Edward Woodward - Dead at 79

Memorable from many films (Breaker Morant a fine example) and a respected Shakespearean, I probably think of him most as ex-CIA spook Robert McCall in The Equalizer" from the mid to late 80's. Loved that show. Though he did make an appearance as a Technomage in the B5 spin-off show Crusade too.

Click here for story.

Twilight Zone at 50

50 years go on Oct 2nd 1959 a most amazing show debued on TV with the first episode of the Twilight Zone "Where Is Everybody?". For approximately 156 episodes until June of 1964 Rod Serling brought thought provoking Science Fiction to american TV screens, many of which (despite their age, and many years of re-run in syndication) are still entertaining and poignant today.



Thank you Rod Serling!

Twilight Zone - 50 Years Later
Twilight Zone Episode Guide

New game in town

I've owned only four console in my life. It all started off with the APF TV Fun model 402. I bought the game with my own money (which consisted of ALOT of rolled-up quarters, nickels and dimes) in about 1978. It was a TV Pong game for up to 4 players with a "lightgun" for games like skeet.  Skeet, for the uninitiated, consisted of a small white square that would appear at random locations at a random interval on a totally black screen for a split second and your goal was to try to zap the square with your "lightgun" before it disappeared. I still have the APF TV Fun model 402 btw, and last time I fired it up about 8 years ago it still worked.



Next I moved up to the classic Atari 2600 VCS in the early 80's. The Atari 2600 MADE the TV game console market. No idea how many hours me and friends spent in front on this thing. I still have the Atari 2600 (with the original controllers) and many of the cartridges up in our game room. As of last year the thing was still working fine after a trip to Radio Shack to buy a new TV-RF Converter box.



Sometime in the mid to late 1980s I was given a old Intellivision system by Jar(egg)head. I played with it a bit but the disk&keypad controllers on the Intellivision were always more fragile and subject to failure from use than the sturdy 2600 joysticks. I don't know what happened to the Intellivision, for all I know it is still somewhere in my storage unit.




The last game console I bought was the Super Nintendo in 1991. The game technology was way ahead of the previous systems but for some reason I never had the attachment to the Super Nintendo that I had to my other games. I probably only every owned 3 games for it and it soon fell into disuse. I still have the Super NES up in our gameroom with only the Desert Strike cartridge remaining to give it purpose.  It was also still functional as of last year.

From 1992 onwards I pretty much lost all interest in consoles for gaming with no intention of going back. When it came to gaming, the PC and paper & dice RPGs and board games were my preference.


Fast forward to April 4th, 2009, when I finally broke down and purchased the X-Box 360 Elite. Wasn't sure whether to get the X-Box or the PS3, but as the madAngel so wisely put it "Why pick. Buy one now, then buy the other one later." I have only just started playing with it (work and doing my taxes eating up most of my time) but I am really very pleased with it.  I picked up Left 4 Dead, Halo 3 and Alien vs Monsters as starters.  In comparison to the PC version of Left 4 Dead I've noticed that the X-Box version seems to have smaller/shorter scenarios and the game play is a lot easier. You really have to work for your kill-shots in the PC version, X-Box is more forgiving. Which probably makes sense since it is a console designed for more casual play. Which is the niche it fits well into for me. When I'm annoyed with stupidity at work, I can plop down for a few minutes and have a zombie bloodbath and mentally decompress while the madAngel reads comics or a book. When I have more time to focus seriously on a game I'll fire up the PC or iMac.

Question of the Day

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?




Personally I think the paper & dice RPGs and Apocalyptic Sci-Fi of my youth provided much better preparation for the coming apocalypse than the *blip* *blip* *ka-pow* video games today's kids play. When the End of Days comes, these Generation Y Millennial kids are going to choke looking for "power-ups" and BFG-9000s while those of use who learned to scheme and innovate shall inherit the wasteland.

Hey MPAA & RIAA...

... pay close attention?

Back in November I posted this article about the Monty Python's crews reaction to people putting their pirate clips of MP skits on YouTube.  In short, they started putting their own much better quality clips on YouTube for free...with links on where you could buy the DVD.

End results?  Free Monty Python Videos on Youtube Lead to 23,000% DVD Sale Increase.

It is pitch black. You are like to be eaten by a grue.

Remember the old days of computer gaming when you didn't need fancy graphics cards that have their own RAM and didn't care what "chipset" it used, and you didn't need a 6-ton refrigeration unit pumping exotic chemicals through your PC case to keep it cool? A keyboard, a monochrome monitor of amber or green, and the ASCII character set were sufficient to keep you gaming for hours playing the latest edition of the Infocomm ZORK games.

Well welcome to Legends of Zork. Activision's (you remember them, they made the more-cool-than-Atari games for the Atari 2600) browser-based "persistent online adventure" called Legends of Zork, "rooted in the world of Infocom's 1979 text-based adventure classic."

According to their site:
“The Great Underground Empire has recently fallen and the land is in disarray. The stock market has collapsed, leading even mighty FrobozzCo International to fire employees from throughout its subsidiaries. A craze of treasure-hunting has swept through the remnants of the Great Underground Empire. It’s a dangerous time to be a newly-unemployed traveling salesman, but it’s also a great time to try a bit of adventuring.”

Time will tell whether this is will be a total screwing of a beloved favorite from the past, or a nice new obsessive office timewaster.

Link to site HERE

Of course if you'd rather play the original, you can download them for free HERE

Its a Zombie Apocalypse!

Following up from THIS early 2008 post on ApathCurve....

The mad angel and I have been playing the new zombie Apocalypse (zombocalypse?) survival game called Left4Dead. I think the reviews have been favorable, my personal review is that it's great.

I'm also happy to say that on her first real experience in fighting zombies, the mad angel has picked up the fine art of making Zombie-Brain-Salad with an Uzi quite well.


In my opinion the game does a good job of capturing the atmosphere found in zombie movies. In other words, dark, gory, a bit creepy and tense. You find yourself part of a team of four survivors, trying to make your way through the zombie infested night (all the good ones always happen at night, don't they?) to a rescue point. Moving trough forests, cities, sewers and subways, airports and hospitals. You've got a mix of the classic slow "shambling" zombies we all know as well as few of the more modern "runners" and the occasional "mutant" zombie that more recent films have added to the genre.

One important thing they have captured well in Left4Dead from good zombie fiction is the importance of cooperative team survival. Your team of survivor consist of 4 people (3 male, 1 female). Just like in the movies, the guy who tries to lone-wolf it or go "Rambo" will soon be consumed by a ravenous hoard of zombies. You want to survive, you stick close to the team and watch each other's back. Otherwise, you die, its that simple.

As a single-player game, its ok. The AI for the other characters can pull some boneheaded moves when you are fighting for your survival. It is in multi-player mode (max 4 players) where the game shines. Working together with other live players means you can actually try to plan and execute a strategy to overcome the challenges. You can play on your own local dedicated server or on shared servers on the Internet.

There are also no BFG-9000s in Left4Dead. It's standard weapons for the most part. Pistols, hunting rifle, Uzi, M-16, shotgun and a few home-made items are about all you will find.

Available on PC and XBOX360 (I play the PC version)

Very much recommended by yours truly.

RenFest 2008 and other matters

Playing catchup. We managed to make our annual trip to the Texas Renaissance Festival again this year.  The weekend theme was "The Barbarian Invasion".  We had originally planned to get a motel, go up on a Friday evening, go a-Renning all weekend and head back Sunday night. With everything going we weren't able to make the arrangements so we just did our 1 day jaunt. Still had great fun, listened to music, saw a show or two and did much shopping and eating.

Main thing I needed to get was a good pair of boots for the costumes, something that I could use with either Pirate, Steampunk, Cavalier and Highlander. I decided to pick up a pair of Strider Knee Boots w/ buckles (shown here) from RenBoots. These are probably some of the most comfortable leather boots I've owned and will be good multi-purpose boots for a variety of costumes. Hell, I could even wear these things are regular day-to-day boots. 

However the Striders don't work for the Highlander so I went for some black leather renaissance "moccasin's" that work pretty well. Unfortunately the mad angel still needs to work up something to go with my Highlander, there wasn't much available in the way of women's garb to match my the unrestricted Blackwatch tartan that I use, so it looks like internet or do-it-yourself for her at the point. :)

After RenFest it was back to Alabama for Thanksgiving and a meeting with the lawyer who will be handling the probate for my dad's estate.  Fortunately it should be a "simple and quick" process, but "simple and quick" still means having to wait 6mos before being doing anything with his property to ensure there are no claims to the estate...and of course $2800 for all the legal expenses, court fees, etc.  I have heard that a Trust is a much better instrument than a Will (it reportedly allows your heirs to avoid probate) for those you leave behind so I may be investigating that in the future.  

Who watches The Watchmen?

Looks like more comic based movies on the horizon. Based strictly on the trailer, it looks like the dark alternative 1980's story The Watchmen will definitely be something to see. Click the smiley for the trailer.

The Dark Knight

The mad angel and I took in a late showing of the new Batman film this weekend. We both agreed it is a definite must see. As neither of us have read the original comic I have no idea how the Dark Knight movie might compare for the comic book purists. But taking the movie on its own, it's outstanding. Ledger's does (or did) sadistic-crazy so well it's creepy. It will be a very tough job for anyone having to follow him as the Joker in any future movies of this darker Batman series. The one thing I do miss is the darker look of Gotham City in the previous movie. In Dark Knight Gotham looks just like any another large modern city with shots from Chicago and NYC. But that is a minor item. I will be buying this movie as soon as it comes out.