The Merry Misadventures of a Fangirl in Toronto

In Things That I Was Doing This Weekend...

commanderteddog — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 16:31:37 GMT

I finally finished the last Umineko story, Twilight of the Golden Witch.

It's really more of a very extended epilogue. Requiem of the Golden Witch went into the most of the how's and who's of the Rokkenjima incident. Twilight was more about resolving dangling plot threads with Ange and Bernkastel that were left over after Requiem.

The general theme of the story can be summed up as "Get over yourself and move on" on several levels. I'm surprised that more fans didn't take offense over the author framing obsessively speculating and debating the same facts over and over again as a mindless, destroying mass of evil that corrupts all that it touches. It's framed as more of an attack on tabloids and online conspiracy culture in the story and, arguably, the author doesn't have a good answer to counter that nebulous antagonist. The one he presents is to deny a single answer to them and therefore force them to question why they care so much about something that really won't directly impact their lives.

By the same token, I know there's fan forums with people still fighting over the details of stories. Which is strange, because the author's point really was that the truth of Rokkenjima incident didn't matter.

The story was about the two siblings who were part of a eccentric family that gained power after WWII through secret Nazi gold, clearly suffered from functional levels of mental illness, left illegitimate kids all over the place and had odd fetishes for the occult and strange parts of Western culture. And for all the mistakes that family made (and there were many - these weren't really good people), they weren't evil, soulless people. They were just a very eccentric family who made really questionable choices. In the end the search for that eccentric familiarity is what drives the siblings after the incident, but takes them both in very personal and separate directions. When they find each other again, it's not as family but as peers - they're both authors who have moved on, built their own lives and accept that the familiarity that they were looking for isn't going to be found within each other.

And I'm okay with that.

Rob's Marvel Civil War Game, Interlude 2: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Milestones and You!

commanderteddog — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 01:13:27 GMT

I need to unwind, so allow me to hold a discussion on Marvel Heroic Roleplaying's (MHRP) Milestones and how to use them for fun and profit.

For those who aren't deeply familiar with MHRP, Milestone's are the game's main vector for XP. They're typically conflicts that aren't quite to the scale of the game's main plot, but ones that the character is dealing with on an ongoing basis. The game puts the direction of these in the player's hands and rewards them for bringing them up. Depending on what part of the Milestone you complete, you receive 1 xp (usually something minor), 3 xp (something slightly bigger and more important), or 10 xp (a watershed moment for the character that changes them in some way). Once you complete the 10xp part, the Milestone is replaced.

This doesn't mean that your character's inner conflict's resolution is set in stone. Milestones can be swapped out between sessions and during what are known as "Transition Scenes" (read: anything that's not combat/an "Action Scene"). I suppose one could game the system this way, but the intent is to change milestones that no longer make sense in the context of the story and characters.

The books have piles of milestones of varying degrees of quality. Which is fine, if you're using a premade character. If you aren't, like the fool I am, things become slightly harder. Milestones aren't as annoying to built as Powersets (I'll spare the terrible details of my adventures translating Icon's Possession power to MHRP), but are somewhat fiddly.

It's become something of a sport to convert characters into MHRP. The only problem is that a lot of the fan-made milestones suck. They're usually a combination of too vague, broad or short. This was something I wanted to avoid. Granted, some of the official milestones are terrible too. There are milestones which only grant their 1 xp level once, which makes no sense.

I ended up doing a lot of "serial number filing" with official milestones off at first. This had varying degrees of success. Since I seem to have opinions in everything, I feel to share them here. Maybe someone, somewhere will find some use for what I discovered.

Act One:

My first two milestones were definitely based on existing ones in the core book. They had very mixed results. Honestly, they kinda sucked.

I Can’t Save The World if I’m Dead
1 XP: When you’re in a situation where taking Mutant Growth Hormone pills will help you or your teammates.
3 XP: When you lie to a teammate about your stash of MGH pills or when you give a teammate a good reason to believe that you artificially enhanced your powers.
10 XP: When you hurt someone innocent with your enhanced powers or when you destroy your stash of MGH pills and vow to never use them again.

Oh yeah. My character started the game mildly addicted to MGH. I keep forgetting about this.

This is a hack of Stark's Demon In A Bottle milestone. It worked well for the first third of the storyline but this was admittedly because of the role that MGH plays in the event book version of Civil War and because Rob had an interesting idea of who my character's supplier was. It's a little Munchkiny as the 1 xp triggered at the start of almost every combat. The 3 xp didn't really get used that much, but no one in the party really asked why my character was acting odd and he had no reason to lie. Then again, everyone else in the party is kinda crazy.

I cashed out the 10 xp when I had an opening to; the main reason my character was taking MGH wasn't a problem anymore and destroying the pills seemed stupidly dramatic. I think he tossed them off of a roof. I hope a cat in the alley down below ate them.

The Brain is Wider Than the Sky
1 XP: When you use your Psych Master to help a superhuman recover stress.
3 XP: When you choose not to engage in a confrontation in order to rescue or support noncombatant superhuman
10 XP: When you either allow a superhuman to go insane or give up your status or reputation to save a superhuman.

Another hack, this time one of Beast's starting milestones. I wanted this one to work so much (the title is so cool!), but there was no good way to make it work.

The nature of the milestone removes the character from the conflict at hand, something that I'm not really comfortable doing (split the party. Run away from your party. Ignore when your friends need help. These are all bad things, IMHO). We have another player who believes his job is to put out all of the small fires, so there was never anything small for me to do. Even worse, there weren't many innocent bystanders due to the direction that the game took.

This milestone eventually got dumped by the end of Act Two.

Act Two

I was originally debating making some sort of "Only Sane Man in the Room" milestone at the start of Act Two. This evolved from a loose milestone idea that could be called "Cat Herder". These seemed dumb and I never used them.

Test Your Allegiance
1 XP: When you confront another hero about the ethics of actions they’ve taken to help your side or another hero confronts you about yours.
3 XP: When you confess to another hero you’re not certain you’ve chosen the right side.
10 XP: When you either cause enough emotional stress on another hero to force them to switch sides or react to emotional stress or trauma by switching sides yourself.

This is one of the few ones I took wholesale from the books. It's from the Civil War book.

This one was okay and I got an decent amount of use out of it. If I were to redo the milestone it would be 1 xp for talking about not being certain about the side you're on and 3 xp to confront someone about their ethics. Odds are you're going to be admitting some discomfort about the situation before pointing fingers. In my opinion, the "Talking Points Reward 1 xp" styles of milestone has potential for a jumping off point for IC discussion and should be used more often. More on that later.

It became a little problematic when my character and Bob had it at the same time. They formed at little echo chamber and were bringing up the same talking points. I don't think that Conan actually completed this one and my completion was arbitrary at best; "I unleashed a cosmic horror. Did I cause people to switch sides due to the stress of seeing someone's head ripped off? Okay, taking the 10 xp!"

Lesson learned: Try not to have the same milestones as other people in the party. There's many of the damn things that you can find a different one that works.

Act Three

So, on the idea of "Talking Points Reward 1 xp". Act Three was when the party really started to play around with these. I suspect this is because the Civil War books beyond the core book are full of this style of milestone and Rob had PDFs of all of them by this point. They're fun.

Former SHIELD Operative
1 XP when you discuss past work you have done for S.H.I.E.L.D.
3 XP when you help a superhumans evade S.H.I.E.L.D. or other governmental forces.
10 XP when you either take a high ranking position with S.H.I.E.L.D., so that you can make the world a better place, or vow to never work with S.H.I.E.L.D. again, considering the organization an enemy to your fellow superhumans.

I think this one is from one of the X-Men files. This one didn't last long. I got 1 xp twice and then accidentally cashed it out at the end of the session where I picked it up. My character got a job offer.

I don't have much to say about this one, except it was my donation from the IC conversation that killed Rob. Conan started with one of Bob's "Talking Points Reward 1 xp", James made the conversation about one of his, I said "You know, back when I worked for SHIELD..." and then had to stop as Rob laughed his ass off. And then he made me finish the line to get the XP. :(

(Note: I believe that the official game rules cap only one milestone cash out per an act. Rob's a bit more flexible as long as we aren't stupid with out milestones.)

Show Them Nothing but What is Shown to You.
1 XP when you explain something using your medical knowledge to an ally.
3 XP when you use your Psych Expert to create an asset for your allies.
10 XP when you either restore your patient records for other heroes to use or permanently destroy your backups.

AKA Rach tries to fix her Psych milestone. Based off of one of Elsa Bloodstone's milestones.

It's an attempt to take The Brain is Wider Than the Sky and make it more functional to the party. It's still all pysch-based and rewards the PC for being in-character. However, while the original milestone rewarded the character for dropping everything and running away, this rewards putting assets into play for other PCs to use and using specialties to figure out things the rest of the party can't.

Justice Like Lightning
1 XP when you discuss your idealistic goals for the Thunderbolts with your allies.
3 XP when you accuse someone of betraying the ideals of the Thunderbolts.
10 XP when you either release a team member's nanochain in order to achieve an objective or kill a team member for committing a villainous act.

I built this one myself. I really didn't like the official Thunderbolts milestones. They mostly work with the idea that the players character are equipped with nanochains (something that Rob didn't go with) or are trying to destroy the project from the outside. Our game is going a different direction with the idea that will end poorly for everyone, eventually, but is trying to be slightly more idealistic at first. Or maybe that's my bias.

I haven't had a chance to use it at the table yet. I suspect I'll be yelling at NPCs tomorrow.

2013 in short!

commanderteddog — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 13:20:00 GMT

I normally make a resolutions post for the new year on New Years day, recapping my goals for the past year and the ones for the new year.

Yeah, so, my last few days have been:

28th - Went to the maushold to watch movies, look at Christmas lights and sleep over.
29th - The last game of Piet's Star Wars campaign. Got back to Toronto late.
30th - Had people over to play Arkham Horror and eat pizza.
31st - Attempted to get my license. NYE party in the Hamiltons.
1st - NYD party at home with the Christmas dinner we didn't have the week before because Rob and I were both sick. This involved more Arkham Horror.
2nd - Filed out my Second Career contracts. Got the rest of my license. Got trapped in a government building elevator for 40 minutes.

And today, I head up for Orientation at school. 0_0

So, later.

Raising My Plant Army

commanderteddog — Wed, 09 May 2012 03:07:40 GMT

Crossposted from Dial T For Teddog (http://teddog.com). Feel free to comment here or there!

I spent part of today working on my plants; today felt like the first day of the weekend after a busy weekend and Monday. Everything planted back in April today is in some stage of spouting other than my peppers, chives and coriander. I’m not too worried right now, since those can all have long germinations. I suspect that I didn’t properly handle the coriander, but we’ll see what happens in a few weeks. My beans reacted especially well and are outside already. We have a large wire pyramid from a previous tenant, so I’m going to attempt to train them to climb that.

I thinned my tomatoes out today since their true leaves are starting to appear. We’re now down to 12 plants, which is still a lot. The lettuce and basil should also be done at some point, but they seem to be less along. I’ll probably get around to them by later in the week.

I also picked up some swiss chard seeds, mostly because I found some bright lights seeds and decided that I needed ORANGE in my garden; some spearmint seeds, as I wanted an young spearmint plant and they were out; and an young lavender plant, because I wanted to leave with something well underway. While the process of raising a plant from seed has been interesting and compelling, I felt the need to have a plant that’s already producing returns, as it were.

The only preventable problem that’s occurred is that some of my thyme dampened off. It seems to have been a side effect of too much water for a plant that needs comparably little.

The Victory Lap Garden

commanderteddog — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 23:33:03 GMT

Crossposted from Dial T For Teddog (http://teddog.com). Feel free to comment here or there!

Let it be known that I will go insane without projects. I’ve been attempting to hone various household skills over the last few years. I wouldn’t call them “homemaking skills” but they look like it from the outside. These include learning to knit in 2010 and learning to crochet in 2011. Gardening is the one I want to work on in 2012. In particular, the art of container gardening.

One of the on-going frustrations I had with the old apartment was the lack of outdoor space. I had lots of windows, but this never the same as having my own outside space. It’s one of those things you don’t consider until it’s not there. On the plus side, I have a back deck now and it’s fantastic. The plans for the deck involved me using some of the space for gardening.

The last time I could really have a garden was in the summer of 2006; I claimed the back garden space and attempted to start a vegetable garden on a whim. I had good luck with tomatoes, mixed results with peppers and the raccoons ate my cucumbers. Cucumbers are heart-breakers, let me tell you. Plants tend to like me, so I wanted to given gardening another go. My spare time over later part of this week was studying various blogs and websites on container gardening.

It turns out that I live walking distance from the East End Garden Centre. It’s an awesome little place that’s bigger than it looks on the outside; a maze of plants and equipment that winds around and through the store building and in fromt of the house next door. The staff were all friendly and helpful and I suspect the place will see me as a repeat customer. I picked up some seeds and some gear I needed and trotted off back home. The centre had a wide collection of young plants that looked appealing, but we’re right now in the awkward phase where there’s still a risk of frost. I didn’t want to get a plant and kill it on accident, despite our unusually warm spring., but this also means there’s time to start seeds!

In the outside planters I currently have planted lettuce (a cooler weather crop I can rotate out in the worst of the summer), coriander and chives (greens that I can have on hand and not need to get from the grocery store), along with some mixed flower seeds in single pot. If we hit a late frost, I should be able to pull those back in. In my little indoor seed starters I have thyme (I might have envy of Erin’s thyme in her front garden), basil (one of more twitchy plants that I got), sweet peppers (I expect these to be labor intensive, but I wish for a successive go at these), green beans (I wanted a climber) and a mix of heirloom tomatoes (PRETTY COLOURS!). I might be looking to expand later in the season depending on my success rate and how the summer shakes out.

I’ve named the whole concept “The Victory Lap Garden” because it amuses me.

There will hopefully be pictures down the line. I’m attempting to grow these from seed, so there’s nothing exciting to show yet. I need to get some fertilizer early this week.

How to Put Together a Saskatchewan Style Pizza Outside of Saskatchewan

commanderteddog — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:31:04 GMT

Figured this might be of interest for some people. Several people I know are from Saskatchewan and as such, Toronto pizza doesn't really do it for them. I suspect it's like how I sometimes get cravings for Finnish pancakes (speaking of which, I know what breakfast is tomorrow...). After some research and legwork, we've put together a recipe for a passable Saskatchewan Style pizza with food you can get anywhere.

The end result is a very heavy and dense pizza that you need to eat with a fork. It'll fall apart otherwise. It may also be heavy enough to kill a man with enough calories to also kill a second person and cost as much as a delivery pizza. Here's how to build it!

Crust: We used this. Any crust will work, in theory.

Sauce: I THINK we used normal, canned pizza sauce. Comments from my housemates imply that the sauce is a touch spicier than average. This is somewhat up to the maker.

Toppings: This is where the differences in the style of pizza become clear. Forget just a pack of pepperoni. What you're going to what to do is stock up on deli meats. We used one of those variety packs of cold cuts meant for subs, plus pepperoni plus some salami. Now that you have a pile of meat, stack it on the pizza until it's about a centimeter thick. You'll be putting this on top of the sauce, holding back on the cheese for now.

Cheese: We used a mix of cheese we made of about 45% asiago, 45% mozzarella, and 10% cheddar. The secret ingredient is the asiago - I don't recall how I found this out, but it makes a big difference in the taste and smell. Put this on last, covering all of the meat. Imagine it as being the top crust of a pizza pie.

Bake as you would a normal pizza. Don't eat the whole thing in one go, as you'll be sick as a dog.

commanderteddog — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:36:41 GMT

SOCKS!

commanderteddog — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 04:12:59 GMT

Once of my goals for 2012 was to use up all of my stashed sock yarn. The main goal being use up at least one ball of yarn a month. I'm making better than expected progress. Thus far, I've finished 4 socks (and therefore 4 balls). Sadly, only two of those is a complete pair. The other two are waiting on a mate.

My current sock is a partner to the first Gush sock I made about three months ago. That pattern is a pain - the results are lovely, but it's lacework without the appearance of lace (it makes sense when you see it...) and requires extra attention. I'm done the body of the foot and working on the heel now, but I'm ready to be done with them. My tolerance for such fine work is improving, but it's still kinda icky in large amounts.

Thankfully, one of the "waiting in the wings" patterns is brainless enough that I don't need my head in a pattern every two seconds.

In Hamilton This Weekend...

commanderteddog — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:06:56 GMT

But! I'm babysitting/cooking/helping my sister Jenn, who is recovering from gallbladder surgery. The rest of my family is in the US helping my other sister moved into the her new place and Jen has a history of bad painkiller reactions, so someone needs to be there for support.

Which means that I can potentially have people over, but I can't really GO anywhere or DO anything other than hang out at the homestead. Maybe I can get Jen to go out to breakfast on Saturday. But I like visitors! PLEASE TEXT ME AND COME OVER TO VISIT US. :O

In closing, I leave you this:

... Bimbos of the Death Sun is REAL! Again!

commanderteddog — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:26:15 GMT

For those not familiar with the book, the title of Bimbos of the Death Sun refers to an real-in-the-novel's-universe hard science fiction novel that an engineering professor character wrote, only to have the book published with an explicit cover and an eyebrow raising title. While the example of the book is a little extreme, it's funny when you find similar examples come up in the real world.

I was looking for a show to watch from the winter anime season line up (I'm making it a point to watch at least one show a season) and at first over looked a series called Bodacious Space Pirates because... the title sounded terrible. I heard a couple of decent reviews for it and I decided to finally give it a watch...

And it turns out that despite the sketchy title, it's actually pretty fantastic. It's a slow paced, somewhat hard science fiction series. The "hard" is in the loose sense of the concept, as most reviews I've seen point out that the science presented is fairly solid and the technological advances are well-thought out. For example, there's a fun little bit in the first episode where the main character finds out about her mother's secret past via a futuristic Google Image search. The science and tech are contrasted against an extremely broad colour palette, a storyline that involves pirates that are technically privateers (I think that this might be a language barrier issue, since the term the show uses is "legal pirates") and high school girls.

The flavour of the story is quite, quite odd, but I think I like it. I like the idea of mixing hardish science fiction and traditional high adventure stories. At least, I think that's the path the show is going to take. Right now the focus seems to be on the main character's privateer training, with very thoughtful discussions on topics like cyberwarfare and the nature of firearms in ship-to-ship combat.

As for the Bimbos of the Death Sun connection? Some further research reveals that the anime is based on a pulp novel/light novel series written by a Japanese author who was otherwise known for his non-fiction science writing. The books were called "Miniskirt Space Pirates" and featured teenaged girls as a marketing ploy, since the general opinion was that a straight, hardish sci-fi, privateer-themed series wouldn't sell.

The show is being simulcast over here with a week delay on the episodes for free users. I deeply suspect that the novel series won't be released over here, given that market for that sort of thing is very soft.

For All of You Foodies Out There...

commanderteddog — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:19:51 GMT

I tried my hand at Teh Tarik this morning. It's tea drink that has origins in Indian, but is a big deal in Malaysia. I learned about it through a blog post somewhere and went "Well, that sounds tasty and seems like a thing I could make". I like tea lattes and milk teas, so why not give it a shot?

I didn't have dust tea on hand, but I had lower end orange pekoe that I keep around for cheap tea requirements (iced tea, etc) and that worked well enough. Most of the recipes have you brew a strong black tea, add condensed milk and then "pull" it - pour the tea from one container to another, mixing and aerating it. I used Pyrex measuring cups for the pulling part, although I've seen some recipes that mentioned using a stick blender in place of pulling.

There's a couple versions of the recipe. This one is the most friendly to my tastes and supplies:
http://nomoremicrowaves.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/teh-tarik/

Warning - if the recipe calls for sugar AND condensed milk, taste test the tea before adding the sugar. I found it made it far too sweet for me. D:

Goals for 2012

commanderteddog — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:57:44 GMT

1 - Get a Driver's License
I finally have the proper chance to do this, as the car door is fixed and Rob can sit in the passenger seat now! It's one big thing I really want to do with my severance money, as I need to buy into my license again. Ontario sucks.

2 - Get a new job
:B

3 - Try to do a daily sketch blog with "finished" sketches.
I find that I sketch a lot of random doodles, but not complete thoughts, as it were. I feel that it would be greatly worthwhile to focus on drawing more somewhat complete ideas. This doesn't have to be every day, but at least once a week.

4 - Destash my sock yarn
I've been comparing notes with an old college friend. We have too much sock yarn. More socks must be made. The goal is at least one ball a month with the scraps used by Christmas and limiting how much sock yarn we buy. Godspeed, Teddog, Godspeed. D: Once my sock yarn is gone, I want to knit an orange sweater.

5 - Write more game related materials
This includes logs for games I'm in and fluff for the games I run. Rob has pointed out that I have all these great ideas in my head that need to make it onto paper/screen. I keep decent notes, but these are those are private. :\

To recap the goals from last year, here's how I did:
1 - Work on Writing and Drawing More ("Scribble more random crap and attempt to write logs")
I think I botched this goal on the writing end. I wrote more game notes, but less finished logs. I did draw a LOT more, but most of this didn't make it online.

2 - Read More!
While I stopped reviewing books, I didn't stop reading them. I read a lot more now out of habit, which is what I wanted. I have to travel with multiple books. My backlog is still the same size, however, as new things keep getting added.

3 - Plan and Go on an Art-Related Trip
Well, the major trips I went on were on a music cruise to parts of Mexico, a wedding in Vancouver and a business trip to Montreal. I saw a LOT of arty things and got to experience bits of culture that were completely new to me. I hope I can get a job that will afford Rob and I one good trip this year, although I know for sure that we're going to Alberta in the fall.

4 - Get a Driver's License
See above. We needed to get the car fixed before we really focused on it.

Life is Decent!

commanderteddog — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:32:27 GMT

The holidays are starting to hit full force here. I had a tiny bit of "panic mode" last weekend, as it dawned on me "I haven't really done anything for Christmas yet." I don't like being in the position of getting my act together at the last second.

Buying a few items on the list took the edge off. I'm a strong supporter of making presents instead buying big ticket items, but I'm also in the awkward position where my direct family is on the poor side. I don't spend thousands of dollars on presents, but I buy $60 video games, feel good giving them to my family and don't feel guilt for being a cog in the consumer machine. My big shopping day is going to be this Saturday, while Emma and Rob are out at Mary Poppins. I'm going to brave downtown!

That said, when it comes to making presents, I've figured out the contents for my friends' presents this year! I'm excited! Rob and Emma's reactions to the baked goods list were positive. I'm planning more varieties this year and if I can get my act together, there will be a website with all of the recipes posted. I just need to sort our freezer this weekend so I can fit my baking in. My new fridge is smaller than my old fridge, which is frustrating.

In family news, Rob and I are going out to Burlington to have dinner with Kate, my mom and my mom's boyfriend. Said boyfriend is a touch skittish about meeting me, since this is the first time that he's met me (although he did get a cookie tin and a card from me at Christmas last year). While he gets along well enough with Kate and my brothers, Jenn is incredibly standoffish and my brother-in-law tends to follow Jenn's lead. He's been worried sick about getting another reaction like that, so we've been slowly working up to this point. Frankly, I'm more than ready not to have a father figure again exactly, but accept that my mother is in another long-term relationship.

So, we shall see how this goes. We're going out for All You Can Eat sushi, so this should be fun. :D

So, The New Muppet Movie...

commanderteddog — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 19:42:04 GMT

Rob and I decided to go see the Muppets last night. Aside from a few very minor issues, the bulk of the movie is just as fantastic as people are claiming. It's a witty, sharply-written movie that will hold the attentions of adults but is still accessible to kids. Now, if it'll hold the attention of kids is somewhat in question; there was a kid sitting behind us who was getting a bit restless later into the movie, but there weren't any kids running up and down the aisles because they were bored.

The most remarkable thing about the movie is how close it comes to the spirit of the Muppet Show and the earlier movies. I'm somewhat jaded by mean-spirited rehashes of my childhood; the Transformers movies and the more awful side of the Star Wars EU material come to mind. The only good recent relaunch before this was My Little Pony, where the new cartoon is better than the original.

The Muppets doesn't quite reach that level of improvement. This isn't to say that it's a bad movie. Far from it. I could list off excellent things about it all day. To sum it up quickly, it has the spirit of both optimistic and manic while maintaining a certain level of grit. Not dark and cynical (in fact, the film parodies the idea of rebooting things darker and edgier), but that certain tactical quality that ties the puppet characters to reality closer than something that's too clean and polished.

But the spirit of sentimentality isn't quite the same; it's still incredibly sentimental but not in the same way. There's a couple of good reasons for this, the most straightforward being that the movie is a relaunch by fans of the characters and Henson's direct impact on the characters is now over twenty years in the past. And yes, Frank Oz did not agree with some of the script, but I don't think one should read too deeply into that.

I know there's some people who would suspect the influence of Disney has negatively impacted the characters. Again, I'm not sure what my opinion is on that. The movie plays around with what's appropriate for kids and pushes the idea of "kids media" a bit. Yes, it doesn't get as "out there"/self-reflective as Fraggle Rock, Dark Crystal or Labyrinth, but I don't think the Muppets are meant to have that as a focus. They're meant to appear to have a lower barrier to entry while at the same time being very, very odd.

Good GOD!

commanderteddog — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 05:12:10 GMT

Hey, check out this set of... Oh.... wow...."

So, Fate/Zero is on sale. For $380 US. For half of the series. Without a dub.

It's a limited print run. I know it'll sell out - Garden of Sinners did. And I really like Type-Moon and Fate/Zero is a fantastic if not silly series.

But I can't comfortably go "I'm spending $800 on a TV series!"

Well, Poop

commanderteddog — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:52:22 GMT

I'm not a person who's fixated on the idea of spoilers. If I get something spoiled, I tend to shrug it off.

I bring this up as I got the ending of the Spice and Wolf novels spoiled on accident. It didn't help that the cover of the last book has THE BIGGEST SPOILER EVER on it. Oops. The cover was clearly meant to be fan service, but not in the ass and boobs way. And that's all I can say on that without cutting my comments.

Holo and Kraft get married. The last book ends with Holo hinting that she's pregnant.

So, I'm assuming that Holo eventually properly dealt with that breakdown she had in the third book. For those who watched the show, that was the whole "Sleep with me so I can have a kid and not be alone anymore" bit that happens after Holo finds out what happened to Yoitsu.

Oh, and apparently Yoitsu and the bear god are never really resolved, aside from Holo learning that her whole family is dead. I can kinda see what they were trying to do with that. Between "Go back and take revenge" or "Hide in shame and cut yourself off from people because everyone will die and leave you alone in the end", the characters takes a third option.

It's already been mentioned in a much earlier short story that Holo will eventually outlive Kraft, but she'll find a village to take her in as a pagan god again and she'll be relatively well-balanced emotionally. Given that "Having the option to settle down and have a family" is a thing that's discussed very early in the novels in the context of Kraft (I can't remember if it's talked about in the show), I'm not shocked that the books end that way.

Ugh.

commanderteddog — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 15:47:28 GMT

Would talk about my awesome earlier part of the weekend, but my sister Jenn is in the hospital right now for a serious gallbladder attack. There's a family history of this on my mom's side so it's not shocking that one of my siblings has had an attack - built in timebombs, really. We aren't too worried, since the doctors found the source quickly and are taking it seriously. They want to pull the gallbladder soon because of the known medical history, but when they will is up in the air.

We aren't sure if they're going to operate today. The outlook last night was they'll delay the operation until after Christmas if they can get the gallbladder under control through treating the stones. It's an easier surgery and would avoid the recovery over the holiday. They'll pull it today if it doesn't react to treatment. Messier surgery, but it fixes the gallstone problem faster.

(I also need to phone Bell to scream at them, but I need to leave the phone open for my family to call. That's going to happen tomorrow, I think.)

Music and Stoof

commanderteddog — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 04:27:39 GMT

I like me some Bruce Cockburn. I like to consider him the anti-Nickleback; while Rush is more of an anti-Nickleback in terms of musical act structure, Cockburn is it in terms of thematic content. Both acts twist their music darkly, but Cockburn seems to shy from direct angst and simple themes and instead goes to this enigmatic and frankly mellow place that is at the same time frustrated, angry and yet hopeful. I guess it's the impact that the whole activism angle brings to the table.

I only really bring this up now because I bumped into this song last night and really liked it:

Amusingly, it seems that the song was the result of an experiment to write a song while drunk on absinthe, despite that the name would seem to hint more at, well, Night Train.

commanderteddog — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:11:49 GMT

I want to take a cue from sassy_fae and start blogging more. So, I SHALL!

So, we're at the odd point in fall when the weather is starting turn gray but it's still a bit on the warm side. The leaves are gone from most of the trees around the house and I can now see more of the Toronto skyline and the lake from the balcony. The lake goes further up on the horizon then I realized. It's neat.

Today marks the official start of Christmas around here, since it's the Santa Claus Parade downtown. I'm not down there, mostly because it will be INSANE. The local stores have Christmas events and such, but a lot of the stuff will be up through most of the holidays.

I'm saving my money in hopes of going to Buffalo this upcoming weekend. I so realize that it's Black Friday, but this is just a Mighty Taco/American Food/Related Sundries run in the evening to replace the lack of a Chicago trip this fall. I'm hoping to get some baking goodies from the US that they don't carry up here, Buffalo-y BBQ sauce and PROBABLY a bottle of cheap bright coloured bum wine to bring to holiday parties for laughs and to dare people with the expectation that we'll probably dump it down the sink. Wanted to do that last year, but never did.

The closest we get to bum wine in Ontario is the Girls Night Out line of "flavoured wine beverages", also known in our household by it's proper name of "Sparkling Bullshit". Tastes like gross. But those are basically one-bottle-cocktails that are amusingly shelved beside the Taylor Fladgate at one of our local liquor stores.

Time to go off and plot SECRET HOLIDAY PLANS.

Huh.

commanderteddog — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 19:51:07 GMT

If Fate Stay/Night can be seen as a (admittedly frivolous) exploration of the concepts of heroism, Fate/Zero can be seen as a (again frivolous but much more darkly so) exploration of parenthood, guardianship and leadership as positions of power, the responsibilities of these roles and the emotional impact of them on various parties.

Which does call into question if a mid-aged Japanese man should have been writing discussions on motherhood, but I do appreciate that while the mother-figure character has stereotypical healing magic, she also is a thrill seeker, fights more on the front lines than her husband and it's implied that she's probably bisexual. And that's always fun. But I was pleasantly surprised that the latest episode had the husband getting emotional and reflective over the conflicts that fatherhood brings. It's not something you see often in anime.

Yarns!

commanderteddog — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 23:15:12 GMT

I'm betterish today, in the sense that I can function and not sleep all day long. I also have an appetite again. Still winded easily, but this is a standard reaction to colds these days.

Erin and I went yarn shopping! I haven't visited the yarn stores since I moved due to us planning this day out back in September. We went up to the Wool Mill and Purple Purl, which seemed reflect two of the extremes of knitting stores. We would have had the trifecta if we went to Mary Maxim.

The Wool Mill is an older yarn store, I believe it's one of the oldest operating yarn stores in Toronto if not the oldest. It really reminds me of the stores I saw as a kid: small space, lots of yarn lining the walls and a vague sense of order within the chaos. The yarn seemed to be from a wide scope, ranging from brands you'd find at Micheals to higher end brands. The prices were better here than in at the Purple Purl, but the selection was different. I wouldn't rate it "good" or "bad", but "different". It's also more of a store and less of a gathering place for knitters.

Purple Purl, on the other hand, is your funky, "reclaiming knitting for the younger generation" type of store, complete with coffee and baked goods. They carry lot of local and Canadian yarns and a wider selection in the higher end - easily the most Noro I've seen in one place in one time. They have a wall of lovely, pretty sock yarn, but I restrained myself since I still have sock yarn from this summer to use up.

I ended up with some Cascade 220 in a teal heather and Tanis Fiber Arts Green Label in an orange, which are going to become a cowl and hat set. Have I ever mentioned how hard it is to get a more-than-solid yarn in offensively bright orange that isn't sock weight? Grrr... also, amusingly, the Tanis is the most I've ever paid for one skein of yarn at $19.

commanderteddog — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:04:29 GMT

For being considered one of the better Warcraft novels of late, the Arthas is remarkably bad in several senses of the term "bad".

Normally I usually rant about Star Wars novels (and believe me, I have some really amusing ones to go through), but this book was just goofy. It's amusing in how silly it can be, but there's a couple of little bits of note that stuck out.

1) Not Getting Over Your Childhood Pet Makes You Evil
I suppose this was supposed to show us that Arthas's willpower was weaker than anyone expected and that he was a creature of impulse and emotion, but I was getting sick of hearing about that damn horse towards the end. It's the Rosebud of the novel, lampshaded when Arthas screams out the horse's name when it's injured in battle and another character reflects on how that's a strange battlecry.

2) It's Flawed Due to Being Partly a Game Adaptation
The last 2/3s of the book read like a very condensed version of Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne. And that's fine, to a point, as those are video games with a complex and interesting storyline. The book's focus is limited, though, so most of the major events take place off-screen and some twists aren't even discussed. The most detail we really get is "And this character ran off to do this and disappeared or was the cause of something we'll tell and not show", with the exception of some bits with Sylvanas and Jaina.

The sections dealing with the female characters aren't really resolved, either. The most glaring bit that grabbed me is the battle for the Book of Medivh. Why the MacGuffin is named that and why it's not a name in a vacuum comes into play later in Jaina's storyline, but they never the big revea in the book despite having put all the groundwork in place. This is a shame because it was a smart piece of dramatic irony in the game.

Really, the book feels like a bunch of shoutouts with no consequence to the plot. Was it important to the story that we toss Taretha in for a chapter? You know, the most Women-in-Refrigerators-y bit of Warcraft canon? Because it's really squicky here. D:

@_@

commanderteddog — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 03:37:11 GMT

Ended up sleeping most of today! I woke up, checked in on work, put on dinner and then slept until the afternoon.... success?

I seem to be better for this. My nose is only slightly stuffy, I have a minor cough, and I'm generally tired/slow on uptake, but I hadn't needed drugs to control my symptoms all evening. I'm mostly twitchy in that I planned on going yarn shopping with velvetpage on Saturday and we booked this back in September so MUST BE SOME FORM OF WELL.

Not sure what yarns I'm going to buy and I'm looking at patterns - 'tis better to have a plan/budget of sorts. I need some acrylic yarn for [PROJECT INFO RETRACTED], but I'm probably better off going to Lens Mills for that (Could I interest some Hamilton peoples in this on the 13th before Star Wars? Or am I asking too much?). I really liked the Irish Hiking Cable Cowl pattern that amarafox used and think that could be a nice project if there's one bright ball of Worsted that I can't live without. That's what scarf patterns are for, right? Otherwise I need to think and plan out my knitting into the winter.

Also, I started reading the Arthas that Lisa loaned to me a year ago last night - I wasn't feeling well enough for more serious reading. I made it about halfway through. Given that it's a licensed novel, I expected it to be on the dumb side and it lived up to that, but Christie Golden is entertaining enough as a tie-in authour that it's amusing fluff. Right now it's deep into a novelization of Warcraft III. It's a fine enough story, but I'm in the dull part of it - the part before anything interesting happens and I want to push past it.

Sick and the Solomon Kane movie

commanderteddog — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 13:38:37 GMT

I've been sick and weak for the last two days. This is frustrating in that I'm should be taking these days to focus on a work project, but I alternate between being wiped out/run down and brief periods of wellness (typically right after waking up from naps and taking meds), making me completely useless on the work front.

Given that I LIKE working, this is frustrating. On the other hand, I have Rob reminding me that I should be napping, resting and working towards getting well. I'm better than I was yesterday, when flu-brain made me imagine strange things upon waking up. Bah.

Rob and I watched the Solomon Kane. It's... wacky. Some of the look and feel reminds me of European b movies from the 1960s and 70s. Not so much the aesthetics, as the video and audio are far too clean for a movie more than 10 years old, but in the story's tones, the pacing and how scenes are blocked out.

There's two things that complicate this atmosphere. The first is that it was not in a vacuum when it comes to modern Hollywood films. This really only becomes a factor later in the movie, unless you count my earlier "too clean" comments. The climax attempts a stereotypical Hollywood ending with a fraction of the budget and it doesn't work. This is especially curious as most of the movie has that "foreign" feel to it.

The second is that it's somewhat akin to some of the exploitation themes within b movies, but at the same time it's not quite there. While I haven't read much of the Solomon Kane stories, the idea of them strikes me as proto-exploitation (a lot of weird fiction comes across this way to me). It's the Puritan form of Nunsploitation. The movie, in contrast, is rather self-censoring. Much of the violence happens off-screen. This is probably a budget choice more than a stylistic one, but it makes a lasting impression.

The movie is worth seeing at least once for the curiosity factor if you're a b-movie fan. Just accept that the climax leans more goofy than anything else. And don't expect something close to the short stories (or so I've been told...)

Uh, Fascinating.

commanderteddog — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:43:08 GMT

I got caught up on the Higurashi comics last night... which probably wasn't a great idea to read horror comics late in the evening, but whatever. It's October! It can't hurt!

Cut to Teddog having some trouble sleeping. D:

On the books: it's at this point in the story where the huge flaws in the anime production become apparent. The earlier story arcs were covered in 2 volumes (about 400 pages) in the manga and about 4 to 5 episodes in the anime. Some things are explored in more detail in the manga, but a lot of the details were covered already in the anime.

With the story arcs being now 4 or more (I think the final arc clocks in at 8) volumes to only 4 or 5 episodes, it's clear that huge chucks of story were missing from the anime. Some of it is fluff explaining bits of the setting, but the more damning side is that there are bits that the reader needs to make sense of the overall plot. The nature of what's going on is eventually all spelled out no matter the media, but there's more care taken with hints earlier in the plot. I did know that something happened in the anime production, resulting in a thrown together story arc that can be summed up as "Here's what you needed to know, but we forgot to put it in!", but it's neat to see how they were supposed to be handled.

There's a few huge plot twists at the end of Eye Opening Arc that I wasn't expecting. These mostly took place at points where the anime would cut to black and skip forward in time. Without spoiling much, these pieces of story explain more about the twin's relationship (there's a major, MAJOR thing going on here that most fans know about, but the anime left out) and the mannerisms of the Sonozaki family... although the story does call into question how many are exchanges between characters and how much is within the POV character's own head. And depending on how much you take as being internal, it's fairly disturbing in what could have been "forgotten". It makes Shion a whole lot more sympathetic victim of circumstance than the anime made her out to be, although that media lacked the ability to have the long internal monologues that the manga has.

Oh, and the manga version got a lot more graphic violence, so much so that I was genuinely shocked that Yen didn't have the book self-rated higher. The murders (in particular, one infamous one) aren't as detailed as the anime, although the scenes self-inflicted harm are significantly more gory. The artist even plays up the gore against the more upbeat and silly sides of the series for dramatic effect and it works unsettingly well.

Ugh. Well, glad to be done with that arc. It's better than here on out. I'm pleased with the first volume of Atonement, but I like Rena's character concept a good deal and I was amused that how Rina was portrayed. Again, the manga gets to include more details and the events of the opening of the arc are more compelling. It also finally explains a little bit of fridge horror that happens later in the plot... o.O