Ad versus Reality

Why is this surprising? We see ads of, in this case, food, and it looks nice, even tempting. And yet when we go in and buythe actual item, how often does what we get actually match the images we are presented with. Take the KFC Famous Bowl, does the actual bowl match the carefully crafted stylised product? Of course not.

That said, some people do expect these things to match. I recall the complaint that Subway didn't create meals in the way indicated by their ads. (Although I'm not sure how happy they would be to create the subs the other way around, especially during busy times.)

(And this doesn't address the issue of the burger appearing bigger than the ad, I recall the Boss Burger needing two hands in the ad... barely fits in one hand!)

I remember seeing a documentary or similar that showed the actual process advertising agencies use to make burgers look nice. Lots of sprays and I don't think all the items used were actual food. If I could find a video I would post it, it demonstrates well that real has no hope of matching what ads can do.

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The Chronicles of a DM: Part IV

It's amazing how long a paranoid party can take to simply go through a party, but eventually there was a fight to go first. Finally, they get on which it, and hit the next section of the Tomb (where they encounter shoddy editing). They find a corridor that runs east to west that has the floor dropped out. The difficulty of climbing around this corridor is given for the western and eastern walls... which are the doors... huh? I think someone forgot the map was re-orientated 90 degrees!

Anyways, they climb the (southern) wall, and until Moyshanna, completely fail to find the hidden passage way. [She has the best passive perception, and yet there are calls for her to die (or at least sod off) and stop being an XP leech. Sigh.] Investigation brings them to an altar in front of a supernatural burning fire. After "search for traps/walls/loot!" they spot the skull at the base, and Kayla nicks it before lobbing it to Alrick. [Hey, an artefact! Which is very badly specified! Yay, just what I wanted to GM... and it's a magical orb, so only one character can use it, and there's no respect for it at all.]

Backing out, they enter a large empty room ("Search! Find loot!"), then head up stairs to find a room with strange writing on the floor (again to the “north and south” when it should be to the “east and west”), which fortunately they are able to read. There is an obelisk, on which is written the word ‘Shadow’. And a bunch of letters on the floor, including uniquely (after another edit) 's', 'h', 'a', 'd', 'o', 'w'. Wow, I have no idea what the solution to that is! (And for those that can’t speak draconic, these are the only letters that light up when depressed.)

There are some statues which can be manhandled onto the tiles, but when Kayla pokes one, it activates the trap! [Nothing funnier than having fire creatures attack a party that does fire damage. However, them damn rogues take out one of the nastier creatures quickly, and Alrick uses the Skull to trap the big bad for many rounds. Still, the Blazesteels don't die quickly, so the fight isn't quick, and there’s lots of room to move about and everyone is spread out. A decent fight, and we get to hear Valdour's catchphrase "I reload my crossbow" often.] Once dealt with, they move the statues, and the obelisk descends to reveal a portal to the Shadowfell.

Jumping through, they find themselves on a plain in an area Moyshanna doesn't recognise. There is a huge citadel (I won't repeat the party's descriptions), and draconic wraiths around that steal soul-sparks, and attack the party. [Auras are fun, and these ones really caused problems. Heh. At least until Reed set up zone that dealt radiant damage, bah. The dragons were insubstantial, but they also didn’t have huge hit points, so it evened out. Again the rogues were a huge help. Moyshanna suffered a lot, but Alrick advised against healing her ('cos he's evil). Admittedly the Skull was on his side, but survive she did.] They popped back through the portal to rest up, and Moyshanna kindly offered to stay back and guard the portal so they would have a way back. And so they rested.

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Race to Which Mountain?

I wasn't planning on seeing this, but as there wasn't much else going on, it was on at a convenient time and I had a $9 voucher, I decided, what the hey? It's a remake (never saw the original nor the follow up), and I'm sure they're already working on the sequel, but first we have to get to Witch Mountain.

Turns out that the name is a complete misnomer. While there is a Witch Mountain, there isn't a race there as such, and getting there involves little more than a cut scene, but there is a lot of other running around. It's quite the packed movie, with lots of set pieces nicely strung together to help keep the time flying past. It's impressive how well the taxi survives, but it's all in the aid of helping cute kids.

Dwayne Johnson heads up the all-star cast... and by all-star cast, I mean there's him, then a bunch of other people who haven't had more than bit parts in other movies at best. Well, there is Garry Marshall, but looking at his list of credits, no wonder I never recognised him. Oh, and AnnaSophia Robb was Violet Beauregarde! Yeah, big names there...

Anyway, the point is, an enjoyable movie, more so than you would expect.

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Alien Raid!

Caught up with a straight to video sci-fi movie Alien Raiders.

Very much in the line of The Thing, this time instead of the ice, they are in a shop market. Well, that's original. And they aren't the authorities, either, although I'm not sure how scientists could have become so militarised. But, anyway, we have a bunch of people trying to find the one person who's the big bad.

The opening half hour is pretty good, but it settles down into a more tightly focused "who is it?". The ending is a bit of a let down, but mainly because writers have to so that sort of thing because it is "exciting and innovating!" (No, not really.)

The movie does take a long time in the dark, which is either supposed to help it gritty, or to help hide the alien (which helps as the make-up is not the best). There is also cam video from one of the actors, which is getting to be more of a gimmick, but isn't over used here.

As for the actors, the main point I noted was that Carlos "24" Bernard was the lead... but that was about it.

Not a bad movie to settle down with, although straight to video for a reason.

(Certainly better than the other movie I watched last night, The Love Guru. And Deepak Choprah is a loon.)

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HC Again

(I didn't bother linking to the previous weeks game as it was part of a larger campaign I wasn't part of, and wasn't too excited by the bit I was in, so...)

However, last time, we had another GM, in the form of Travis, who usually plays Doyle. It was a game that tied into various goings-on at the KBC, and was very well done! It might have been slightly more interesting if I had been Terry, as opposed to Von Scott, but I'm glad I played either way. The Rise of Peti.

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A-Mazogs-ing!

Nothing disappears with the internet! Not even a game I played on a computer that was around before there was an internet worth talking about! I'm referring to the ZX81. Or rather, we had Timex Sinclair 1000, the difference being that the Timex had 2K base memory whereas the ZX81 only had 1K. Wow! Both had expansion packs that took them to a whopping 16K, but ours eventually failed. Which was a shame as it meant we could no longer play certain games, such as Mazogs. In which you ran through a randomly generated maze to find treasure and avoid, or kill, the creatures inside. See an exciting game below! Or play for yourself on a more upgraded version (graphics-wise).

One of the best things about our computer ended up being my dad building a new keyboard for it (him being an electrician and all) which gave us the keyboard and toggle switches we could use as a joystick, and the wiring was flexible enough that we could wire up any combination we wanted. Great piece of work, now lost in the mists of... wherever it ended up...

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Snipered!

There's nothing better than seeing a movie with subtitles! While I have attended one or two English speaking movies where they had subtitles (nice that some movies have this variant for the hearing impaired), this time it was far more sensible as it was the Asian movie Sniper.

The plot is not uncommon, a cop (Lincoln) has a bad day and ends up going rogue, to be challenged by his compatriots on the force, including up and comer OJ. The conflicts lead to some interesting scenes, and as the point of the movie, as in the title, is Sniping, there was a fair amount of that going on. Fine, the shots are very nicely set up from a production viewpoint, but when caught up in the movie, who cares? They look great!

The characters were interesting (although, yes, as a stereotypical Westener, I had some early trouble working out who was who), although there are still some relationships I'm not quite sure of, and may have made more sense in the Asian culture. (That all said, I did know about the girlfriend as soon as I saw her.)

It's a very enjoyable movie, as if you like action movies, let alone Asian movies, definitely check it out!

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