Vigil the Huntering

We gathered in the motel room to pool our information. I didn't have a lot to contribute, but found there was a priest for a church that never showed up. And, I'm not entirely clear on this, one of the not-leader guys from the train was an investigator that worked for a law firm that has dealings with a Sarah Haversham who was instrumental in getting the amulet thing to Philadelphia. And the investigator had notes that implied he was investigating the law firm he worked for on behalf of a guy named Karl (I'm thinking the leader of the train gang).

However, after that, there was a knock at the door, and it was the cop. The cop working with the train gang that had been by my shop earlier. Somehow, he found us here. (Yeah, stealth, lose-the-tail types we ain't.)

While the punk kid JB, the doctor Jack and the token woman Jane head out the back bathroom window to a back alley, I stay with Robert to give the others a chance to get away. That's as the cop is kicking in the door and wielding a shot gun! I get into a struggle with him, while Robert is ducking shots from a badly dressed pretend cop who's outside. I get the gun away from the cop, but keep him pinned as Robert grabs the gun, badly fires a few times, before basically shoving the gun in the cop's mouth and pulling the trigger. The not-cop does a runner at that point.

Meanwhile, out the back, the others find another not-cop waiting, who JB puts down for the count, and a vampire that starts snacking on Jack. Then the ninja chick from South America (totally not a Slayer, and the priest is not her Watcher) pops up, touches the vampire and disconcerts him enough for JB to come and smack him about. Jack gets away, the Slayer disappears again, then Jane turns up, and they wail on the vampire for a moment before he disappears to.

Getting back together, we quickly set the scene up that cop and non-cop from the back alley shot each other, and get out of there. We are terrible at this, but clearly we need to get better. And fast.

[END]

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Team Xero #14

When trouble goes down, there is one man that knows it. One man that opposes it. One man that can sort the world out. And, best, of all, he's French...


(My turn to lay down the challenge gauntlet. And with all the bashing they get, I've decided to go Franco and give the requirement: a French Hero. With bonus challenge: a breakfast scene.)

[END]

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With Feeling Once More

Recently Sanctuary had a musical episode. Generally, musical episodes are a nice gimmicky episode, and can be fantastic. This episode was motivated by Abby (girl-friend of the main male lead) getting infected with something, and only able to hear certain harmonics... yeah, so everything has to be sung, because she completely cannot hear anything said normally. Bullshit science is your friend. (Somehow this was accompanied by music as well, there was no justifying that in the episode.)

What we ended up with was, aside from one or two moments, dialogue being sung to music. Not songs that happened to fit what was going on, but dialogue that would have otherwise been fine as normal spoken conversation being sung. No, no, it worked about as well as that sounds...

And, as you might guess, that made me revisit the classic episode by which all are judged, Buffy's Once More With Feeling. Now that was a great episode, the music and the singing (and the dancing) was completely justified within the episode. The songs were actual songs, and fitted the moments being sung about. And the words would entirely not have worked if just spoken. And the whole thing was perfect in the arc of the season as well.

Since then, we've wanted more. As they say "be careful what you wish for"...

[END]

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Of Steam, Steel and Murder

Metapol is exploding, and it's up to us to stitch together the pieces! Actually, all it takes is one man with one microphone, and it's amazing what can happen. (And now I'm suspicious of that one man...) But then the world scene explodes, so now what do we do?

After the last episode this was a race, in many ways, against saving Metapol before it went to far. Which is manage to do, more or less. Certainly lives are lost (but not the PCs). And now... I'm not sure what our next move is. There are things we can do, but they seem small in comparison with the bigger picture...

Want to listen to Game 46? Rapidshare. Hotfile. [Amusing Avira blocked Hotfile as Malware. It probably is, but I'm continuing to use it anyway.]

[END]

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Star Trek Hidden Talent

[Warning: I'm about to poke fun at fans who were doing something they loved. While this probably makes me a bad person, I have seen far worse on the Doctor Who front.]

So, I've been watching Star Trek Hidden Frontier. This is an extremely fan made series, set in and around the Briar Patch (from Insurrection) about... some star base or another, and their ship that goes places at gets into trouble. (Not that uncommon a set up in Star Trek.)

First, let's say positive things. The CGI effects are amazing. Clearly done by someone who knows what they are doing. And the range of people they have on demonstrates, shall we say, more truer peoples in real life than usually grace a TV screen. (Yes, that's a positive, they went for people who wanted to be filmed, not people filmed for the sole aim of getting money.) And, yes, clearly, this is a love of the fans effort, and that love shows.

However... oh dear gods, some absolutely appalling acting. There's a reason we leave it to professionals. (And having been in a few fan videos myself, I have nothing but shame for my own performance.) The cast is definitely more "oh, oh, pick me, pick me!" than "I was in the stage production of Macbeth." And then there are the sets. No wait, I mean set. Everything is shot against a green screen and a background image of some part of a ship is added in. And by 'everything' I mean the one chair they have that everyone sits in one at a time so they can record their scenes. I was quite impressed when they went to a nearby park and did some actual location shooting!

Script-wise... eh, they are trying, some parts better than others. Nothing's really wowed me yet (and again, there are some professional productions that fail to wow me).

I'm going to watch all of it, but it's something that's more 'on in the background' than 'I must watch this!'

[END]

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I was there, where were you?

So, yesterday happened. As it does. And one thing that happened yesterday was the quarterly Wellington Pub Meet of the Doctor Who fans. Which reached an exciting peak of five people, of myself, Alden, Peter, Foo and Tim. Woo!

Topics ranged from various tv series to... other tv series, and then, as these things happened, strayed onto Doctor Who. One thing that came up was that Big Finish is doing an audio to celebrate 20 years since Love and War.

Really?

20 years????

Freaking hell! We were trying to remember the books of the NAs that came between the start of the NA series and Love and War. The Timewyrm books (7), Cat's Cradle (3), Nightshade... and then named books after. Huh... looks like we didn't miss any. I was sure there were others in there, but no, Love and War was number 9. There were 61 of the things (plus MAs), can't be expected to remember them all.

But 20 years...

There are things you hear about, and all of a sudden they are 'hey that was a long time ago'. Thinking about it now, it doesn't make me feel old so much as it makes me thing I was very young when the books started. And I have them all!

Anyway, come along next time and hear about other pointless trivia that we bring up!

[END]

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48 years later!

Yes, because I have to, this is a post in celebratory of one Doctor Who, premiering on 23rd November 1963!

So why is this posted the 24th? Because it showed on the 23rd of November... in England! Which, given that it was shown late in the day, means that it was the 24th over here! So people from England, coming here, will see this posted on the correct day for them! Woo, time zones!

But, hey, 48 years. And it's not lonely fans in basements celebrating it any more. And with Moffat taking over, and Smith just loving the hell out of the part, it's a great series to enjoy at the moment!

[END]

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