The Last Exit to Babylon

A Game of Storytelling

Submitted by corwin on Tue, 28 Jul 2009 9:14pm

Tales of the Arabian NightsIt's too bad Jessica and Deryck couldn't make it out to Little Shoppe of Games tonight. I think they both would have really enjoyed what Bruce (also known as Game Store Bruce to differentiate him from Lost Researcher Bruce) brought out. Brianna had opted out of joining the two of us at a table, preferring to hang out with Sam, who runs the store on Family Game Night, so Bruce and I needed to pick a game that could accomodate just two player. Tales of the Arabian Nights looked like just the thing.

Tales comes to us from Z-Man Games, so you know it's a quality product. I've yet to play any of theirs that I haven't enjoyed. The box is massive and seriously weighty; the board, playing pieces, and even the spiral-bound Book of Tales are all both rugged and gorgeous. While the setup is a little intense and the game looks fairly complicated, it turned out to be quite easy to play and a whole lot of fun.

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Still Alive

Submitted by corwin on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 8:47pm

Last year, Brianna and I picked up a desert rose (or adenium) on sale at Home Depot. I'm terrible with growing things, but it looked so funky we couldn't pass it up. And despite being a desert plant, it looked like just the sort of thing in which Yoda would feel at home, so we immediately installed him in his new abode.

Much to my great surprise, the desert rose has turned out to be a tremendously hardy plant. A year later it's still thriving, despite having gone through at least one phase where it lost most of its leaves due to over or under watering (or perhaps a combination of both). When I discovered it blooming again, I had to take pictures to prove it.

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"This is what the bear probably looked like. Except real."

Submitted by corwin on Tue, 21 Jul 2009 5:01pm

This completely legitimate news story is just done too hilariously to pass up sharing:

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Wanted: A Cure for Freemanic Paracusia

Submitted by corwin on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:53am

0.90 Bolls

A little while back, Dustin told me he had a comic I just had to read, as it was written specifically for me. His recomendations have always been spot-on, so I took a gander at his copy of Wanted and was immediately hooked. It's the story of a world where the supervillians finally banded together to wipe out all of the superheroes and took over. A hypochondriac office worker discovers that he is the son and heir of The Killer, a super-villain assassin. Finding that society's laws and morals no longer apply to him, he finds time to take his revenge on everyone who ever wronged him before setting on the trail of the man who killed his father.

Dustin was right, of course, I loved it. But when

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Random Road Debris

Submitted by corwin on Mon, 6 Jul 2009 3:47pm

My Fourth of July ended on rather a downer note. As I was driving home from Dustin and Jess's place after midnight, I suddenly heard a loud hissing followed immediately by the unmistakable slapping of rubber against concrete at high speed. I pulled off the road as soon as I found a suitable spot, and confirmed that one of my tires was totally flat. I changed it out as fast as I could (since I have an almost worthless jack, it took forever), then went on home, planning to deal with it later, when Discount Tire was open on Monday.

I drove the Ragged Tiger on up to Discount Tire's N. May location this morning, and to my amazement, they presented me with this:

The cause of my flat

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Stuck (2007)

Submitted by corwin on Sun, 5 Jul 2009 8:30pm

-0.80 Bolls

Over the weekend, Dustin and I discovered we both had Stuck in our instant viewing queues, so we decided to go ahead and watch it as part of our regularly scheduled movie night. Stuck is Stuart Gordon's take on on actual events that took place in Fort Worth, Texas. After a night of partying, a nurse's aide named Chante Mallman hit a pedestrian while driving home. Instead of stopping and calling for help, she panicked and drove home with the man lodged headfirst in her windshield, bleeding profusely. She parked the car in the garage, and went inside to go to bed while the man bled to death.

This isn't the first time I've seen this particular plot dramatized. It's a favorite of crime shows; I've seen it on CSI and one of the Law & Orders. But it's a whole different beast under the directon of Stuart Gordon. He cut his teeth on H. P. Lovecraft adaptations like Re-Animator and From Beyond, and gave us the inimitable Dagon a few years back. Stuart Gordon doesn't pull punches.

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Shark Attack in the Mediterranean (2004)

Submitted by corwin on Thu, 2 Jul 2009 4:24pm

0.95 Bolls

Ever since Jaws first left me with the sure knowledge that we are, in fact, going to need a bigger boat, I've loved shark attack movies (and books). Despite the fact that I know going in that most Jaws ripoffs are huge steaming piles, I still watch them. Occasionally, I am pleasantly surprised, as was the case with Samuel L. Jackson's motivation speech cut short by a surprisingly early death in Deep Blue Sea, but more often I am left with something that would find it difficult to compare favorably to Jaws: The Revenge.

Shark Attack in the Mediterranean, unfortunately, fell into the latter category.

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Legend of the Bog (2009)

Submitted by corwin on Thu, 2 Jul 2009 12:48pm

0.90 Bolls

Once in a while, I rent a movie based solely on the title and box art. The Redbox has definitely fed right into this habit. I'll wander up to the machine and glance over the selection until a movie or two catches my eye. Thus did I end up taking home Legend of the Bog, starring Vinnie Jones.

When I got through the previews to the DVD menu, I could already tell I was in trouble. Scenes of a big, bald man in what looked like a sack cloth tunic running across the countryside while the least appropriate music for a horror movie played dominated. I started to wonder if this was a Lifetime Movie Network film about a misunderstood man living in the bogs, rather than the horror/action movie the cover promised.

Knowing I was in for some pain as I hit play, my first thought when the FBI warning came up was that it should say something along the lines of "Any duplication, authorized or otherwise, will result in a taint on your very soul which can never be absolved." I grabbed my laptop and decided to share the pain by typing my thoughts into Twitter as the movie progressed.

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Art Camp

Submitted by corwin on Thu, 2 Jul 2009 10:34am

Family

Brianna and her panda puppet

This summer, instead of keeping Brianna in a single day care as we have done in the past, we decided to sign her up for a series of different week-long activities. She's had a blast so far with the Chalice Camp our church offers, Girl Scout day-camp out at Cookieland, and, last week, art camp at ArtzPlace Oklahoma.

Art is one of her greatest loves, and she got to try her hand at a variety of different media. The did collages, worked in clay, made masks, and even made puppets like the one seen here. On Friday, they had a short presentation for the parents, followed by time for us to wander through looking at everyone's art from the week. We had a fun, and I took lots of pictures.

I really enjoy watching and encouraging her creative side, and am glad she had the opportunity to visit ArtzPlace this summer.

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A Dog and Her Girl

Submitted by corwin on Wed, 1 Jul 2009 10:11pm

Family

Last week, Brianna and I had some time for quiet relaxation at home, sprawling out to enjoy some Mythbusters. Angel decided to get in on the family time as well, and jumped up to grab some snuggle time. I was afraid they'd get up if they saw me try to get out my regular camera, so I snapped a couple shots with my phone.