes say it's utter crap, I skip. There are too many good movies out there to be wasting time on obvious garbage.
11:59 AM Mr. Silver
What does "Secret Agent Super Dragon" rate on IMDB?
11:59 AM Mr. Blue
1.9
11:59 AM Mr. Silver
Hehe!
Perhaps high!
12:00 PM Mr. Silver
There were some elements of “Abduction” (some mentioned) that would lower it, I'm sure.
Like:
Me "She's a government agent."
Mrs. Silver "Huh?"
Me "Just wait."
and
Me - "No one use the radio."
Mrs. Silver - "Huh?"
Me – "They all have radios but no one is reporting anything at all. The coming action scene won't happen if anyone bothers to call anyone."
12:04 PM Mr. Silver
I was leery going in, but satisfied by the credits
Oh yes...
Me - "I recommend a charge and leap instead of shooting with your extended gun."
Maybe that's why I enjoyed it as much as I did: not so much riffing as observing what silliness has to occur to advance a spy thriller.
12:10 PM Mr. Silver
I mean...you see there are guys with guns in your house...your wife is apparently dead on the floor...you are highly trained, have gun in your hand, and you have the advantage of darkness.
So do you shoot at short range with concealment and surprise, eliminate the threat and thwart the villain's plot?
No!
You run in, gun pointed but not firing, and jump-tackle over the couch (and die).
12:14 PM Mr. Silver
This is revealing about the critics of “Abduction”....
“Abduction” was easily better than "Charlies Angels", which got a 5.5 and 67%.
Case #1: "Abduction" - Lead was in “Twilight” but did a good job with cliche-filled plot. Hate "Twilight" = hate "Abduction".
Case #2: "Charlie's Angels" - Three popular “babes”, one grossly miscast and couldn't act in an insipid plot. Like the cheesecake = like "Charlie's Angels".
The public and the critics should both be ashamed.
12:15 PM Mr. Blue
A cactus enema is better than “Charlie's Angels”.
12:16 PM Mr. Silver
Did you finish that script? We should start principal photography soon.
12:17 PM Mr. Blue
“Cactus Enema: Awakening” ?
12:17 PM Mr. Silver
Right.
The whole "awakening" part is a bit predictable. Most of the actors think waking up during that is a given.
12:20 PM Mr. Blue
It's about a crazy Austrian count who abducts American college kids while they backpack Europe and who shoves various types and sizes of cacti into their rectums; purely for his own enjoyment and research.
Honestly, worse plot outlines have been green-lit in the past few years.
12:20 PM Mr. Silver
I still think we need Daniel Stern in it. We need a repeat of the shriek he gave in "Home Alone".
12:21 PM Mr. Blue
I’m going to cast people that fans might want to see cactus-enema'd.
I'm trying to get one of the Kardashians...The Biebs...Lohan...
12:21 PM Mr. Silver
Right...Daniel Stern...and Rob Schneider, perhaps.
12:21 PM Mr. Blue
They're a hard sell as backpacking college students.
12:21 PM Mr. Silver
True.
Have you cast the investigators from Interpol yet? They could do that.
12:23 PM Mr. Brown
I listened to some Krokus the other day.
12:24 PM Mr. Blue
Congrats.
12:25 PM Mr. Silver
How'd it go?
12:25 PM Mr. Blue
How come this wasn't picked up by the newspapers?
12:25 PM Mr. Silver
Actually, there was a blurb in Variety.
12:25 PM Mr. Brown
Funny. Sweden's only hit rock band.
12:25 PM Mr. Blue
Hardly. They're Swiss.
12:27 PM Mr. Silver
"Music irregular, lyrics full of holes, but extremely versatile multi-function instruments."
12:28 PM Mr. Blue
"Very neutral"
12:29 PM Mr. Silver
"Krokus's long awaited yodeling and alphorn metal album is still mired in endless editing disputes in the studio."
12:29 PM Mr. Blue
“Focus” yodels on their songs, but they're Dutch.
12:30 PM Mr. Silver
Heh...nice.
12:30 PM Mr. Blue
It works too. Picture Jethro Tull, but with yodeling.
12:35 PM Mr. Brown
But that would add too much...
...to Jethro Tull...
12:36 PM Mr. Blue
Check it out. Focus isn't some garage band; they've been around forever.
Listen to "House of the King" or "Hocus Pocus".
12:37 PM Mr. Silver
Jethro Tull has been around forever, but I don't like them for that.
Or anything.
My favorite thing about JT was someone interviewing them and asking why they didn't produce more for MTV. And the response was "Well, look at the kind of people who watch MTV.” And essentially “We don't need them."
Interesting choice...
"We've decided to opt out of popularity in the video age."
12:44 PM Mr. Blue
They still pack concert halls. They were my first concert. I was still in the womb.
12:45 PM Mr. Silver
40 million albums in 40 years.
Madonna - 300 million in 30 years.
12:47 PM Mr. Blue
So if only Jethro Tull made a music video for “Aqualung”, they'd be as popular as Madonna?
I think staying low-key has allowed them to not fizzle out. I’ve actually seen them live at least 10 times.
12:48 PM Mr. Silver
Their new tour is to be strictly their 70s songs.
They skipped the decade that would have possibly made them bigger.
12:51 PM Mr. Silver
Who knows what might have happened? We might have had Tull-ian performers instead of the wave of androgynous stuff.
12:57 PM Mr. Blue
“Battlefield Earth” was on the other day. I watched about 20 minutes of it somewhere in the middle.
So so so unbelievably awful.
Everything about it.
12:59 PM Mr. Silver
Hehe
1:00 PM Mr. Brown
I’m sure Battlefield is better as a book instead of movie.
1:00 PM Mr. Silver
Maybe...maybe not...
1:02 PM Mr. Blue
Well, there is a part where fighter jets and helicopters that sat idle for 1,000 years are rather easily dusted off, turned on, and flown.
I’m not sure if that's in the book or not.
1:03 PM Mr. Silver
I read enough of Hubbard's stuff to make a couple comments:
#1 - They are farces from first page to last. He wrote sci-fi comedy/social commentary.
#2 - With that in mind, the much-maligned Travolta performance was actually perfect. Arrogant beyond warranted, foolish to infuriating.
And a serial failure, to his own continuous frustration.
1:07 PM Mr. Silver
Chapter 5 - "Let me tell you again how brilliant I am...forget what happened in the first 4 chapters."
Chapter 6 - "Ok, so chapter 5 didn't work out, but I have a new scheme that's sure to put me on top."
Chapter 7 - "How did THAT happen...again!?"
1:19 PM Mr. Silver
As for the aircraft...
even in a clean room with, like, a nitrogen atmosphere...
They'd be useless. The fuel would be stale in a couple years, tops.
1:20 PM Mr. Blue
Yeah.
1:20 PM Mr. Brown
BE needed better science in it.
1:21 PM Mr. Silver
Or any science.
1:21 PM Mr. Silver
"The atmosphere explodes if exposed to radiation!"
Like...from everywhere in the universe?
1:22 PM Mr. Blue
Yeah.
1:22 PM Mr. Brown
Unless the atmosphere could have a second layer that bounces all radiation away,
it would have blown up as soon as it formed.
1:23 PM Mr. Blue
Maybe if they'd tacked on an hour to explain the impossible coincidences a little more clearly... and, again, make the FX better, you might have a "Dune".
1:27 PM Mr. Silver
“Dune” was another of those "If you know what the heck was going on going in, it's good" films. Me? I love “Dune”.
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