ChrisTalbot.com

I've been watching a lot of DVDs recently. Many of the DVDs have come from the library, and while some are documentaries, others are feature films. One thing I'm impressed with at the Ajax Public Library is the sheer number of Criterion Collection DVDs amidst the typical Hollywood drivel. As is typical for suburbia, nobody ever seems to take the Criteron discs out, so if I go looking for a specific Criterion DVD the library has, I'm almost guaranteed it will be available.

One of the DVDs I watched yesterday (not a Criteron disc) was a documentary called Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, which is an exploration by a metalhead anthropologist of heavy metal music and the culture that surrounds it. Unfortunately, the film is pretty shallow and only really touches on the heavy metal phenomenon. Still, for what it's worth, it was fun to watch; and I know I learned a few things about metal music -- like the fact that Dio is a tiny dwarf of a man.

All kidding aside, the director broke metal out into several sub-genres, some of which I know about, some of which I listen to regularly and some of which I don't know anything about. However, the focus of the movie seemed to be on the more hardcore trash, death and black metal, with several nods to the likes of Twisted Sister and Judas Priest. For more mainstream metal, Dee Snider (along with Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson and Motorhead's Lemmy) was one of the few spokespeople used in the documentary.

Overall, the film is okay, but nothing spectacular. And it's really for fans of metal, not for the average person.

The Joker's greatest boner of all. When words change meaning in the common lexicon, past uses of the words can inspire hilarity.

I thought about it for a few weeks, but I finally decided to order myself a copy of the Shadowrun 4E core book. You just can't go wrong with the Amazon price, and as long as the Missions adventures continue at Worlds Collide on a regular basis, I should be playing the game enough to make the purchase worthwhile.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been re-watching the Rocky movies. Despite my dislike of almost all sports, there's something primal about boxing that appeals to me. I can't watch hockey, baseball or even wrestling anymore, but if a boxing match is on TV in a bar, I can stare at the tube. It doesn't make any sense, really. It's such an uncivilized sport, hearkening back to the days of the Roman gladiators. And the Rocky movies are just fun -- even if the last couple of have been pretty bad and the next one is also likely to be terrible.

There's a thread on RPG.net right now where a LARPer is asking tabletop roleplayers about their perceptions of LARPs and whether or not they would play in a LARP if there was a local one. It got me thinking about the one time I did participate in a LARP.

In 1992 or 1993, when I was in high school, I met a guy named Chris Chesher, who I now play board games with. Chris had just moved to Pickering and was a roleplayer. He was also into LARPing through NARA. It was about this time that NERO started up in the Toronto area, and Chris became a member. He got me and another friend, Tom Sturges, to go along with him out to Etobicoke to participate in a NERO training event.

NERO is a D&D-esque boffer LARP. What I discovered that first (and only) time out is LARPs were certainly not for me. Far too many of the LARPers were jackasses, and a few of them purposefully went out of their way to be assholes to the newbies. I couldn't get into the roleplaying aspect of LARPing at all. What made it most difficult was the amount of numbers you had to have rolling around in your head. You had to keep a running tally of your hit points in your head at all times, and whenever you swung your weapon at somebody, you had to call out damage. Nothing spoils immersion like swinging a PVC pipe wrapped with foam and duct tape at a guy pretending to be a goblin and shouting "two! two!" over and over again.

LARPing didn't work for me. More specifically, boffer LARPing didn't work for me. Of course, I still have all those boffer weapons I made, and they still come out every once in awhile just for shits and giggles. ... Oh, come on, they're fun to play with. :)

For the last few years, I've occasionally wondered about the Vampire: The Masquerade kind of LARPing, and I still think I'd eventually like to try one eventually. The problem, as I see it, is that every story I hear of the Vampire LARPs is about cliques ganging up on newbies and loners alike, having your characters killed for no other reason than some jackass is on a power trip, and angsty whiners who actually think they're vampires. It sounds like creepy stuff.

Seriously, I'd like to try LARPing with a bunch of friends just to see how it works (but I'm not really interested in participating in such a thing with a bunch of strangers). The closest I ever got was the Society for Creative Anachronism, which has some similarities to LARPing (but withou that pesky roleplaying element). I suppose the murder mystery party that Rawl and I ran at Lawrence's place last year might also count.

This makes me want to buy a Wii. ;)

This was just me fiddling around with a new BGG script available.

What ordering a pizza will be like in the future.

Jacquie and I went to see The Prestige last night. I won't say much about it, except to say that I did enjoy it and the only character in the whole movie who is actually likeable is the one portrayed by Michael Caine.

I guess the ninjas were a little put out by the pirates getting their own day, so now they have their own Day of the Ninja, which happens to be today.

Happy Ninja-ing, people.

Come to think of it, I don't think I have any ninja-themed games in my collection. I'd better rectify that soon ... or suffer the wrath of the ninja people.

Jacquie and I took in a showing of Casino Royale on Saturday. I like this reboot. It's definitely the best Bond movie in years (decades, even). This Bond is grittier, darker and tough-as-nails. He's less the suave, sophisticated Bond and more the dedicated killer. Good stuff.

I have to keep this quick. It's actually a busy work day. So that's about as far as I'm going to get with a Casino Royale review today.

On another note, a bunch of us played the granddaddy of Euro games on Friday night, Die Macher. We screwed up on a lot of rules, but I think we did okay. It took us five hours to play, but I'm pretty sure we could cut that down to four hours next time. I'd certainly play again.

This bucket wheel excavator link was posted on SJG's Daily Illuminator, but I felt the need to share. It looks like something out of a horror movie.