Relocation

No...I haven't moved to Colorado.

The Mrs. and I relocated to a new abode two days ago. We are still in Oceanside, but we are in a house with a yard now. We are in a semi-duplex with a nice older couple. We share a kitchen, but other than that, we have one whole side of the house to ourselves. The dogs have a front yard and they love it.

If you need to get the address from me, go ahead and send an email to my yahoo account.

Just like Gallagher

Went and saw this saturday night and lemme tell you, it was everything I expected it to be and more. This movie has feeling and it envokes you to care about stuff. Rambo III didn't really make me care about something, this one does.

Now that the mushy stuff is done, holy crap. He fishes with a freaking compound bow. He gives you the thousand yard stare if you try to agitate him. From the opening sequence of a mine blowing body parts everywhere (would have been awesome in 3-D) to the ending shots of them picking through the body parts, there is a lot of action and a lot of carnage. Not for the feint of heart or the usual movie critic. It's a blood and guts action movie, straight from the 80s. You love the good guys and you hate the bad guys. There is no redeeming quality at all about them, you just straight out hate the bad guys and you cheer when they die. It's awesome.

Things I wish would have happened -
I wish they would have played up his crafting the knife a bit more (hopefully in the extended edition).
I had hoped they would have shown more of the "give him to the pigs" action.
I had hoped that they would have blew up the stage area in the baddies camp.

Overall, I thought it was awesome and got me reinvigored to see the rest of the Rambos again. This might make my top 100, I'll have to re-evaluate it. If you are easily sickened by body parts/blood, etc don't go see the movie. It was a shame that it lost to a spoof the opening weekend.

I get goose bumps

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MsMoonlight

Marnie's FigurePrint came in yesterday. I must say, I think it's cool, but up close, I was disappointed with the grainyness of it. Her hair isn't completely black (it's dark grey and purple in spots). With all that aside, I think it still looks pretty cool.







And for reference (her figure print outfit is different)

Killing my neighbors...softly

So back when my sister, Heather and her family, visited in Arizona, they brought a playstation game with them. It was called Singstar (don't remember which version it was). I had a blast playing it, despite the fact that I'm a horrible singer.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. Marnie and I are in a Gamestop checking out the new stuff (we haven't bought a new game since WoW) and I noticed a Singstar game on the shelf. I convinced her that it was awesome, so we got it and a used microphone. The Gamestop staff wasn't very friendly and they weren't very convincing that the microphone would work. But alas, I have a compulsive personality so I had to have it. We took it home and it didn't work, so we returned the game and the microphone the next day. A couple days later we went to Toys R Us and was looking around there for what was new and hip. We checked out the video game section and lo and behold, there was a packaged Singstar game with two microphones. We couldn't buy it fast enough.

We took it home and played for multiple hours. There was one major issue though, it was Singstar 80s. Marnie crushed me. And it only got worse on Madonna songs. Luckily a day or two later we found the Singstar Pop version. Well, new game, same results. There are only two songs that she can't seem to beat me at and those are Tricky and I Write Sins, Not Tragedies. Everything else, I get slaughtered. Our House? Nope. How about Take on Me? Not a chance. We are still having fun with it. This just makes my hatred for REM grow.

Oh yea...that's the stuff

So I dragged my almost 30, overweight ass to the movie theatre at around 10pm last night because I thought that with all the hype there might be lines and the whole nine yards. I was the only one in that particular movie theatre screen room thing until about 20 minutes before the show started (11:59). It filled up pretty quickly, but wasn't completely full. I had the middle seat in the front row of the second tier (where the bars are to rest my feet).

The Star Trek Teaser was great. It didn't reveal any of the plot points, it showed some dudes building the enterprise. And it had a Leonard Nimoy voice over with a flash of the Starfleet symbol to cap it off. I was significantly teased.

As for the movie itself...I was very satisified with my experience. I had expectations going into it and those expectations were met. I didn't mind the motion blur or the camera angles. There were several times where I actually felt that I was there running with them. They did a great job of not running the monster out on the screen to start the movie. I think it was a brilliant job of releasing little bits here and there and then showing some great shots of it in the middle and last half of the movie.

The actors/actresses didn't ruin it. They didn't over or under act IMO. They felt like they had development and there was just enough comedy in it to get a laugh here and there, but it wasn't overly goofy. I think almost all of the "decisions" were real enough for me (in terms of deciding what to do in a panic situation, etc).

I think the thing that really put it over the top for me was the fact that they did a couple scenes that, before the scene concluded I thought to myself "it would be cool if they went this route, but of course they won't". Well they ended up going that route several times and I was pretty impressed. They pulled it off with class as well. The other great aspect about this movie is that the sound is just as important as the visuals. There were times where I could shut my eyes and listen to what was happening and still be able to picture what was going on. I think that is a great tool to use every once in awhile for a movie. Also, the overture at the end was pretty epic (done by Skywalker sound)

I don't have any beefs with this movie. I know that not everybody will like it, there were even some "geeks" that were there that seemed to scoff at it. It is pretty artistic, especially with the start of the movie and the end of it. I didn't leave feeling unsatisified with the ending.

Overall, this movie will make it into my top 100 and I will probably see it more than once this weekend (I feel there were a bunch of background things that I missed).

PS - in the First Look portion in the beginning (before the previews) they showed clips of the new Knight Rider. It too looks watchable.

Believe the Hype!

I am thoroughly engrossed in the hype for this movie. There is so much viral marketing for this movie right now, it's ridiculous. There was even a Rickroll'ed trailer for it.

I have heard everything from it's the Deep Ones from Lovecraft, to it's a reboot of an American Power Rangers, to it's Voltron.

I'm so excited for this movie that I'm going to see it tonite at midnight. Also check out 1-18-08. I don't think I could be disappointed at this point. I love apolocylptic movies and the only way that this could fail is if all the action is in the trailers, they never show the monster ever, and if it turns out that I was "jerry maguired".

Only 35 days...

until you know what happens.

Tom should get this.

Mag is coming for you!

This past Tuesday, Magtheridon's Lair released for the World of Warcraft TCG. Why is this significant? This was the first product that I was Lead Design on for the World of Warcraft TCG. It was fun to design, but stressful as well. Each Raid has a new game engine and it's a challenge to find the right balance between enough "newness" without too much of a departure from the regular game mechanics so that players can still learn/play it relatively easily.

There are some very cool card designs that I'm particularly proud of in this set. Fiery Pits deals 15 damage for just 2 cost, but the way that we could get away with that much damage for such a small cost was that the raiding players got to choose where the 15 damage went. They could spread it out amongst their heroes and allies. Giving players the choice of how they take the punishment is a common theme throughout the raid deck. This type of design usually doesn't work in a 1 on 1 match because there aren't that many decision points, but in multiplayer, it's interesting to see the raiding players work out what the best case is for the damage. Another card in that vein is Swath of Destruction. The boss player just wants to get an ally threat off the table. He doesn't care much about getting the bonus from the rest of the card, but the raiding players have to decide which player can afford to give up the correct resources without being hamstrung to much by the outcome.

Another thing that I'm proud of is the design/look of the channelers.
Summoner Channeler x2
Dark Mending Channeler
Shadow Channeler x2
If you notice, they don't have borders on some of the cards, that's because when you have all 5 out at the start of the game, they form -

I had this vision from the very start and I was glad that everyone could pull it off so well.
So that's it, I'm neck deep in Set 8 design, but it's nice to see something that I was lead on made it to print and it's good to see the reactions of players. Also, thanks again to those that helped me during design, you weren't forgotten (I suggest picking up a rulebook).

My Daily Comic Rotation

Being a creature of habit, I like to come into work early so that I can get my daily webcomic viewing out of the way and actually start my day. I do this so it doesn't distract me throughout the day. Yea, I'm working on my OCD tendencies a bit. Anyway, here is my rotation -

Questionable Content - This is about a bunch of 20somethings and their daily lives. It has some musical references that I don't get. They were touching on some emotional issues for awhile that I took an interest in. It is a pretty funny comic.

Penny Arcade - This is a pretty common webcomic among my age group. They have plenty of game references and are funny. They poke fun at the computer gaming industry a lot, especially when corporations make questionable decisions.

Least I Could Do - This comic can get lewd sometimes, but the main character is funny and sometimes I wish I could be as brash and uninhibited as he is. There is a lot of pop culture references, especially to 80s toys/cartoons. Sometimes reading this makes me feel like I was hanging out with the boys back in AZ.

PVP - This is about employees of a gaming magazine and their exploits. This is another one that is chocked full of pop culture references and jokes. It tends to go on long story arcs which can get boring sometimes.

Looking For Group - A Dungeons and Dragons/Roleplaying comic. This is the newest in my rotation. It has some good comedic relief coming from the warlock. It really makes me miss DnD'ing with the boys from AZ.

Dilbert - This is probably my only mainstream comic. I have worked in an office setting before (game company withstanding) and this continues to be fairly accurate as to how things go down.

Non Sequitur - This is a funny comic from the point of view of a young girl. She has adult thoughts about politics and mannerisms of adults often talking to her stuffed horse that she thinks comes alive. It's a nice dose of high-brow humor.

Sinfest - This is probably my 'guilty pleasure'. It has a lot of lewd humor and pokes fun at organized religion.

XKCD - I don't know how to explain this comic. It's tagline is "A webcomic about romance, sarcasm, math, and language." I don't think I could explain it further. I know a lot of people won't get the jokes/humor coming from this comic.

That's it. I've dabbled in other ones, but this is my daily rotation. They are all pretty funny to me and I enjoy them. Do you have one that you would like to suggest to me?

A couple of casting calls

In the news, two of the biggest movies that I'm looking forward to have made some more casting.

Joining Ray Park as Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow has also been cast for the new G.I.Joe movie. I have a good feeling about this movie, despite it being made more of an international flair (with GIJoe standing for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity).

Also, Tyler Perry has been cast in Star Trek as the superintendent of Starfleet Academy. This is a small role, but evidently it is a crucial role because Tyler will be speaking to Kirk about a cheating scandal. There was foreshadowing in The Wrath of Kahn about the incident. I still think Syler as Spock was the best choice so far.

And we're back

to the grindstone. Went into work today and found that all the cubicle moves had been done. It truly looks like a cubicle farm now in the main Entertainment area. Luckily we have our own room for WoW R/D. It's funny to hear some people express concerns because they lost space and yet they still have more space than we do for each of our desks.

My set is about halfway done in terms of raw completed design. I still have a lot of concepts up in the air though. Need to nail them down as soon as possible.

Petting the StingRay

at the Zoo