February: A month long celebration of D&D's 40th year

It's official.  I am going to try out the Dungeons and Dragons 40th Anniversary blog hop during the entire month of February, and detail a number of my feelings and thoughts despite my being new to the games.  Not every day can have a solid entry, but it will have an entry nonetheless.

I'm so looking forward to this.

Sting reportedly close to WWE deal

One of the rumors that pops up occasionally in the pro wrestling world is that of the ever-popular Sting headed to the WWE.

The story is always a big deal, because Sting is quite simply the biggest pro wrestling name to have never appeared on the "big stage" of the world's largest federation.

Speculation has come in the form of comments by Matt Hardy and Ring of Honor's Rob Feinstein.  Of course, a more reputable opinion comes in the form of Dave Meltzer, who also states the wrestler is close to a deal.

Inking this deal is good for both the wrestler and WWE.  First, as mentioned above, Sting is the wrestler who never hit the big time.  Although he is at least a decade past his prime, this will allow several big time, money generating matches against other legends such as The Undertaker or HHH.  Also, Sting is easily a Hall of Fame quality wrestler, especially with his years at WCW being those when they were most competitive with the WWE.

Please note that this is a common rumor, and one that has never materialized before.

Best of House Music: Cricco Castelli - Life is Changing

One of the greatest house tracks of all time.

Celebrating Dungeons and Dragons 40th year with a blog hop

So, today I was reading over at The RPG Corner and saw this list and the 28 day blogging challenge.

As one of my recent entries noted, I am quite new to actually playing tabletop RPG games.  However, the journalistic side of me is quite interested in reading the blog entries.

The originator of the blog hop at d20 Dark Ages is also offering tips on how to make it more successful.

Entries/commitments are due by Feb. 7, maybe by then I will jump on board as well.

Can we have the other Middle Earth back?

I tried.  Honestly.  I tried to give Peter Jackson's new Hobbit movies a fair shake.  As my previous review shown, I said nice things about the first movie despite them not necessarily needing to be said.

After spending an addition three hours watching the second entry into the Lord of the Rings "prequels", I'm not in as kind of a mood.  This film is entirely too long, and feels like it is being intentionally stretched to fill three films.

Other items just didn't belong, such as the numerous scenes with Legolas.  In the first movie, a brief shot of Frodo served to bridge the two trilogies.  I understand that.  To write in Legolas to the extent he is in "Smaug" just doesn't make sense.  It is like Jackson is throwing out all of his directorial sensibilities and has become nothing but a purveyor of fan fiction.

The effects are also nowhere close to the level of those in Lord of the Rings.  During the middle of the movie, we are "treated" to the dwarves escaping Elves by floating in barrels down a fast moving river.  The effects are truly horrible.  At times I couldn't tell if I was watching a real movie or one of the throwaway garbage titles that are featured extensively on the SyFy Channel.

The little bit of redemption in this one is near the end.  It is the character of Smaug, which is obviously where all of the special effects budget for this one went.  His interaction with Bilbo and the eventual action scene tied to it was the true highlight of the movie, but comes way past the point that you actually care about the characters.

Please, at this point I can't recommend anything but skipping these series entirely, much like I recommend with the Star Wars prequels.

I beg you.

Quality: 4/10
Rewatchability:  2/10

ChupacabraCon: Solidifying my status as a gamer for life

I'd say that if one thing has been established during the few years of blogging, it is that I have a number of varied interests.  Of course, I love house music.  Film consumes me.  Books and writing is the essence of my being.  Heck, there are even entries here regarding boxing and professional wrestling.

Well, a few months ago I was bitten by an entirely different type of bug:  that of tabletop roleplaying games.

I'm not entirely sure what sparked the interest.  One of the contributing factors was definitely the Nerd Poker podcast, which I happened upon somewhat haphazardly while searching through iTunes one day.

During my daily commute one day, an episode was on deck.  Brian Posehn and friends were hilarious, and immediately gained my interest.  This wasn't exactly what I expected of a role playing game.  The story was hilarious and not quite what these types of games had been talked up as.  Also, other people I respect have quite the love of these games.

A friend, who has experience as a game master and D&D veteran, mentioned Pathfinder as a good starting point for my entry into the world of tabletops due to it being a "perfected" version of 3.5.  His advice, coupled with my research our various local Pathfinder Society meetings, was a perfect fit.

Sourcebook and dice were ordered and I went about "learning" to the play the game.  No amount of preparation readied me enough for my first gaming experience at Ultimate Pathfinder Day at Dragon's Lair.  Thankfully, these gamers are a much friendlier lot than their console-based gaming counterparts, and no problems were encountered.

While there, I noticed an advertisement for an upcoming gaming convention here in Austin, carrying the name ChupacabraCon.  Now, I've always wanted to go to a ComicCon, but never got the chance.  I know comics.  They're safe.  It's familiar ground.  This was something entirely different.

Despite my mind's best effort at keeping me away from the convention, I went.  It would have been a huge mistake if I hadn't.

Again, these gamers were quite inviting and willing to share knowledge regarding the gaming system and any other bit of information you're interested in.

At the end of the weekend, I played two Pathfinder Society sessions, and even took part in the "big event" they had planned for Saturday night, which was a special session of the aforementioned game that took place with multiple tables that encompassed battles across an entire city that fit together into one story.  Sure, that was amazing, but only concerns one game.

There was so much variety.  Deadlands tugs at the part of me that loves both the western and horror movie genres.  Shadowrun is the tabletop equivalent to one of my favorite Super Nintendo games.  Numenera is...well I'm not sure but it looked awesome.  Some other guys were playing this feudal Japan looking game that looked great as well.  I believe it was Legend of the Five Rings.

There were also panels.  I sat in on one particularly interesting session featuring Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One.  The panel spoke about a number of subjects about writing about or producing game based items, and I was enthralled.

In just a few months, this whole other world has opened up, and I am so glad that it did.