Archive for April, 2010

Fall of the Goblin Empire (FoGE) is my entry for the SFSFW’s fantasy wargaming competition.  A game of goblins and their varigated, varied and highly unreliable flying machines. Here are a couple of the opening paragraphs that set the scene for a game of goblins going up-tiddle-ee-up coming down-tiddle-ee-down-down…

Ask anyone and they will tell you Goblins are mad, bad braggers, they have an anger in their eyes and can’t hold their drink. What most won’t tell you is they’ve good reason. When chroniclers write out the ages of the world somehow the age of
goblins gets misplaced. Yet there was a time (as any drunk goblin will tell you at length) when the little green folk ruled all the world and everyone in it for over a thousand years. Of course no one pays any attention because who believes a drunk goblin?

Yet it did exist for a thousand years. Eventually, as happens to all empires, the great goblin empire lost its grasp on the land.  In its last days the goblins retreated to the floating isles protecting their most valuable asset: the magical metal goblinic
famed for its ability to lift many times its own weight off the ground. They were fortunate that the islands also produced some iron, flax cloth, vast mounds of guano and some natural gasses. There they fell back into ancient tribal feuds and so the
goblin empire fell. Soon after that they turned to the bottle.

Wow that went fast!  One of the best signs of a really good drama is that it feels like it was shorter than it was.  Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy always felt twenty minutes long.  Tonight’s Doctor Who clocked in at 40 minutes but felt like 30.

First there was River’s demonstration of how to make an exit and an entrance both at once.  Nice way to send a message etching it into the black box in a lost language with an anachronistic message too.  River Song flying the TARDIS lovely touch knowing about the stabilisers and parking without leaving the breaks on.

Amy Pond definitely my favourite companion since the revival of the show.  She just has a range: she does the curious companion, the scared companion and the ballsy companion.

This week was not full of the references in the last few episodes were.  The writing was excellent: some really sharp and fun dialogue.  Spotters guide to the Doctor love it – I’m guessing Paul McGann’s Doctor is worth the most points due to rarity if not quality or popularity.

Iain Glen’s Bishop was nicely played.  The comment about having to write letters after the Doctor flies away in a little blue box was quite telling.  It would have been more telling if it came from UNIT’s Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

The Weeping Angels newly revealed capabilities were neat but in keeping.  If Blink is Alien then The Time of Angels is Aliens.  I’m not sure if they’re as scary as they were first time around.

Nice trick having the characters’ walk deeper and deeper into the trap before they realised what it was.  It set up the Doctor’s nice little monologue at the end.

On a side note one thing spoilt the otherwise excellent episode:  BBC please don’t put notice about the next program over the climax of a drama. Don’t put it over the face of an actor.  Don’t put it over an important piece of dialogue. It’s an insult to the audience and to the artists and professionals who created the work.  If you have to put it over the titles but I wish you’d stop doing that and let us enjoy what we’re watching.  Or to put it another way – if that’s the BBC’s new look please have it look away while in a room full of Weeping Angels.

Until today I’d included the Add this Button on both this site and on my unofficial Vue News blog.  Having looked at the usage I’ve taken it off this blog.  Quite simply, despite having tried it in a few different places, it wasn’t being used.  On Vue News it gets a low level steady stream of usage.  Here it had 3 clicks in 12 months.  So to slightly improve this sites performance Add this is now history.

So we got jammy dodgers, Where Eagle Dare, Asimov, Troughton and Daleks references for fun.

Nice Dalek model on the plotting table to set them up and I thought the olive drab Daleks looked really good with the little Union Jack.  The new look Daleks don’t look quite so good.  I wonder if the main idea was to make them taller and more threatening. Maybe it means they can fit taller people inside to operate them.  Nice to see the variety of colour as my first memory of Dalek’s has them in a variety of colours from the films.  The best thing about them is the eye in the eye stalk.

Lots of fun Dalek dialogue.  Really fun to see them carrying files and making a cup of tea.

Letting the Dalek’s get away was an excellent choice. We don’t have to yet another Sherlock Holmes coming back after the falls to get them back.  Leaving Bracewell in the wild nice too.   I really didn’t see the Bracewell is a machine coming – nice twist.

The War Rooms nicely put together.  Not authentic but authentic to the story.  Beautiful set design and dressing.

Churchill played nicely.  Plenty of biting one liners from him.  Nice twist by playing with the usual Doctor meeting a historical figure plot. Having them already knowing each other leaving the question of where they met.  An opening for a prequel or sequel perhaps?

This didn’t bother me during the episode but afterwards I’m trying to work out: no one blinked an eye at the length of Amy’s skirt.  It’s a miracle men around the War Room didn’t keep walking into things.

I’m starting to feel like a stuck record: for the third episode we got all the pulp goodness but with the inclusion of logic.  The Spitfires in space could have been played as someone just comes up with the idea and then they appear.  That would have been easy.  All the references needed were dropped in as throw away lines earlier on, then later starts the ball rolling and then they appear.  It makes the whole story hang together so much better.

Next week to look forward to: River Song and the return of the monsters from Blink.  Interesting to see if Steven Moffat’s excellent touch runs to a two parter.  Fingers crossed they can keep up the excellent quality of the series so far.

In an effort to make this site a bit more of a Quatro and less of an Austin 1100 I’ve painted gzip go faster striped down the side of all the html, css and js files it serves up tonight.

Review of Clash of the Titans in the style of the film.

Story OK but a bit like it was cobbled together for twitter.

Looked good. Nice costumes and props.

Mix of solid and good special effects.

Sound seemed a bit lacklustre.  Might have been the system in the cinema.

Gods were great.  So was Olympus.  Would love to have seen more of it.

Were the hunters written to be played by Omid Djalili and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson but they couldn’t get them: now that would be a double act I’d pay to see.

Nothing to say about Sam Worthington.

Felt like he needed to have screen time with someone to raise his game.  Needed to be a bit of a bigger hero even if he was being man rather than god. Ok so I did have something to say. Lol.

Could they cram a couple more cameos in?  The religious nutter could have been played by Russell Brand.  Andy Serkis as the Kraken?

Yeh “Unleash the Kraken”.

Soundtrack felt it had fallen off the back of a lorry (the one gladiators’ soundtrack was on just with the wailing woman turned down to 4 from 11).

Who was who? Most only got a name check when they died.

Not very epic. Needed more flesh. Maybe longer than 106 minutes.  More Greek legend for the SMS generation.

Despite all that enjoyed it as popcorn.

• BBC want to save some money? Put reporters back in the studio & stop following the PMs car with a Helicopter. #
• Character Creation and Background sections of #WiP reviewed. Equipment next. #WiP #rpg #
• @very_true_thing I downloaded a big heap of data from them the other day. Excellent geek data fun. in reply to very_true_thing #
• Shock! Scrabble to allow Proper Nouns! Whats next collectible tile packs? http://bit.ly/bH41Ap #
• Back from a 3 hour wander round Sefton Park. Sunny bur windswept. #
• I accidentally photographed a ghost in Sefton Park today http://twitpic.com/1dumbl #
• RT @sciamannata: Nah, that's no ghost, that's someone materialising from a teleporter. See? There's always a perfectly sensible explanation! #
• .@sciamannata How did I miss that! I've just checked the next picture and there are cybermen in it. #
• @daneofwar I doubt I'd have managed to get that effect if I'd tried in reply to daneofwar #
• @GRIMACHU Just make sure it doesn't borrow any antiquities on the way in reply to GRIMACHU #
• @RFLong Would I be cruel if I said the laws of thermodynamics? in reply to RFLong #
• Anyone know why Shadowrun Vice doesn't seem to be available as a PDF anywhere anymore? #rpg #
• @mdlachlan Congratulations. in reply to mdlachlan #
• How did I miss Bryan Singer & Benicio Del Toro doing a spoof heist film trailer? http://bit.ly/crt7aW #
• @call_me_salome You seem to have managed to spread it across large parts of the country – sunny up here too in reply to call_me_salome #
• Photo I missed yesterday – Nick Clegg's battle bus turning left from Penny Lane starting Magical Mystery Tour #
• @thedeadone Probably safer for it to be Depp than Helena Bonham Carter… in reply to thedeadone #
• V.Cool RT @DanDiplo: Really cool video of New York destroyed by all your favourite 80s video game characters http://bit.ly/cDC7yv #
• @thedeadone Yes but she does turn up in a lot of his films. Maybe JD+HBC=TB's Mary Sue in reply to thedeadone #
• @thedeadone I've not seen Alice so I can't really comment. I was more thinking of the frequency of their 3 way collaboration. in reply to thedeadone #
• @thedeadone JD can be a bit OTT sometimes but then so can TB. I'll probably see Alice when it hits (bargain) DVD. in reply to thedeadone #
• @sciamannata Pretty soon everything will have a clock include in it – including breakfast cereal and carpet. in reply to sciamannata #
• @call_me_salome If you've not tried it before toss a coin… in reply to call_me_salome #
• Been over a big chunk of the #WiP this morning and feeling very positive about how little is left to do. #
• I've yet to see one single tweet asking why the campaign against #debill was so ineffective… #
• @aniakovas So we campaign ineffectively and then blame everyone else? We'll see a lot of change carrying on like that. Who are the plonkers? in reply to aniakovas #
• @hollyalyxfinch Sorry that sounds like the excuse used by every failed fringe group I've ever heard yelling on street corners. in reply to hollyalyxfinch #
• @DanDiplo Sorry the campaign was ineffective or more would have listened. We didn't get our message across. in reply to DanDiplo #
• @hollyalyxfinch You stick with fringe politics. I'll carry on working for real change. And please don't tell me what I do or don't feel. in reply to hollyalyxfinch #
• Asking why the #debill campaign was ineffective isn't supporting it. Its about how we campaign better to get it changed. #
• @DanDiplo We should leave it up to other to educate (lobby) them and not put our point of view across to them? in reply to DanDiplo #
• @hollyalyxfinch Not what I said. Why was the campaign ineffective? A good answer will tell us how to get it changed. in reply to hollyalyxfinch #
• @aniakovas I'm not saying its us. Its a very hard question to answer but at the moment no one seems to want to even talk about it. in reply to aniakovas #
• @KeeperOfTheHDB If we start from there is it any wonder they don't listen to our point of view? in reply to KeeperOfTheHDB #
• @KeeperOfTheHDB Hopefully you'll like whoever you get next more. in reply to KeeperOfTheHDB #
• @DanDiplo I'm against PR because it entrenches parties & whips in law. I'd prefer it if neither existed. But thats another can of worms. in reply to DanDiplo #
• Going to make another stab at the #rpg blog post that keeps defeating me. Down twitter Perescope. #
• @KadrinaLage Think I've nailed it after only 3 weeks of trying lol in reply to KadrinaLage #
• @KimKnox I missed you're earlier Tweet – Gratz. And good luck with the blurb I keep putting off mine too. in reply to KimKnox #
• @KeeperOfTheHDB Its made me quite angry too. No offence taken. in reply to KeeperOfTheHDB #
• @daneofwar Thanks for the ff in reply to daneofwar #
• @the_ravener Hope someones got a screencap of that for posterity. in reply to the_ravener #
• Last Nights Blog Post: The Danger of Difficulty Despair – With Graphs http://www.bit.ly/90B9oF #rpg #
• OK my Follow Friday list is getting out of control. Will try again later. #
• @the_ravener Excellent. Wish I'd done that for the Gorilla Marketers. Once there were hundreds on twitter but now there almost extinct. in reply to the_ravener #
• This bottle of wine was supposed to have a "hint of black currant" not a strong flavour of *!#!$??! #
• @Inkslinger Congratulations in reply to Inkslinger #
• Did an expert on News24 just say fish and chips include no vegetables? Is Cod not a vegetable anymore? #
• @JamesWallis Probably although I thought which Intelligence Agency benefits most so I'm no better. in reply to JamesWallis #
• @NeilCFord Not much help but I was awake and thought *** this and went back to sleep and now I can't seem to get started on the day in reply to NeilCFord #
• @aniakovas It got a bit better once it had a chance to breath but it definitly wasn't right in reply to aniakovas #
• @KadrinaLage I've had really weak coke in a pub which is foul and should always be taken back. Serving the wrong drink takes a special skill #
• @antallan Glad to hear Cod is feeling better. Had such a rough time since they were writen out of The Bill. in reply to antallan #
• @antallan I wonder can we get all 5 a day with Fish and Chips? Best I can do is Chips, Mushy Peas and Mushroom Sauce. in reply to antallan #
• @ThadeousC Nice bit of work. in reply to ThadeousC #
• @sciamannata Where are the shops? On top of K2? in reply to daneofwar #
• .@sciamannata I've seen Victorian pictures of Cod hunting the bananas with spears in the bush. Always thought they were faked. #
• .@antallan 5 a day. Fish, Chips, Mushy Peas, Mushroom Sauce and Pickled Onions. Wrapping in lettuce instead of newspaper seems daft. #
• @daneofwar Morning in reply to daneofwar #
• @pierre_nel That really is a bad way to fail as a streaker: Still partially clothed and not sure what sport is played in John Lewis in reply to pierre_nel #
• @sciamannata Good luck. in reply to sciamannata #
• @beltonwriter Night / Morning in reply to beltonwriter #
• @daneofwar It is nice isn't it. I think @call_me_salome laid claim to it before I got there. Is calling shotgun on the weather allowed? in reply to daneofwar #
• @pierre_nel I think we all have had that nightmare sometime. If it was up here I'd put it down to Grand National madness/drinking. Very odd. #
• @call_me_salome Check down the back of the sofa in case there is a frying pan, sea bass and white sauce lurking there. in reply to call_me_salome #
• @jearle Sounds like a fine start to the day. Any photos of the raptor? in reply to jearle #
• @jearle Shame. I was looking at lenses for my SLR the other day. Can't decide between a telephoto for birds or a wide angle for landscapes. in reply to jearle #
• @ghostwoods Scary: 3,091 out of 19,000 can related accidents are with corn beef cans. Yet we still love it. in reply to ghostwoods #
• @jearle Just got the standard Cannon 18-55mm lens at the moment after switching from film to digital SLR. in reply to jearle #
• @GRIMACHU You'll be lucky. They just want to call it waste and hope most people won't ask what it is. in reply to GRIMACHU #
• @ghostwoods Couldn't find the stats on number of those cases that led to gangrene. Yet still we love our CB. in reply to ghostwoods #
• @jearle Thanks. Thats what I was thinking. Plus I spotted a wide angle adapter for £30 with good reviews. in reply to pookie_uk #
• @pookie_uk Fascinating but I'm not getting the dice reference. in reply to pookie_uk #
• @Adrian_RG Phew you saved me from having to ask… in reply to Adrian_RG #
• @Adrian_RG I think that depends on the answer you get in reply to Adrian_RG #
• @pookie_uk Ok that makes sense now thanks Not sure what that woman on TV health show would say about it… in reply to pookie_uk #
• @pookie_uk Eww. Brings a whole new meaning to roll 3d6 for damage. in reply to pookie_uk #
• @call_me_salome An interesting juxtaposition. I hear the haunting call of a lesser spotted python in the distance. in reply to call_me_salome #
• @Adrian_RG Yes worth every one of its characters. in reply to Adrian_RG #
• @call_me_salome I think I'm best off not asking especially if it involves bums, champagne and fish slices. in reply to call_me_salome #
• @MinionTV Press the off switch then step away from the television. Its the only thing to do. in reply to MinionTV #
• @bluinkalchemist Have fun. in reply to bluinkalchemist #
• @MinionTV And it fits while the old why don't you line is probably too long for 140 chars. in reply to MinionTV #
• Washing machine on. Windows open. #WiP open. Down periscope. #
• @richeym I've had that feeling since I did a 10K steps day in the middle of the week. in reply to richeym #
• @minapop I wondered what they were setting up for yesterday. That's pretty big. Did it smell as good as it looks? in reply to minapop #
• @ghostfinder These days I think they try really hard not to – even as a joke. in reply to ghostfinder #
• @minapop That's a lot of paella. Wishing I'd gone into the city today now. in reply to minapop #
• Almost 3 hours solid on the #WiP Serious dent in the magic chapter. Time for a snack and decide what to do before Doctor Who. #
• Should have RT this earlier RT @pookie_uk: @impworks Wombat poo is cube shaped. #
• @archers106 If I had the power or money to make that happen I would… in reply to archers106 #
• @Bookwalter A friend used to find me at Salute by looking for someone not in a black T-shirt as that was the quick way to spot me. in reply to Bookwalter #
• @gamefiend And yet players will still find something you missed. in reply to gamefiend #
• @minapop I'll take a look at the weather tomorrow and might nip in… in reply to minapop #
• @archers106 Sounds like a fun project. in reply to archers106 #
• Wandered to the shops. Tumble weed blowing in empty streets. Only sounds a dog barking & the national on radios from every shop. #
• Could someone get Richard Hammond a better script / joke writer please. #
• Doctor Who 2 minutes and counting… #
• @aniakovas You ordered a broken handle bar? (Sorry I know what you really ment but I had to ask) in reply to aniakovas #
• Do those heads look a bit like Davros? #doctorwho #
• Yeh! Now those look like proper DALEKS. #DoctorWho #DrWho #
• @grekwood Yup and the hints of Douglas Adams too. Love it. #
• @grekwood I had to stop myself firing up twitter when a woman in a cloak said "Save us Doctor you're our only hope" lol in reply to grekwood #
• Wonder if this weeks Doctor Who post will get ripped off by as many sites as last weeks? #
• @thewritersroad But its so addictive. And a lot easier to explain away than wallpapering cupboards and draws instead of writing. in reply to thewritersroad #
• Finished 3 sheets of handouts for a gaming session. Time to cook something for dinner. #
• @NeilCFord If we did do you think we'd be sharing it in reply to NeilCFord #

So the second outing for the 11^th Doctor tonight in The Beast Below.

Interesting take on future Britain as a starship.  The sets were nicely dressed and with some interesting colour.  There was a lovely mix of retro, post war, grimy Britain littered with British icons with incongruous details like the rickshaws.  Small quibble if Scotland has its own ship and presumably doing its own thing why does the Union Jack still incorporate Saint Andrew’s Cross?

The scary end of the pier head-in-a-box bad guys were excellent.  I’d like to have seen more of them but the single episode story format doesn’t really let the new bad guys get built up the way the old ones used to.  Being physical objects rather than a CGI effect helps.  The winders becoming smilers using a physical effect in combination with CG was a good choice.

There were lots of nice gags and references littered in the show.  The moment the Woman in cloak (later revealed to be the queen) said “Save us Doctor you’re our only hope”.  The noise in the rubbish dump.  Touches of The Prisoner, Star Wars, Fairy Stories and Douglas Adams.

Liz 10 worked well and was nicely played.  The ruler who is trapped in a perpetual cycle of discovery and denial.  There seems to be a deliberate move to putting children in jeopardy to build tension and both the main child  actors in this episode gave excellent performances.

Amy gets an opportunity to show the kind of companion she is.  The Doctor goes for the dark solution and Amy brings the heart and finds the better solution to the same problem.  The story telling could have just had her hit the button but it showed us the logic very quickly and solve the problem.

Once the excellent story was over they brought out the DALEKs for next week.  Since the revival of Doctor Who that’s become something I dread.  For the first time in several DALEK stories I’m not worried that it will be a disappointment.