I'm not really a Smallvile fan

But I really enjoy the occasional audio ramblings about SMALLVILLE that the Jaestrom and company devote to each episode on one of my favorite podcasts, NOWHERE IN MULBERRY. In a recent NiM, Jaestrom mentions that the Clark character really seems to be attracted to Lana Lang (in the sexual way) but spends an inordinate amount of time practicing abstinence and bemoaning the fact that he cant' "be with a human woman" in the conventional sense. Why? Because he'll crush her of course.


I was astounded to hear this little bit.. not enough, mind you, to watch the show, but enought to dredge up a VERY old essay by Larry Niven about the concept of humans and super-people doing the nasty. Without further ado:

Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex
By Larry Niven*
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He's faster than a speeding bullet. He's more powerful than a locomotive. He's able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. Why can't he get a girl?

At the ripe old age of thirty-one (*Superman first appeared in Action Comics, June 1938*), Kal-El (alias Superman, alias Clark Kent) is still unmarried. Almost certainly he is still a virgin. This is a serious matter. The species itself is in danger!

An unwed Superman is a mobile Superman. Thus it has been alleged that those who chronicle the Man of Steel's adventures are responsible for his condition. But the cartoonists are not to blame.

Nor is Superman handicapped by psychological problems.

Granted that the poor oaf is not entirely sane. How could he be? He is an orphan, a refugee, and an alien. His homeland no longer exists in any form, save for gigatons upon gigatons of dangerous, prettily colored rocks.

As a child and young adult, Kal-El must have been hard put to find an adequate father-figure. What human could control his antisocial behavior? What human would dare try to punish him? His actual, highly social behavior during this period indicates an inhuman self-restraint.

What wonder if Superman drifted gradually into schizophrenia? Torn between his human and kryptonian identities, he chose to be both, keeping his split personalities rigidly separate. A psychotic desperation is evident in his defense of his "secret identity."

But Superman's sex problems are strictly physiological, and quite real.

The purpose of this article is to point out some medical drawbacks to being a kryptonian among human beings, and to suggest possible solutions. The kryptonian humanoid must not be allowed to go the way of the pterodactyl and the passenger pigeon.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------I What turns on a kryptonian?

Superman is an alien, an extraterrestrial. His humanoid frame is doubtless the result of parallel evolution, as the marsupials of Australia resemble their mammalian counterparts. A specific niche in the ecology calls for a certain shape, a certain size, certain capabilities, certain eating habits.

Be not deceived by appearances. Superman is no relative to homo sapiens.

What arouses Kal-El's mating urge? Did kryptonian women carry some subtle mating cue at appropriate times of the year? Whatever it is, Lois Lane probably didn't have it. We may speculate that she smells wrong, less like a kryptonian woman than like a terrestrial monkey. A mating between Superman and Lois Lane would feel like sodomy-and would be, of course, by church and common law.


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II Assume a mating between Superman and a human woman designated LL for convenience.

Either Superman has gone completely schizo and believes himself to be Clark Kent; or he knows what he's doing, but no longer gives a damn. Thirty-one years is a long time. For Superman it has been even longer. He has X-ray vision; he knows just what he's missing. (*One should not think of Superman as a Peeping Tom. A biological ability must be used. As a child Superman may never have known that things had surfaces, until he learned to suppress his X-ray vision. If millions of people tend shamelessly to wear clothing with no lead in the weave, that is hardly Superman's fault.*)

The problem is this. Electroencephalograms taken of men and women during sexual intercourse show that orgasm resembles "a kind of pleasurable epileptic attack." One loses control over one's muscles.

Superman has been known to leave his fingerprints in steel and in hardened concrete, accidentally. What would he do to the woman in his arms during what amounts to an epileptic fit?
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III Consider the driving urge between a man and a woman, the monomaniacal urge to achieve greater and greater penetration. Remember also that we are dealing with kryptonian muscles.

Superman would literally crush LL's body in his arms, while simultaneously ripping her open from crotch to sternum, gutting her like a trout.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV Lastly, he'd blow off the top of her head.

Ejaculation of semen is entirely involuntary in the human male, and in all other forms of terrestrial life. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise for a kryptonian. But with kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El's semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet. (*One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy's puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?*)

In view of the foregoing, normal sex is impossible between LL and Superman.

Artificial insemination may give us better results.


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V First we must collect the semen. The globules will emerge at transsonic speeds. Superman must first ejaculate, then fly frantically after the stuff to catch it in a test tube. We assume that he is on the Moon, both for privacy and to prevent the semen from exploding into vapor on hitting the air at such speeds.

He can catch the semen, of course, before it evaporates in vacuum. He's faster than a speeding bullet.

But can he keep it?

All known forms of kryptonian life have superpowers. The same must hold true of living kryptonian sperm. We may reasonably assume that kryptonian sperm are vulnerable only to starvation and to green kryptonite; that they can travel with equal ease through water, air, vacuum, glass, brick, boiling steel, solid steel, liquid helium, or the core of a star; and that they are capable of translight velocities.

What kind of a test tube will hold such beasties?

Kryptonian sperm and their unusual powers will give us further trouble. For the moment we will assume (because we must) that they tend to stay in the seminal fluid, which tends to stay in a simple glass tube. Thus Superman and LL can perform artificial insemination.

At least there will be another generation of kryptonians.

Or will there?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VI A ripened but unfertilized egg leaves LL's ovary, begins its voyage down her Fallopian tube.

Some time later, tens of millions of sperm, released from a test tube, begin their own voyage up LL's Fallopian tube.

The magic moment approaches...

Can human breed with kryptonian? Do we even use the same genetic code? On the face of it, LL could more easily breed with an ear of corn than with Kal-El. But coincidence does happen. If the genes match...

One sperm arrives before the others. It penetrates the egg, forms a lump on it's surface, the cell wall now thickens to prevent other sperm From entering. Within the now-fertilized egg, changes take place...

And ten million kryptonian sperm arrive slightly late.

Were they human sperm, they would be out of luck. But these tiny blind things are more powerful than a locomotive. A thickened cell wall won't stop them. They will *all* enter the egg, obliterating it entirely in an orgy of microscopic gang rape. So much for artificial insemination.

But LL's problems are just beginning.


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VII Within her body there are still tens of millions of frustrated kryptonian sperm. The single egg is now too diffuse to be a target. The sperm scatter.

They scatter without regard to what is in their path. They leave curved channels, microscopically small. Presently all will have found their way to the open air.

That leaves LL with several million microscopic perforations all leading deep into her abdomen. Most of the channels will intersect one or more loops of intestine.

Peritonitis is inevitable. LL becomes desperately ill.

Meanwhile, tens of millions of sperm swarm in the air over Metropolis.


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VIII This is more serious than it looks.

Consider: these sperm are virtually indestructible. Within days or weeks they will die for lack of nourishment. Meanwhile they cannot be affected by heat, cold, vacuum, toxins, or anything short of green kryptonite. (*And other forms of kryptonite. For instance, there are chunks of red kryptonite that make giants of kryptonians. Imagine ten million earthworm size spermatozoa swarming over a Metropolis beach, diving to fertilize the beach balls... but I digress.*) There they are, minuscule but dangerous; for each has supernormal powers.

Metropolis is shaken by tiny sonic booms. Wormholes, charred by meteoric heat, sprout magically in all kinds of things: plate glass, masonry, antique ceramics, electric mixers, wood, household pets, and citizens. Some of the sperm will crack lightspeed. The Metropolis night comes alive with a network of narrow, eerie blue lines of Cherenkov radiation.

And women whom Superman has never met find themselves in a delicate condition.

Consider: LL won't get pregnant because there were too many of the blind mindless beasts. But whenever one sperm approaches an unfertilized human egg in its panic flight, it will attack.

How close is close enough? A few centimeters? Are sperm attracted by chemical cues? It seems likely. Metropolis had a population of millions; and kryptonian sperm could travel a long and crooked path, billions of miles, before it gives up and dies.

Several thousand blessed events seem not unlikely. (*If the pubescent Superboy plays with himself, we have the same problem over Smallville.*)

Several thousand lawsuits would follow. Not that Superman can't afford to pay. There's a trick where you squeeze a lump of coal into its allotropic diamond form...


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IX The above analysis gives us part of the answer. In our experiment in artificial insemination, we must use a single sperm. This presents no difficulty. Superman may use his microscopic vision and a pair of tiny tweezers to pluck a sperm from the swarm.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
X In its eagerness the single sperm may crash through LL's abdomen at transsonic speeds, wreaking havoc. Is there any way to slow it down?

There is. We can expose it to gold kryptonite.

Gold kryptonite, we remember, robs a kryptonian of all of his supernormal powers, permanently. Were we to expose Superman himself to gold kryptonite, we would solve all his sex problems, but he would be Clark Kent forever. We may regard this solution as somewhat drastic.

But we can expose the test tube of seminal fluid to gold kryptonite, then use standard techniques for artificial insemination.

By any of these methods we can get LL pregnant, without killing her. Are we out of the woods yet?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
XI Though exposed to gold kryptonite, the sperm still carries kryptonian genes. If these are recessive, then LL carries a developing human foetus. There will be no more Supermen; but at least we need not worry about the mother's health.

But if some or all of the kryptonian genes are dominant...

Can the infant use his X-ray vision before birth? After all, with such a power he can probably see through his own closed eyelids. That would leave LL sterile. If the kid starts using heat vision, things get even worse.

But when he starts to kick, it's all over. He will kick his way out into open air, killing himself and his mother.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
XII Is there a solution?

There are several. Each has drawbacks.

We can make LL wear a kryptonite (*For our purposes, all forms of kryptonite are available in unlimited quantities. It has been estimated, from the startling tonnage of kryptonite fallen to Earth since the explosion of Krypton, that the planet must have outweighed our entire solar system. Doubtless the "planet" Krypton was a cooling black dwarf star, one of a binary pair, the other member being a red giant.*) belt around her waist. But too little kryptonite may allow the child to damage her, while too much may damage or kill the child. Intermediate amounts may do both! And there is no safe way to experiment.

A better solution is to find a host-mother.

We have not yet considered the existence of a Supergirl. (*She can't mate with Superman because she's his first cousin. And only a cad would suggest differently.*) She could carry the child without harm. But Supergirl has a secret identity, and her secret identity is no more married than Supergirl herself. If she turned up pregnant, she would probably be thrown out of school.

A better solution may be to implant the growing foetus in Superman himself. There are places in a man's abdomen where a foetus could draw adequate nourishment, growing as a parasite, and where it would not cause undue harm to surrounding organs. Presumably Clark Kent can take a leave of absence more easily than Supergirl's schoolgirl alter ego.

When the time comes, the child would be removed by Caesarian section. It would have to be removed early, but there would be no problem with incubators as long as it was fed. I leave the problem of cutting through Superman's invulnerable skin as an exercise for the alert reader.

The mind boggles at the image of a pregnant Superman cruising the skies of Metropolis. Batman would refuse to be seen with him; strange new jokes would circulate the prisons...and the race of Krypton would be safe at last.

Reprinted from All the Myriad Ways © 1971 by Larry Niven.

Hey, Supes... why don't you just let her be on top?

On a somewhat linguistically oriented tangent to the Niven piece above, did you know that SUPERMAN IS A DICK??I sure didn't, but this site is hilarious.

Early buzz on THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake

It's actually pretty good from some reports:



ROTTEN TOMATOES thinks so, anyway.

When I saw they were attempting a "re-imagining" of Craven's 1977 original, my response was the typical "Why? WHY?? WHHHHHYYYYY?" whine of the true film geek. For once, the story may have benefitted from the retelling. That doesn't happen very often.

Bear McCreary

is a name little known outside of TV circles. He is the music composer from Battlestar Galactica, and the guy responsible for the jarring percussion mixed with flutes and sitar which make up the weekly musical score.


"FILM MUSIC RADIO" (the website) had this to say about Bear McCreary's work:

Imagine Celtic bagpipes playing inside an intergalactic war machine. Then try hearing Japanese Taiko drums pounding in place of any sound effects during a space battle. Then you can begin to imagine the alternative sound that composer Bear McCreary has brought to the traditional space opera with his music for the Sci-Fi Channel's "Battlestar Galactica."

An accordion virtuoso and protégée of the late Elmer Bernstein, the 26 year-old McCreary had helped composer Richard Gibbs pioneer Galactica's sound during its first appearance as a Sci-Fi Channel two-part movie. When its success took "Galactica" to series, Gibbs found himself unable to score the program on, leaving his protege to take the Battlestar into a brave new musical world. And McCreary has done it with style over the course of two seasons, replacing the symphonic space opera sound with a minimal, ethnic approach, achieving "Galactica"'s goal of making viewers take what was once Star Wars-inspired camp with absolute seriousness. No more so than with its music's meditative tone.

McCreary's website has some choice audio and video bits demonstrating how music blends with the wonderful visuals of the show and helps to set the tone for a shot.

Check it out! Play a few! McCreary is quite a virtuoso.









(copyright SCI FI Channel 2006. For review purposes.)

28mm getting too costly?

28mm is one of those established "heroic" "mutant 25mm" scales that people like to game in these days, especially in small density games that don't require a lot of soldiers. 28mm can really show off detail from the painter's brush. The downside is that they are getting so frapping expensive. To put a massed army on tabletop these days is a pretty serious investment, even with cheap "unit builders" and lots of units with very few poses in them.

Old Glory Corporation makes some of the finest bagged armies I know of, and they are still what I would consider a stalwart source of 28mm bagged army units at a reasonable price. As long as they don't go through the roof, I'll always be a customer. Their prices are not immune to economic pressure, alas, and I find myself thinking twice about paying thirty some odd bucks after taxes where I used to pay 22. And that's the affordable option. Consider the prices of unit sized elements from an overseas producer, like the Foundry (not picking on them, btw, the cost of shipping is what it is..).

The recent announcement of 25mm scaled junks and sampans from THE ARMCHAIR GENERAL had me drooling... until I got a look at what he was charging.


Pretty, huh? This 28mm scale junk costs five hundred simoleons...

So lately I have to say that 20mm on down is looking better and better. I chose 20mm for my Russo-Polish War project, and have painted up a lot of 15mm fantasy stuff for HOTT. I'm not enthusiastic about starting 28mm "army projects" as opposed to little skirmish games, from here on out.

Wow! Battlestar Galactica continues to improve.

I thought the writing was less then stellar the first couple of episodes (and actively disliked BLACK MARKET), as described in previous posts here. The last couple of shows, however, have really been a major comeback starting with the drunken Starbuck episode ("SCAR").

Last Friday's show was on what society is like from a Cylon's point of view. The writers aptly demonstrated why they are earning all the praise that gets heaped upon them.

ONLY MILD SPOILERS...

The Sharon model that was shot by Callie (the deckhand who seems to have vanished this season) is reincarnated (how?) on Caprica. She is haunted by her past experiences-- shooting Adama, screwing over Chief Tyrell, etc. She demonstrates a potential for humanity that is (in this viewer's eye) genuine, because she is within Cylon society now and has no reason to hide her motives from humans. She is (we learn) "Number 8" in the series of 12 Cylons. I now call that particular model and personality "Sharon 8" (and I guess the one on Galactica is "Sharon 8 prime"?)

Meanwhile, Number 6 - the one that seduced Baltar to betray humanity on Caprica. is reborn (they say) somewhat earlier, having presumably perished in the destruction of Caprica back in season one. We learn, to our surprise, that SHE also has genuine feelings for (from her perspective) the now dead Baltar. She's something of a hero for the rest of the Cylons, as she had single handedly engineered the Cylon victory. She is now known as "Caprica 6" (courtesy of the show writers). Interestingly, she is haunted by the spectre of Baltar (in a cute reversal of her role as Baltar's psychological gadfly on the Galactica). The Baltar-as-her-conscious thing is truly fantastic writing.

Needless to say, the two cylons meet after resurrection and share information, and the story really develops from there-- to reveal more ventures into the category of MAJOR spoilers. It was unique in that we actually get to see Cylons speaking without guile; or at least without guile directed towards humanity. No further comment. I thought it was one of the better episodes.* Apparently TV GUIDE thinks so, too.

My one criticism: we're on a planet of Cylon "skin jobs". Why do we ONLY see the ones we've already seen, out of the 12 possible models available?

... and I'm not even touching the issue of the hybrid baby. Is that an accident waiting to happen, or what?



* By the way, I also thought LAST week's episode ("the Captain's Hand") was very strong, just not in the same league as this one. Apparently the fleet isn't so far away from those Cylons as they thought they were! Three base stars loitering around in space.. that could ruin your whole day.

Not exactly a MMORPG, but a lot of fun anyway

Adventure Quest

It's a hoot... very anime looking but a wondefully realized world with quests, characters, development, etc. Give it a try.

My word, that's a big'un

Pre-order price for a wargame, that is.

A news item on CSW directed me to the Avalanche page, and these two items in their queue:

Hearts of Iron

Hearts of Iron: Ironclad Campaigns, 1864 and 1866
During the age of nationalism, the Austrian Navy fought two campaigns at sea. The first came in 1864, when an Austrian squadron sailed into the North Sea to challenge the Danish blockade of North German ports. The Austrians fought the Danes at the Battle of Helgoland, winning a strategic victory by breaking the blockade. Meanwhile, Austria’s Prussian allies fought an inconclusive sea engagement with the Danes at Swinemunde.

Two years later, the Austrian fleet fought the Italians in the first open-sea battle between ironclad fleets, at Lissa in the Adriatic. An Austrian victory, it prevented Italian seizure of the strategic island of Lissa.

Hearts of Iron is loosely based on our Great War at Sea series of games, but uses the large counters found in Napoleon in the Desert or Rome at War. The “search” part of the game is very similar. There are two operational maps, one of the North Sea and Baltic and one of the Adriatic. The tactical partof the game is more detailed, with armor (or lack of it) and ship design playing a much more crucial role.

In addition to the Danish, Prussian, Austrian and Italian fleets, there are the American Mediterranean Squadron that the Austrians believed would fight alongside the Italians, and the Turkish European Fleet that entered the Adriatic to support Austria.

As with all of our naval games, there is a wide variety of both operational and battle scenarios, based on extensive archival research into the original reports and dispatches.

Hearts of Iron includes two operational maps, one tactical map, 88 double-sized ship pieces, 154 oversized playing pieces.

This is a time period that I love to read about and game in; unfortunately the sticker price is (gasp) SEVENTY FIVE simoleons. And the Commitment Price is a whopping discount of: $60

Just doesn't seem like all that much of a break, does it?

Great War at Sea: cone of fire

Another fun addition to the much stretched GWAS engine, this time retreading the same ground taken with the DREADNOUGHTS package, only instead of having the Great Powers make use of the Latin American dreadnoughts, the game investigates the what-ifs of the countries actually purchasing said fleets and going to war with each other. Now that should make for a really fun little what-if wargame:

Great War at Sea has covered naval wars around the world, both those that occured and those that might have but did not. One of the flash points that failed to ignite was at the southern tip of South America, where Chile and Argentina engaged in a heated naval arms race in the early 1900s.

Cone of Fire adds the fleets of South America to the Great War at Sea game system: Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Peru. Both the fleets built by these nations, and the ships planned or ordered but never received, are included. Chile’s battle cruisers and aircraft carrier, Argentina’s fast pre-dreadnoughts, Peru’s armored cruiser and more are all here.

There are more than three dozen scenarios, covering several tense periods:

The 1901-1902 Beagle Channel crisis.
1914, the outbreak of World War One.
1920, the Great War’s aftermath.
Cone of Fire includes:

Two 34x22-inch operational maps.
One 25x25-inch tactical map.
140 “large” playing pieces
280 standard-sized playing pieces.

The all too familiar retail price: seventy five dollars, with a commitment price of sixty bucks. Again.

I'm not busting on Avalanche Press in particular, here. They actually have been making great strides in the exact OPPOSITE direction lately; their line of affordable wargames is growing yearly, and I supported that by buying each one of them! GMT, Avalanche, Clash of Arms and Columbia all have SRPs that will make your eyes bug out compared to about ten years ago. I think the days of the complex, multi-mapped and multiple scenario wargame being published for a SRP under sixty bucks are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. I used to buy wargames for the sheer fun of acquiring them; some that I bought in the 90s I knew I would never play, I just wanted to get the latest and greatest thing (most of these are the ebay fodder of the past, now). That was back when wargames cost from 30 to 40 bucks each.

Nowadays, I have to think long and hard before I buy even ONE wargame, at these prices. Are my fellow wargamers that much different from me?

Both sections of quoted text copyright Avalanche Press from their website

First Place!

Tom shows us what we don't know about psychology and how much he has studied the subject. Thanks, Tom!

Second Place!

Tom wrestles with Oprah, demonstrates his general nuttiness! This is a great mashup video with a few homemade effects thrown in. You've seen bits of it before, I am sure.

Third Place!

Tom shows us how much he cares on Access Hollywood! Groovy!

Honorable Mention

Kind of ho hum after all that excitement, a very subdued Tom on Babwah Wah Wah!



Enjoy!

Are the ghosts of Sam Walton and L. Ron Hubbard shaking hands in Hell? You be the judge.

Detected at the local W*l M*rt this morning.

Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) returned to the big screen back in 2003, with an alternative history scientific fantasy romance title (of all things) set in Victorian England.

The protaganist is young Ray (Rei) Steam, of the Steam family (Edward and Lloyd being his dad and granddad, respectively). The sinister O'Hara Foundation (yeah! Great name!) wants an invention of Grandpa Lloyd's (the enigmatic "Steam Ball"), and it somehow gets to Ray, who has to keep it away from the O'Hara operatives.

If you caught Akira, you know how big Otomo can paint a picture. Steam Boy is a wonderful picture, and I highly recommend it. The best part was all the funky Victorian technology such as steam tanks, walkers, and flyers that show up at the climax of the film. Wonderful stuff

I just caught this on Showtime last night with Garrett. I had to shout out a translation as it was shown in subtitles. There is an americnized version with some pretty topflight voice talent doing the dub work (Molina, Stewart, Pacquin, et. al.) ... we're getting this one.



Trailers

*site is in Japanese, but you can figure it out easily*

Note that not everyone out there agrees with me. This is a well written review, taking an opposite view to mine.

Sailwx.nfo

Here's a fascinating site

Ship locations, all over the world... each litte red dot is a ship of some sort, reflecting the last reported satellite position of the named ship.



Here's the location of super-lifter Mighty Servant I, currently off Java. Pretty neat, eh?

There's a little contest for some game related swag (see bottom of this post) going on at the Greater Pacific War Project site. What is the Greater Pacific War Project, you ask? Here's the statement posted to TMP:

The Greater Pacific War Project is an educational effort to tell the story of the Pacific Theater of World War II. It is an ongoing project with major events being held at Nashcon in late Spring and Historicon in Summer of 2006. The website and forums will support historical miniature enthusiasts with information, scenearios, TO&E and plenty of advice on gaming in the period. The Pacific Theater was a lot more than a few bloody battles for sandy islands. The role played by many nations and the diversity of combat in the air, at sea, in amphibious operations, land operations, urban battles and so forth is very diverse. The project hopes to encourage gamers to look at this theater more closely and to remind visitors to the site of the history and sacrifices of this time period.

Laudable goals, I think.

From a practical perspective, it means another huge game that takes up a lot of rooms in the Distelfink room. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy the eye candy but I don't get the appeal of running games at such a large scale. Is it the sheer logistic challenge of putting on something so danged big? Visually really huge games like (I suspect) this one will be and the Arnhem game was are a delight to look at and fodder for magazine articles. Gamewise, huge games are tough to pull off unless something is going on all over the place, and that means lots of referees and players. I have played in a few extravaganzas in the past (Borodino, some of the Duke Siegried games, etc. and there's always a lot of sitting around as you spend hours moving your little command from point A two feet to point B.

So I wish these guys well, it will be quite a challenge.

The new AUSTERLITZ game by Bruce McFarlane



and the new Frederick the Great game





Of the two, I will likely get Frederick. Small battles really seem to stress the block system for me. I did not like the Gettysburg game as much as I thought I would after a couple of plays.

The HELLAS game looks very intriguing.. especially after I read TIDES OF WAR a while back..



MAP

COUNTERS


Notes: For information, visit Columbia Games.

Frederick Pre-Order 51.99 USD (not bad)

Austerlitz Pre-Order 47.99 USD (almost cheap at today's prices)

Hellas Pre-Order 44.99 USD (a great deal)

Tim Buckley does a great job catching classic youth angst and indifference in his comic CTRL + ALT + DEL



check it out...

Saw this on Consimworld.

Hey, check it out.. I found a video on the 'Net featuring a vintage film bit with Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli. Amazing!



Jean-Baptiste "Django" Reinhardt, for the uninitiated, was a famous Gypsy Guitarist with a maimed hand that singlehandedly (almost literally!) created a "gypsy jazz" sound back in the 20s and 30s.

Video Source: HERE

Listen to his Nuages solo HERE

Is it too early to talk "Cleo Awards"?

Now that's a tagline: "Raw Buttock Clenching Tension"...

Eating chocolate is not something most of us usually associate with raw, buttock-clenching tension. A quick straw poll around Firebox HQ showed that the closest any of us has ever come to this pleasure-meets-pain-style sensation was when we shared a tube of Smarties whilst watching the final episode of 24.

The thing is, chomping on choccy has always been a relatively humdrum experience... Until now.

The above quote is from a British choclotier (of sorts) called "firebox.com". They sell "Chocolate Roulette", a box of 6 attractively styled and tasty chocolate candies, with a twist. ONE of them has a red hot chili pepper buried inside. The idea is to hand them all out at once, and have a group of six eat them.

Pretty wacky idea... combining the fun of chocolate with the crashing denouement of Russian Roulette! Sign me up! Where was this on Valentines Day?

COLD WARS DIRECTOR AUDIO REPORT #4

The return of one day passes, confirmed by management!

New Q&A message board!

Painting competition to be held!

and much much more...

Okay, maybe not THAT much more, it was late.

Direct link to Q&A forum:

Visit the COLD WARS WEBSITE (http://www.coldwars.org) for more details.

Warning: I could have gone my entire life without viewing this picture. Apparently this is something geeks on the distant fringe do-- it's called "slash literature" or "slash art".. forcing well known cult figures into.. er.. compromising situations with each other. Bleagh.

(Found doing an image search for my son's cub scout project: the search was for "astronauts" on Google Image Search)

Original context: posted on the blog collection on BoingBoing.net



I used to LIKE Star Trek.. egh... *noisy drive heaves sound*

Thus Far...

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm a drooling fanboy of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, on the Sci-Fi TV network on extended cable. The show is gritty, intense, uncompromising and very well written. Season 2 took a short hiatus back with episode 210 (Pegasus, brilliant stuff) and resumed episodes in January.

So far, I've had mixed reactions ranging from over-the-top enthusiasm to disappointment to plain old confusion.

Resurrection Ship 1 & 2 (211,212): A fantastic two part episode, wonderfully written, with tense plot development and a beautiful sequence at the end of the second part featuring dozens of nude Cylon bodies tumbling out into the vaccumn.

Epiphanies (213): A good, not great, show, featuring almost entirely a Laura Rosslyn POV plot. This show had a very downbeat ending that frankly I found puzzling in the extreme. Baltar's unexplained treacherous action at the very end will have bitter consequences and how will he benefit?

Black Market (214): The worst episode of BG I've seen yet. Just another low rent action film in SF trappings (which spoils the fact that it focuses on the character of Lee Adama somewhat). Redeemed somewhat by the guest star, the black mercenary dude from Predator. Note Bene, in Ron Moore's podcast on this episode, he admits this is the episode he likes the least as well.

Scar (215): What a comeback! One of the greats. Delves deeply into the idea of how Cylon raider ships are constructed, and the idea that some of them might have identities. Shows Starbuck at her worst, which is, I think, refreshing. Very much a show about the PILOT's point of view. Video HERE

Sacrifice (216): Not great. Only ho-hum. Plot is pretty good, but it could have taken place anywhere; imagine this taking place in a bank or something. They should have made us more sympathetic to the Dana Delaney character-- she's largely wasted (literally and figuratively) in this one. Video HERE

Good news: they signed Lucy Lawless, who played the Journalist-cover cyclon in Final Cut ep. 208) back for several episodes. I liked her part and I like where they are going with this. Show us some more cylon infiltrator agents!

New Feature: "It's Only Toy Soldiers" Message Forum

In order to give people a conduit for communications (on season and off) I've instituted "It's Only Toy Soldiers", a PHP script forum board. The link is to the left hand side on the top, under the link button to this blog and just above Albuminal Spum.

It looks like this:



Clicking on that will launch a very bare-bones-at-the-moment message board (see below), which is viewable by me just about anywhere. I will have some restricted forums for convention staff discussions (etc.) and also some "To the CD" comment lines for Cold Wars Attendees.



I think you can read messages as a GUEST, but you will have to register to sound off.

Thanks for you patience.

My old (several layers up) boss is running for Congress. Details here. An interesting article. I can't disagree with the guy about his views on the war, but it's largely a moot point by now. As for the supposition about why he retired, I have no comment.

Monday Morning Philosophy

I am getting more and more into podcasting lately and am contemplating doing one myself, if I can add anything of value to the general din of podcasts that are emerging from the aetherverse. One of the better ones is BOARDGAMES TO GO, produced by Mark Johnson, former microgame enthusisast and now Euro player. I've actually played a few PBeM games with Mark from time to time so I kind of "know him" in the internet sense-- I doubt I'll ever meet the guy out in the meatverse but I've been chatting via email on and off with him for a while. More OFF these days as he moves away from the games we used to have in common. Mark's podcast isn't quite as frenetic or humorous as some shows out there, but what I really like about it is the sheer dedication (to the point of mania) that Mark puts into the craft of producing the show on a timely basis, with lots of supporting material and meta-information available to support each podcast. Anyhow, I've been going through Mark's older 'casts and found a few that caught my eye (or ear, as it were). His recent (fiftieth! Good going, Mark!) podcast was with Mike Siggins, whose opinions used to grace SUMO and now he pops up here and there (most notably on CONSIMWORLD, but also on BGG the Wargame Mongrels Yahoo Group, and his own website, Czapska.com). I enjoyed Mike's SUMO stuff then and certainly enjoy his opinions now.

The show was about ESSEN SPIEL, the (the bigass game trade show in Essen, Germany held in October. One of the the strong recurrent themes of that particular podcast was a phrase that Mark Johnson repeated frequently, called "The Buzz". By "The Buzz", Mark and Mike were refering to the fan-generated hype that carries a game along to greater sales volumes (and attendant heavy volumes of discussion, high ratings on BGG and appearance as a hot topic on various websites). Consider this new game, CAYLUS. It debuted at Essen and already has SIX HUNDRED AND SEVENTY ONE comments, and an average rating of 8.44 on boardgamegeek. Those are some mighty impressive numbers, but I recall the same 'buzz' happening for PUERTO RICO, ST. PETERSBURG, and other games. I'm wondering, however, where the buzz will be tommorrow?

I prefer my own term for this phenomena, THE SHINY NEW PENNY SYNDROME. Euros can certainly generate waves of popularity, we've seen this phenonmenon again and again. One of the reasons I like wargames more than euros is that they tend to have far greater staying power than any Euro. Wargames are NOT immune to "the Buzz" or "the shiny new penny" syndrome. We all like to focus on new games-- like a crow focusing on a shiny new penny. Last year, the shiny new pennies were FRIEDRICH (yes, it's a wargame), WELLINGTON, BONAPARTE AT MARENGO, and EMPIRE OF THE SUN. Early contenders for the shiny new penny in 2006 will be THE BURNING BLUE, TWILIGHT STRUGGLE, COMMAND AND CONQUER: ANCIENTS, RAN, HELLAS, and God knows what else.

The difference is wargamers are still playing with last year's shiny new penny, and will continue to do so for a long while. Wargame publishers will write articles about them and publish expansion modules for them. Long rambling discussions on CSW will ensue over them, to the point of argument. Because that's what wargamers do. Each wargame is in either small or large part a "classic" with a built in community, thanks in great measure to WEB-GROGNARDS and CONSIMWORLD, that will greatly expand each game's replayability and staying power. Designers should thank their lucky stars that arguments DO break out over their games-- nobody wants a game that can't generate excitement.

Don't get me wrong, fights break out over games on BGG, and people support games there in their own way, but the furor (with some few exceptions) seems to be over after a year or so. Where are the shiny new pennies from 2000, 2001, & 2002 at the big gaming conventions? Some, like Puerto Rico and Settlers, are perennial favorites for some crowds. Most seem doomed to fade away. Again, wargames aren't immune to fading away, even the ones that get good initial press, but wargames do seem to generate more loyal longterm fans than Euros do.

I wonder if this is due to marketing, or a hugely different customer base? Hard to say really, since there's so much cross-pollination between groups. I play my share of Euros and really enjoy them, as do other wargamers. I guess the best indicator of a difference between the two sorts of games is the content inside the box-- if you can boil it all down to "That's a set collection game" or "that's an area movement and control game", then the game doesn't have enough flavor to communicate the theme adequately, and will probably fade away. That's a basic reality for any game.

Drey called this morning from traffic, and was commenting on the scenery in an idle fashion as she drove along. She got behind a METROPOLITAN MEAT, POULTRY AND SEAFOOD truck. If you're from the Washington area you've seen their ubiquitous logo on many delivery trucks, featuring happy, hugging animals destined to be consumed by human predators:



Neither Drey nor myself are vegitarians and we enjoy eating our animal friends... we merely were amused about what the animals might be thinking if they were contemplating the imminent fate that would inevitably end up with them being meat products. Maybe they wouldn't be so happy and cuddly then, eh?