TheBoost

Warbler said:

I'm not sure where to put this, but this thread seems to be the best place.  I watched the 1st episode of The History Channel's mini series "The Bible".   I can't say I am all that impressed.   To say the thing feels rushed, is an understatement.   ...

...

... They also didn't make it clear that the reason Moses was handing the reigns over to Joshua was because Moses had sinned was told by God because of that, he couldn't enter into the Promised Land.  Very, very rushed.  Disappointing.     

I agree. Don't say you're doing "THE BIBLE" when you're doing a quick look at Abraham, then an abridged live action version of "Prince of Egypt."

I want a movie of the Gospels, with all four gospels separate, with Jesus in a different colored toga in each one, so I can keep them straight.  

Years ago a blogger/webcomic posted a thing about a MMORPG that would be a communist/zombie game.

Basically, in a zombie apocalypse, you as a player are part of a community. Your adventures and exploits main goal is to contribute to the survival of humanity as a whole against an ever growing zombie horde. Here's an excerpt from the really really long post.

The basic premise is simple. You play as a survivor after a zombie holocaust. When your character dies, you must create another one. There is advancement, both on a character scale (the longer you play a single character, the better he gets - to a small degree) and on a player scale (you can earn advancements that exist between characters). You can only create one character at a time, and to play another character means killing that one off. Each character you can create belongs in an archetype (ie policeman, doctor, farmer, biker, etc) that has specific advantages and disadvantages. Playing the game will unlock further archetypes to play as.

To combat rampant individualism, the idea is that you cannot keep any items between gameplay sessions. That's right. Individually, you do not accumulate anything. If you log off, you will drop everything on the ground. The next time you log in, you start with nothing. Instead, you are able to donate your items to various outposts in the world.

An outpost is essentially a shared town-type place. They can have stuff like armories (where you can find equipment), medical tents (healing), barracks (which hires guards to protect the outpost) and so on. In addition to places which directly affect the players, there are outpost specific locations, like a generator room which powers the other rooms, or a gate which prevents zombies from entering.

Each outpost room serves a specific function which requires donations. For instance, you can go into an armory and request preset combat gear (ie a shotgun and bullets). The armory has a level which is dictated by donations. You donate weapons and ammo you find out in the world to the armory to improve its level, and everybody gets to benefit from it. This level is not static. Requesting equipment spends some of the points, and there is a maintenance rate depending on level (ie a level 1 armory requires 100 points per hour, but a level 5 armory requires 1,000 points per hour). Each player is responsible for not only maintaining the armory's points, but adding to them to improve the armory (increasing the number and types of preset combat gear).

Russel Crowe would have been a perfectly acceptable Javert in the community theater production of Les Mis in a church basement. 

I picked up the "Complete Symphonic Recording" album.

WOW, that's a lot of synthesizers, and sometimes Javert rocks out with electric guitar.

I mean, the synth line is so thick at some points it sounds like the Doctor Who theme in the background. 

Jeez Wolfman, are you secretly George Lucas?

I met little Boba and Matt Woods, voice of General Greivous, as ComicCon. I actually had a pretty decent conversation with Woods, seemed like a neat dude. 

CP3S said:

People like counter culture and contrarians. I mean, we're literally a country that was built on rebellion. It resonates with us. Screw the bow tie and that top button! Who cares? They are such silly social conventions anyway. Why do we wear dumb superficial pieces of cloth around our necks anyway? When you stop and think about it, it is all rather silly.

Perhaps, but rocking the messy hair and unbuttoned tie in a room of people with tuxes is just as much, if not more, or an intentional affectation than wearing a full tux. 

Like a teenage boy sagging his jeans, Tarantino put just as much decision into looking like he didn't care for everyone watching as someone would put into looking like they care. His rebellion is just as much an artifice as anyone else's conformity. 

bkev said:

Anyway, what were people's thoughts on Michele Obama presenting an award? I'm a fan of the Obamas but I've never liked how they use media. I feel like something like that should be beneath a person in a position of such power. It's not quite as horrible as Barack himself on say the Late Show, but it not only surprised me - it shocked me. And to give her Best Picture? Oh, I mean, COME ON.

Seemed totally appropriate to me. 

No different than a politician being in a parade or throwing out the first pitch at a ball game. I'd be just as much for it if it had been Mrs. Romney up there. The First Lady (or even the POTUS) can do things like that.

I would say if she gave out best Sound Editing, that would be beneath her. 

Perhaps rolling a little less regimented. Like, a list of four movies for the month, giving some leeway for availability (Netflix streaming rules!) and situation (I usually have to watch movies my beloved finds acceptable). 

So maybe March's movies could be

• Cannibal Holocaust
• Argo
• The Room
• Disney's Hercules

Watch what you can, contribute as the month goes on.

Justa  thought

Warbler said:

I hope you are wrong about the bow tie.  Imho,  a tux just doesn't look right with a regular tie.

Nah man, THIS is the future!

Warbler said:

 

Maybe this makes me odd, but can someone explain Quentin Tarantino to me?  Why does he always show up at the Oscars looking like a slob?   Does it cause him horrible pain and suffering to button the top button of his shirt and tighten the tie all the way up and groom his hair a little?   Btw, to Mr Tarantino and other men: you are supposed to where a bow tie with Tux.  I hate people that think they are too cold to dress up appropriately for events.      

Tarantino always thinks he's the coolest guy in the room. One of the reasons I find him so damn annoying, even while enjoying his work. He had to show that, yeah he's AT the Oscars, but he still knows he's too cool to be there. 

I think the bow tie is on the way out. I think the string tie needs to come back. 

McFarlane was pretty funny, I'm a little mad "Dark Knight Rises" didn't win more... or get nominated for anything. I wanted Tom Hardy as Bane to come and take over the ceremony. 

Dustin Hoffman and Ric Flair are slowly turning into the same man. 

TV's Frink said:

TheBoost said:

I wrote a AD&D Adventure that won a prize from the Roll For Initiative podcast! 

http://rfipodcast.com/show/2012/12/18/volume-3-issue-103-and-the-winner-is/

 

They call me awesome at about 33 min.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bxg7pBv2xD2tZDVJTzlIMllEaE0/edit?usp=sharing&pli=1

For anyone who wants to play an award winning module about Hobbit werewolves.

There was a PC game, Harvester, back in the mid 90s where you wake up an amnesiac, and have to do various missions, many of which backfire and cause horrible grief for the other characters.

There's a slow progression from stealing a barbershop pole, to poisoning a dog, to setting arson to an empty diner (that inadventently leads to the suicide/murder of the owner and her daughter), until eventually by the end you're beating a teenage girl to death with a bat.

At the end you learn the entire premise of the game was to desensitize your character (and to an extent you the player) to violence, to help train him to be a serial killer.

This has always stayed with me as a game as "art." It really made me reflect on violence, and how I would never have played a game about murdering a teenage girl as she begs for mercy, and yet the game managed to get me to do it. It created an emotional response, and made me reexamine my thinking, and isn't that what some of the best art does?

Although FYI I never became a serial killer.

timdiggerm said:

Just so you guys know, Bingo is using a picture from a movie that I haven't seen to communicate the idea of "stupid, silly games". In the film "The Hudsucker Proxy", they invent the hula-hoop. I'm guessing that is a design drawing of the hoop.

Specifically, I believe the line is "You know? For kids."

Talking about games with a mate at the bar, perhaps my view is skewed. He says many first person shooters are much more sci-fi, less realistic than the games I'm thinking of (which is skewed by the preferences of my nephews) and that many games are more about lazers and explosions than human faces being blown off, and would probably fall under a "Sci-Fi Violence" PG-13 rating as a movie.

Mrebo said:

I think there are good criticisms to be made on an artistic level. There are some really dreadful films that can be similarly criticized.

 

I agree. But mainstream film that I consume as entertainment, even the violent ones, pale in comparison to the constant, and increasingly shockingly realistic violence in games. 

Very few films have the amount of bloody heads exploding per second that some of the big FPS games have. 

DuracellEnergizer said:

I prefer my video game violence to be of the bloodless Looney Tune variety.

I do to. But the vast majority of my entertainment falls into a "PG-13" category. 

But games seem to be either Super Mario or Whore-Killer 5000.

bkev said:

It's all about Worms, baby.

I spent more time on that game that I think any other. In college we would have HOURS of hotseat games, with pretty much anyone on the dorm floor wandering in for a round. 

Lets talk about celebrities who behave admirably, who do something worthwhile with their status. 

Rule: Whatever good thing they do can't be the main reason they are famous. Jonas Salk was very famous for curing polio, so he wouldn't count.

Brad Pitt-

Despite seeming the biggest douche on Earth for his Chanel #5 commercials, I admire that he throws his effort and celebrity into his non-profit "Make It Right" organization to rebuild New Orleans with quality green housing. An odd choice for a dude who supposedly loves Ayn Rand, but still, good for him.

I in no way believe violent video games cause real violence. I don't support censorship or hysteria. 

On the other hand, I find them really disturbing. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I feel there's a point where graphics and sound have gotten so good that murdering a simulated human being in a game these days is worlds away from shooting cartoon Nazis in Wolfenstien 3D. 

I recently played a little "Batman- Arkham City." Awesome gameplay, but for whatever reason the violence, sexuality, and language were all maxed out far beyond what you'd expect from any aspect of the Batman franchise. 

Not sure I have a specific point. Thoughts?

CP3S said:

Nonsense!

By that logic all we should be pumping out of our universities would be engineers and computer science majors, and other boring drones.

Have you ever worked with engineers? They tend to be some of the most creative problem solving people I've ever met.

On the other hand, put me in a room with a bunch of Lit majors and I hear the same ideas constantly being regurgitated. 

AntcuFaalb said:

 

I think it's part of this whole "we aren't a vocational school" attitude that high school faculty/staff have nowadays. It's almost as if they're afraid to discuss careers outside of academia with students.

I went to an average public high school in New Jersey and post-HS plans were only discussed once or twice in prearranged meetings with "guidance" counselors.

I think they just assumed that everyone would go to some kind of college and figure out their future plans there. Unfortunately, many (most?) of those college-bound students fly blind during those four years and wind up in a situation like your friend.

It's not faculty and staff. It's politicians. (in the US at least)

Schools are largely judged on how many college ready students they produce, not how many students leave school with a good plan for a paying vocation.

That's why vocational training budgets are constantly being cut. Classes like wood shop, Air conditioner repair, auto shop, turf management are always being cut because they don't fit into higher test scores and federal funding. 

A major change is needed, but it needs to come from the top. 

NeverarGreat said:

 

By the way, where is the search function on this forum? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Not really. Just google with "site:Originaltrilogy.com"

I wrote a AD&D Adventure that won a prize from the Roll For Initiative podcast! 

http://rfipodcast.com/show/2012/12/18/volume-3-issue-103-and-the-winner-is/

They call me awesome at about 33 min.

HotRod said:

 

 

I was as pissed as the next person hearing the same tunes from TPM being used, but maybe that's the only choice old Lucas had!?

I'd be happy for JJ's guy to score the new films, as long as he used the original themes. We need a fresh approach. Sorry, but Williams lost it a long time ago!!

Couldn't disagree more.The man hasn't missed a beat.

Look at the Harry Potter films, Memoirs of a Geisha, his jazzy Catch Me If You Can score, and IMHO the PT scores are the best parts of those movies. 

Warbler said:

ugh.

"When did the red man first say Ug?!"

That's what they get for being commies!