See the Luvin'

According to the video, there is fame, richness, superstardom, but the thing you really need is 'luv' to become a player. [Despite wanting 'luv' not 'love', she wants to be a 'player' not a 'playa'.]

Now this video does have some very creepy moments in in. The doll mask things on the cheerleaders? The baby prop thrown about? The head knocking off? But it's all to make a point.

First up, it's all about Madonna. Aside from the two guest stars, M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj, name one other actual face you see... nope, you can't, 'cos there isn't one. If you can't see Madonna, you can't see anyone. (Indeed, even when M.I.A. is busting out the rhymes, she's dressed up, and with quick cuts, so is it her we see singing or Maddy?) Maddy wants your luvin' and you can't even see anyone else to give luvin' to.

Second, everything is a prop to be used. Look at the baby, she comes out with the pram to pretend to be motherly (about 15 years late for that), but that is quickly discarded. And later the baby prop turns up, she just using it for fun, and at the end throws it away. Everything around her is for her to use.

Third, the men. The faceless, mass horde of guys in football gear (because of the Superbowl... geddit?), throwing themselves in the way of danger, getting cars out of the way, doing everything they can, including piling up for her to easily climb, in order to make things easy for her. And then, they even have their vague manity removed as they become sparklers.

I'm not sure if this makes Maddy a 'player', but it doesn't leave anyone else on the field...

Next up: Superbowl, bitch!

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Of Steam, Steel and Murder

An anarchist group thinks that Metapol is a neat place to hang out and all that stands between them and the death of the leader is a few PCs... who seem to be agreeing with the anarchist ideas more than stopping them. Will the PCs be able to overcome politics to put people behind bars?

This was guest GM time (not me, I really need to finish off the next one): Nick! Who GMed many HC games. He's not allowed to complain about Bert's games anymore. We always have trouble against competent PCs. And the dice hated me tonight. I think the best first roll I had was a -2. Spent a fair few chips... gah!

Hear Game 50 and see us lose the 'day. Rapidshare. Hotfile.

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She wants all your luvin'

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With a new album, MDNA, coming out, there is of course the new single to highlight it. One "Give Me All Your Luvin'", also featuring M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj. And...

It's a real mish-mash of a song. Not too surprising when it's about her own career, and she hits several references to her past songs. At one moment 80s, then current poppiness, then cheerleaders, then...

Which does make it rather jarring, to be honest. Now, I already have the album pre-ordered, so the odd-ness of the song is not going to put me off.

Then there are the lyrics "Every record sounds the same / You've got to step into my world". Um, a little on the nose there, lady. And for the fans, there's always "I see you coming and I don't wanna know your name". I'm sure she doesn't. Still, she knows what she wants "Give me all your love and give me your love / Give me all your love today / Give me all your love and give me your love". But to really summarise the full intent of the song "Let's forget about time / And dance our lives away!"

I hope there are some deeper tracks than this coming up.

Next up: The Video!

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Cold Crepe Feeling

Oh boy. Up now, a movie that was inspired partly by Paranormal Activity and partly by spending a night in a new house. Or possibly bad bit of cheese.

After the obligatory 'was that scary?' opening, we have a movie watching a couple roam around a yard and a house. After 50 minutes of this 85 minute movie, the woman has a 'creepy feeling' and so a psychic is called in and then they look up 'creepy feelings' on the internet and then spend the next 20 minutes reading out internet posts! Then the psychic turns up (15 minutes to go!), solves some bad acting with "The Power Of Christ Compels You!", there's a sudden revelation, then everyone disappears! Hoorah!

Yeesh, a few points here: one, why do these writers think we need to spend time caring about these people? 'Cos we don't need to, and we don't care. I don't care how much you plan to torture them with the ghosts, don't think we need to see them in their trivial lives for the entire movie before getting on with it! Because, point two, this does not a horror movie make! I've probably gone on about this before, but there is this slew of movies that think that as long as they put in one moment of something seemingly strange happening, that can justify them calling it a horror movie, and then wasting the audience's time with the extremely cheap movie making trick of just filming people doing nothing! Fuck off!

This movie is aggressively badly made. The biggest special effect? A knife moving. Not flying across the room or anything, just turning. There's there big revelation scene, and in the back ground... someone is wandering by with a torch! Was a second take too much for them? Not to mention the entire cast was four people. (And there seems to have been some 'ratings enhancement' on IMDB.)

It's times like this I'm glad I was able to do other things while playing this movie. Take the same tactic and do anything else rather than watch it.

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Skyline

I was looking out the window and thought "that's an interesting looking sky out there". And then I eventually went out and photographed it.

Nice cloud effects going on...


And on the other side of the hill it's already in darkness (the camera showed a brighter blue in the sky than what it photographed).


Other pictures can be seen in the Skyline album.

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If only it was that "Portal"

Next up on the crappy movie viewing: The Entrance! No... The Opening! No, no... The Hole! That's it, it's a Hole.

The movie starts with us being introduced to a bunch of characters... no, hang on, I lie. The movie starts with a bunch of characters, who we are not introduced to, who go around discussing some thing like we are supposed to already know who they are and what they are talking about. Then the leads come across a painting of a giant fingerprint and due to it being so amazing, they start seeing scary ghost children. There's no hope for them then.

This movie really is a complete nothing. As in nothing happens that marks it out in any way as original piece of horror fiction. I was reminded of The Grudge and The Ring, in that even the American versions were much better than this, but the movie boils down to 'see bad thing and die'. Yeah, as I said, nothing original of note.

Actor wise we have Michael Madsen (why?) and Nicholas Brandon (briefly). Leading is Jenna Zablocki and Michael Muhney. Never heard of either of them, but it looks like he's got a big career. Not sure why he was in this either then, as he mainly seems to be hired due to his ability to stare in a slack-jaw manner. [Were they all friends of the director or something?]

Not a good movie, not even a watchable bad movie. A blah movie, and best forgotten.

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Sheer Craziness!

And I'm a part of it!

I've a big fan of Order of the Stick. Being D&D-based comic, while self-aware character PCs, and more than a large dose of humour, with good story telling, it's a great read, and free on-line.

Mostly...

Not every comic in the main storyline is online, some you can only get if you get the collected books.

And then there are the stories you can only get in print-only form, being the PCs origin, the bad guys origin, and the collection of other OotS comics (including a fantastically funny take on the 3.5-ish OotS vs the new 4ed OotS).

However...

Some of the books are no longer in print. They are just too popular. And so, Rich Burlew has started a Kickstart project to get monies to get them back into print. Well, just one, and if the money came in, more could be put into print.

Pledgers broke through the lower limits of the costs within... the first day, I think... no, wait, it took two days. And now, about 9 days into it... originally Rich asked for $57k... currently rocking (at time of writing) $270k UPDATE: Over $300K!

This is the biggest comic-based Kickstarter project ever. And is in the top 10? 15? of all time.

And, as I said, I'm a part of it. Already have the books, but there is stuff there for those people as well. (And while I'm incredibly tempted to get a complete signed set, fortunately other people already took those options so I can't spend that large amount money.)

I'm Kickstarting Order of the Stick, won't you?

EDIT: Commenting disallowed due to spamming.

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