Daezarkian's Dungeon

Blood Skies

2011-05-18T09:02:00.001-07:00

In case you stumbled here by mistake, this blog is pretty much a graveyard.

But Steve lives!

Check out my current site: Blood Skies. Trust me. You'll like it.

Daily Checklist to a Better Life

2010-08-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

This little list of mine is inspired by "Life's Little Instruction Book" by H. Jackson Brown Jr., which I had the pleasure of reading this past weekend. It got me wondering if there was anything that I did on a regular basis to improve my life. I'm a creature of habit -- too much so, truth be told -- so it came as little surprise to me how easily this list came to mind.

It's worth noting that, by and large, I am not considered a "cheery" person, but this is something of a misconception. I do my absolute best to maintain a positive attitude, even if you'd never guess it from my outwardly sarcastic nature. Maybe that's why I made this list: to show that anyone can lead a positive life, even those of us who seem to channel the Grinch even when we don't mean to. =)

Doing these ten things, every day, have made me a better person. Maybe they can help someone else, too.

1. Tell your spouse or significant other how much you love them. You don't need to write a sonnet or an epic poem, but a heartfelt "I Love You" while looking your spouse in the eyes carries more meaning than you might know.

2. Exercise. Even a little. If you don't have time to work out, do some sit-ups, some push-ups, or go for a good walk or bike ride. You'll feel better.

3. Listen to a song that you love. Go and hide in a corner with your IPod if you have to. Don't be afraid to sing along.

4. Pause, take 5 minutes, and do nothing. This one is hard for me -- I'm always on the move, in some fashion or another -- but doing this can work wonders for the mind. Stare at a sunset, at a tree, or just watch as people pass by.

5. Make someone else laugh.

6. Make yourself laugh.

7. Listen to, taste, watch, read or otherwise try something recommended to you by someone else. It's good to open your mind, and listen to what others have to tell you. If someone loves something, there's a reason, and if nothing else it can be exciting to experience someone else's passions.

8. Take time to look at something that interests you. Surf the web and find an article about a movie you recently enjoyed or a book you read ten years ago and suddenly remembered the other day. Check in on your favorite sports team or the local news. Just be sure to feed whatever engages you.

9. Do something kind for someone that you don't know. Even if it's as simple as just holding open a door for someone behind you.

10. Hug your children. Tell them you love them. If your child is too old for hugging (in their mind), get creative, and find some other way to let them know how you feel. (If you don't have children, you likely have a pet, which has become something of a stand-in for children for many people my age. If you don't, get one.)

And a bonus item...

11. Look forward to something. Whether it be kissing your wife, watching that new Blu-Ray you bought over the weekend, or just taking off your shoes at the end of the day, it's good to have something positive you can bring to mind when the day throws unexpected challenges your way.

Get out there and live.

Blood Skies: Chapter One (Excerpt)

2010-08-17T12:39:00.001-07:00

Here's another brief excerpt from my novel project, this time selected from the beginning of the first chapter, "White".

There was an apple on the tree. It was pure white: an orb like frozen snow. A tiny spider, as white as ice, crawled across its face. It stood in stark contrast to the small and withered tree, which sat lonely and decrepit against a bed of reeds in the shallow river bank. Muddy and dank waters drifted by in the bed, filled with foul runoff from the edge of The Reach. The wind echoed through the reeds, a slow, sad dirge powered by the wind that blew in from the vast tundra.

The sky felt low and flat, oppressive. The air was raw with cold. Cross stared out, past the lone tree and the dense skeletal foliage, at The Reach, an endless, colorless plain of ice floes, snow-covered hills, arctic waters and drifts of snow deep enough to drown in. The harsh white of The Reach marked the end of civilization: it was where the human haven of Thornn saw its sphere of influence end, and where the deadly hostility of the wilderness began. The horizon was dark, a thin line of shadow that lay compressed beneath the dead white sky.

“Eric? Are you okay?”

Snow was behind him, amidst the gravestones. The cold, hard ground was nearly blue, a thin and long field that stretched all of the way back to the lower defensive tiers of Thornn, which sat implacable, a funnel of reinforced red stone walls embalmed in arcane ice and surrounded by hexed concertina wire. The city was squat and ugly, a troglodyte atop a twisted snowbound hill. Thick plumes of dark smoke trailed from the industrial towers bound in Thornn’s outer walls like serpents into the stale sky. Cross heard the distant wail of klaxons and machinery.

His sister was bound in a pale cloak the color of her namesake. The ground, by comparison, was dirty and grey, as were the grave markers, low plates of steel and stone etched with the names of the departed. Thornn’s citizens could not actually be buried, but were cremated. The notion of the dead coming back as vampires was too much a possibility to be dismissed. Cross understood that it had been a real problem about ten years ago, back in the early days of the war. Now the melting down of the deceased was so standard a practice no one even thought twice about it.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Come and look at this.”

Cross’ eyes roamed upward, to the sentry gargoyles that hovered over Thornn like circling stone ravens. Arcane storms invisible to the naked eye formed a crown in the air, a quiet cyclone of protective magical energies that emitted a constantly collapsing field of destructive power specially attuned to necrotic flesh.

Cross’ spirit moved out and away, floated near the edge of the grave field, then drifted back close to him. There was no danger there, even a mile outside of Thornn’s walls and so close to the openness of The Reach, so his spirit was at peace, and her calm filled him. She fell around him as a warm vapor that enveloped his body, a second skin that constantly tickled against his flesh. She’d been with him since he was ten, the time it had been discovered that he was a warlock. He could barely recall having been without her.

“What is that?” Snow asked. She was shorter than Cross by several inches. There was little mistaking their relation, for she had the same coal black hair and large green eyes, and they were both pale to the point of looking deathly. Her hair was cut short along the sides and back but was longer on top, and there was a single streak of white that ran from the center of her temple. Her choker was black leather set with a black cross. “Is that an apple? God, it must be rotten to the core.”

“No,” Cross said with a shake of his head. “Look at it. I think it’s fresh. It’s just…white. Drained of color by this place, maybe.” It was common -- entire crops had been leeched of color near inhospitable regions like The Reach. Cross had heard stories of entire forests in the Bone March that had been rendered bone white by the necrotic landscape; the Wormwood was so corrupt that even vampires feared the vegetation there; and Cross knew firsthand the dangers of the Ebonsand, where intelligent crabs muttered arcane curses and Vuul pirates claimed control over waters literally infused with occult blood. The world was a diseased and broken place, torn apart and cursed. Cross knew that a better world had once existed, in his youth, but it was becoming harder and harder to remember it.

“It’s beautiful,” Snow said after a time. “Even if it is dead.”

“Yeah,” Cross nodded. “I guess it is.”

A Brainstorming Exercise

2010-08-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

Years ago, back when I was but a wee geek who wasn't even social enough to find people to play Dungeons and Dragons with, I used to pour through old issues of Dragon Magazine, looking for validation to my largely pathetic existence. One day, I came across an article for TSR's classic spy game "Top Secret", which detailed how to make life easy for yourself when it came to writing spy adventures for the game.

Now, I will sheepishly admit a) I don't recall the author of this article or b) many of the specifics of the article itself. What I do remember is what I got out of it which, for today's purposes, is what's important. And what I took from this article is something I've been able to apply to most of the writing I've ever done.

It all comes down to brainstorming. "Duh", you might say, and you'd be right to do so. I mean...brainstorming? Everyone knows that, right? But when it comes to brainstorming, it often lacks a process, and that's what this is all about.

Let's say -- just for the fun of it -- that you did indeed want to write a fantasy story. You may or may not have a basic idea in your head; at this point it doesn't matter. The thing you need to do is unload some ideas. So, at this point, you come up with a list -- it can be 10 things, it can be 20, whatever -- of things that you like to see or would like to see in fantasy fiction. These can be scenes, characters, images, plot elements, or even bits of dialog. The list can be all your own ideas, things you've seen in movies or read in books, or a combination therein. You want to be fairly specific, but also still keep your ideas general enough that you can play with them later on. Write everything in your list down.

Here's a list I just came up with, as an example:

1) A dragon that lives under a city.

2) Vampire soldiers.

3) Evil dwarves with strange technology.

4) A magical prison inside a mundane object (mirror, ring, etc.)

5) A cross-country voyage across a desert of red sand.

6) A magical book.

7) A dark cult that sacrifices maidens.

8) A city of ghosts.

9) A sword fight atop an ancient and crumbling bridge.

10) A portal to a distant realm.

Ok, so most of this is fairly basis stuff that we've seen (in one form or another) through a smattering of novels, films, etc. Obviously, you want to take out the really specific details (like character names and whatnot) and make these your own.

The trick now is to cut this list in half. How you do that is largely up to you: you can roll a die, write each idea down on a notecard and deal half of the cards out on the table, or just quickly look back at the list and snatch those that strike you the most. Truth be told, the *less* time you spend on this part, the better. You'll put everything together and make it somewhat cohesive in a bit: right now all that's important is to narrow your list of great ideas down.

I'll take the "quick second glance" approach. Just a scan of the list gives me this new, shorter list:

1) A dragon that lives under a city.

3) Evil dwarves with strange technology.

4) A prison inside a mundane object (mirror, ring, etc.)

6) A magical book.

10) A portal to a distant realm.

Normally I'd be more drawn to #2 and #8, but both of those ideas (plus number #5, now that I think on it) are concepts featured fairly prominently in the novel I'm already working on. I also thought it would be a good idea to try and write about some things I usually flat-out try to avoid, which includes many of the so-called "staples" of fantasy...dragons, dwarves, etc.

So now I have a list of things I want to appear in my story. All we have to make them all fit together in some semblance of a sensible plot.

Generally speaking, a story needs a setting, characters, and some sort of conflict. Looking at the list above, we have several options for each. For the setting, we have a city, a magical prison, and a distant realm. For characters, we have a dragon and some evil dwarves. For a conflict, some are already implied in the items we've already looked at (the prison, the strange technology and the portal, all of which can a source of conflict between characters), and we also have the magic book, the only item from the list that has yet gone unused. So, in the end, we have...

Setting: A city which contains both a magical prison (disguised as a mundane object) and a portal to a distant realm. (Note that we can always combine things...the prison can also be a portal, just as the distant realm can be the city.)

Characters: Evil dwarves, and a dragon. (Note that when I first made the list, I didn't specify that it was an *evil* dragon...this wasn't an intentional omission, but one that I think will work out for me in the end.)

Conflict: The conflict of the story, I think, will involve the magical book, just to be all-inclusive.

Already we have the barest bones of a story in front of us, for what was, ultimately, only a moderate amount of work. Next we get to figure out how to pull all of those into a plot, but that's something to think about another time. For now we've done what we set out to do, and brainstormed our ways into a potential piece of fantasy writing.

Obviously you could do this for any sort of writing (the list concept works best with genre writing, I think, especially for beginners), and the "process" is free-flowing enough that there's really no wrong way to do it. (You may not, for example, derive Setting, Characters and Conflict from your list, which is really no big deal: you'll just have to fill in the blanks when you write.)

Sometimes this exercise will lead to a decent piece of writing; other times, the exercise is interesting in and of itself just to get the proverbial juices flowing.

Blood Skies: Prologue (excerpt)

2010-08-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

I'm officially halfway done with the 4th draft revision of the novel "Blood Skies", and I'll be pursuing potential agents in the next month or two. In the meantime, to celebrate the revision's progress (as well as the fact that I've stuck with this project for so long), I thought I'd post another excerpt from early on in the novel. Enjoy!

Cross saw blood in the sky.

It was a trick of the dusk light: thick rays of dying crimson sunshine cut through dark shifting vapors over the battlefield and the drifts of caustic white smoke left in the wake of crawling war machines. The air was a den of rumbling motors, heavy treads and great iron wheels that crushed rocks and shattered bones. Cross smelled oil, and tasted exhaust.

I hate this place.

His entire body ached. Cross had slept perhaps five hours in as many days, scattered instances of half-slumber he’d caught amidst heaps of dirty blankets and piles of faulty bandages left discarded outside the medical bivouacs. All of his sleep had been half-filled with nightmarish images of hex-torn bodies and children drowning in burning arcane fuel.

Grime and filth covered his skin in a film. Cross’ stomach ached, long tired of thaumaturgically preserved rations and stale wine; whenever he ate much of anything beyond a slice of bread, his gut twisted and his urine burned. With his spirit always at hand, Cross normally didn’t get sick, which told him it wasn’t so much any actual infection as it was his inability to adjust to a military diet while he was there in the field.

He’d only been on the front lines of the war for two weeks.

He felt his spirit there with him, a slippery electric skin that hovered centimeters away from the next world. She was a wraith-like unguent that caressed and tickled against him. He breathed her in, and though the vapor of her spectral form turned his lungs cold he felt comfortable knowing she was there, surrounding him, a weapon and a friend, his own soul, intelligent, lost, cleaved to him and yet worlds distant. He knew her better than he knew his own sister, better than he knew himself.

Dark clouds twisted in the bitter, rot tainted wind that blew in from the east, out of the sodden wastes of Blackmarsh. Dismal fields of black mud stretched to the murky horizon, which was difficult to make out beneath a sky pregnant with shadows.

Dozens of dark tents lay like the wounded across the torn landscape. Thick trails of coal black smoke trailed in varicose lines into a darkening sky the color of uncooked meat. Cross tasted something like salt and soot there in the cold, dry air.

He sat with a host of soldiers that he didn’t know, save Graves, whom he’d known since boyhood. Graves fit in better than Cross did amongst the soldiers of Wolf Company; he was, after all, one of them, not a warlock like Cross: a weapon, a freak, and the closest thing the city of Thornn had to matching weapons with the enemy.

The tent shifted in the dank wind. The makeshift chairs stood unstable in the mud around the wide wooden stump they used as a game table. Cross sat idly, his cards clenched upside down in his hand, knowing full and well that he didn’t stand a chance. They were a sullen, dirty bunch, nearly impossible to tell apart with the black mud caked to their makeshift uniforms. Blunderbusses, rifles, blades and hammers hung from harnesses and stood against the iron tent poles; dozens of packs, as caked in filth as their owners, sat nearby in case an alarm went up.

“Why so grim?” Graves asked from Cross’ left. Graves’ scars were barely visible beneath his camouflage paint, charcoal runes, mud and hex soot, most of which had been set intentionally across the exposed skin of every soldier to prevent catching any vampiric infections or arcane diseases. Now all of that paint and fluid had sluiced together through the course of days, making even the fairer skinned men look black.

“Are you serious?” Cross asked in return.

“Wow. Is your hand that bad?” As ever, it was difficult for Cross to tell whether or not Graves was being serious. He was something of a redneck bumpkin at heart, but compared to his field experience Cross felt like a child most of the time. “You might as well just fold,” Graves added after he stared at the back of Cross’ cards, as if he possessed arcane vision.

“You should listen to him,” Malone smiled. “In fact, you should both probably just give up now.” Malone’s was tall and broad in the shoulder, and he was thin and muscular at once, with a chiseled face and crust of short dark hair. Graves had once joked that he looked like the lovechild of Superman and Frankenstein’s monster. “Full house.”

“That’s not possible,” Cala said after a moment. It was well known that she was the only card shark in the squad. “You can’t even spell, Malone. How do you expect us to believe you were able to put together a Full House?”

“He thinks we’re playing Go Fish,” Graves laughed.

Cross felt a stiff, dead wind carry through the camp. There were just under thirty individuals altogether – mostly soldiers, with a half-dozen mages and a single, lonely Doj engineer named Zender – cramped into the scattered tents, which seemed as occupied with equipment as they were with personnel. There were sacks of blessed soil stacked high like sandbags around each of the open tents, bundles of black iron poles bundled by hex wire, barrels of ash, boxes of pellet, shot and gun ammunition, raw moon rock and sacks of hexed salt. Little of that equipment was for the soldiers – most of it was for use by the mages. There was work to be done in the Blackmarsh…too important, he thought, to be handed to a bunch of young warlocks such as he.

What the hell am I doing here?

As if in answer, his spirit pushed against him. The breath of her form floated across his skin and filled him like living smoke. His fingers tingled, and he licked his lips to taste her electric hex. He unfolded his cards onto the table. Graves, Malone, Cala, Locke and Gage all nodded their appreciation that he’d folded, since he was just holding up the game with his indecision, but he saw that Gage and Cala were on edge, as well. A mage’s spirit was attenuated to subtle fluctuations and ebbs in the ethereal nodes of the living world: existing in the liminal space between living and dead, it was a witch’s or warlock’s spirit that granted them a sight that pierced illusion, that could seek out known individuals over a score of miles, that could detect hidden or unseen threats both mundane and magical. Being anchored to his spirit allowed Cross to cull bits of her shadowy form and transform it into potent energy, to create effects that humans had come to know as magic. It also meant that he was constantly exposed to the world of the dead, that he walked with a foot perpetually in the grave. Cross had lived with her since adolescence, after he’d nearly died at the hands of a sickness, but discovering her only meant he’d die young, later. No one could live long tied to an arcane spirit – by their very nature spirits were emotionally volatile and dangerous, lest they’d be unable to produce the energies they did.

Cross sat back and looked towards the low, dark trees, the border of the Blackmarsh. It was difficult to tell where the trees began or how far they ran, but luckily Wolf Company wouldn’t be pressing in any deeper than the outer perimeter, if and when their air support ever actually arrived. Unfortunately, in order to get close enough to set the hex rods and initiate the detonation sequence to clear out the vampire garrison located there in the marsh, they had to figure out a way to contend with the shadow-wings and hellwyrms, and that was where the airships came in.

Too bad they’re about three hours late. It would have been nice to have done this before dark.

Blood Skies: An Introduction

2010-08-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

For roughly the past 10 months, I've been hard at work on a novel project called "Blood Skies". Originally entitled "Red", this work -- which I've been revising and expanding since about March of this year -- is a bit different from my previous novel attempts in that it is neither "traditional" high fantasy nor horror, but a combination of both, with healthy smatterings of post-apocalyptic science fiction and surreal drama thrown in for good measure.

As I've said before, revising my own work is NOT my strength, but with this project I feel as if I'm finally learning to embrace it. That could be growth. It could be the natural byproduct of having attempted six previous novels, only to leave the four for which I'd completed rough drafts languishing in "pending" status because I couldn't make myself comfortable with the notion that revision is somehow a lesser effort than writing something new. It could be a mental disorder. But whatever the case, if I've learned anything, it's this: revision is a bitch.

So here I am, roughly 1/3 of the way through Draft #4, comfortable that what I'm written isn't nearly as terrible as I thought it was...in fact, occassional passages are pretty darn good. =)

So what's it about? "Blood Skies" is a dark fantasy set in an uncertain time. Our world has been ravaged by a magical cataclysm known only as "The Black", an unnatural disaster that somehow fused the world we once knew with other, primeval places. Now the Earth is a barren waste, much of the population gone, its cities transformed into fortress towns where humans hold up against the hostile entities that have invaded from these other worlds. The biggest threat to our existence are the vampires, organized legions who focus their military campaigns on wiping out humankind. But there are other monstrous beings and dark arcane mysteries set poised to destroy us, and it is only humankind's stubborn determination and mastery of magic that has allowed them to survive.

Only now, the existence of magic is threatened. Without it, we have little chance.

So, with introductions aside, I'll post some tidbits while I continue to revise; now, as ever, I relish feedback and test readers whenever and from wherever I can get them. =)

Bootlegger Soap

2010-07-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

I helped DW with the descriptions for the awesome new soaps that she made for her shop. Check 'em out!

Another Day, Another Draft

2010-07-18T14:55:00.000-07:00

So I (finally) managed to complete the 3rd Draft of "Blood Skies". This is a significant event for me in that I have never had enough patience with a writing project to subject myself to the unearthly horrors of revision more than once, let alone three times. This is probably a very good sign.

Revision is a strange beast. On the one hand, you get the impression that it should be easy...after all, you've already done the hardest part (writing 80K+ pages). All you're doing now is polishing it, right?

Not so much. I find I abhor my writing never so much as when I have to read it again. Part of that loathing is similar to what I sometimes experience while writing a first draft: a novel (or story, or script, or whatever) is never so perfect as when it exists only inside of the hollow nether regions of my skull. Putting the idea to paper almost seems a cruel thing to do to something so beautiful as an idea untarnished by shoddy execution.

Revision, to me, is a related but altogether different travesty. While in the throes of a first draft, I can often delude myself into thinking I've somehow managed to put a quality tale to the page, especially when I recall those late hours and early mornings where jaws of life would be required to pry me away from my writing. Going back and having to examine the writing -- to pull it into the light and examine every terrible metaphor and ill constructed sentence under a microscope -- is sort of like looking at yourself in the mirror naked after you've worked out. "Really?" you ask your novel/reflection. Yes, really.

So the fact that I'm still hanging with "Blood Skies" for what will now be a 4th draft is pretty miraculous. That, or it's just a sign of the fact that I haven't had inspiration to write much of anything else lately. ;)

Blood Skies: Prelude

2010-07-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

And now, the Prelude to the all new and improved 3rd draft of my novel, "Blood Skies".

blood skies

steven montano

Across fields of broken sand and salt estuaries, nestled at the edge of a cold and frozen sea, standing opposite a forlorn tower of black metal and razor protrusions, stands a city of the living. It is unnatural – it doesn’t belong. It teeters at the edge of a frozen marsh. Transparent frost limes the outer walls; strange insects like cursive figures from an alien land lie frozen in ice colored amber by dirt and rust. The white and gray fields are illuminated by a frozen sun trapped in a sea of turgid clouds.

He sees it all. He feels, in a way, as if he has never seen it before. Cold bitter wind that curls off the surface of the frozen sea carries foreign substance: corrosive salt and the brine of alien fish, undine fog and arcane steam. The sky is striated into alternating layers of dark and light, as if a cross-section of some aerial soil, and the horizon is strangely split, simultaneously too far and too close, two dimensional, a flat screen of debris filled sky.

Nothing seems to belong. The world has been cleaved, and then refused by a blind hand. There is a sense of wrongness, a heavy and catastrophic air, a sense of temporary. He feels and sees it, can almost taste it, even though he is not really there. Is it a dream? A vision? Does it matter?

He sees into the heart of Thornn, its angled towers and iron catwalks, its crenellated domes and flying bunkers. Fields of half-built ships made to sail through the air. Fields bound in razor wire and protected by automaton gun turrets made of ancient steel, and that swivel on grinding arcane gears. Dirigibles piloted by lightweight Gol aeronauts, unpeople, dwarf and misshapen, bound by the shared knowledge that they have been changed but forever unaware of what was truly done to them. In a way, the Gol are representative of the entire world.

Things were different before The Black, and everyone knows it. But no one knows in what way.

He soars over the rooftops, cognizant of the fact that he is flying, unable to feel any real sensation of doing so. He is an intangible: he sees and feels and smells the world as if through some spiritual lens. He is a spiritual camera, a robot essence with no form. He is a medium.

He feels her with him. He is never alone, and he is glad for it. She presses against him, her ethereal skin laced to his like a warm and sticky sheet. Her thoughts penetrate him; her breath holds him like warm vapor. He wears her like armor, like skin. Her form corrodes, reforms, comes together once more in a shimmering rain that trails him through this aether, a spectral wake.

Twisted streets, narrow lanes, crooked houses. Architecture fused together by need. Ancient and medieval, but laced with things he knows are modern: streetlights powered by arcane batteries, hot dog vendors, percussive music created by programmable machines. Thick clouds of industrial smoke litter the sky, shot from tall brick factory chimneys; the black and red smoke fills the sky, creates an aerial wall that drifts in and out of his sight. Tall windows spill yellow light as the pale sun descends, as the glare of reflection that spills across the land slowly begins to ebb. He hears voices and wagon wheels, horses and steam whistles. He feels thaumaturgic current, the crackle of the arcane energies that provide warmth to the city. He smells warm bread and hot cider, alcohol and smoking artificial meat. He hears laughter, a baby crying, the clang of steel being hammered into armor or stakes.

There are crosses everywhere, all over the city, hanging over doorways, imprinted on buildings, drawn on the road in hexed chalk and blessed inks. They are iron and bronze, hammered and hand painted, tall and thin or fat and squat; some more resemble ankhs, some look like blades. None of them do any good: everyone knows it, and they are not concerned, for they are not there for practical purpose, but are just symbols of the ongoing conflict.

Across the fields of ice and salt, past the broken channels of sluggish dirt-filled water and shattered stone, stands the nearest Doomspire. It is a sliver from the city walls: a black spike, a malevolent needle surrounded by a nimbus of roaming shadow. It is only one of many, but it is from there that most of the attacks against the city of Thornn are launched.

He wants to dream of a world where none of this has happened: of a place without The Black, a place where his shattered memories of a peaceful childhood are untarnished. He wants to dream of a sky than doesn’t darken, of a world that doesn’t smell of rot, where he can lay down to sleep without fear of never waking. He doesn’t know why, instead, he dreams of this place, the world that he knows, the world that he wants to escape.

All he wants is to dream of something different: of a place where he is not afraid.

A Playlist of my current favorite tunes...

2010-06-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

[because posting this is much more fun than working on that $#@!^! Risk Analysis Report...)

:Wumpscut: -- Autophagy Day
Die Form -- Voltaic Control System
Imperative Reaction -- Minus All
Suicide Commando -- Come Down With Me
God Module -- A Minute to Midnight
VNV Nation -- Sentinal
Necessary Response -- Spilling Blood
System Syn -- The Inconvenient
Assemblage 23 -- Collapse
The Parallel Project -- Motive
De/Vision -- Try to Forget (radio-forg edit)
Seabound -- Without You
The Dust of Basement -- In This Sky
Ashbury Heights -- Spiders
Ladyhawke -- Magic
Mesh -- Who Says? (rough mix)
IAMX -- After Every Party I Die
Ego Likeness -- Sirens and Satellites
Destroid -- Let Me Leave
Blaqk Audio -- Stiff Kittens
Shiny Toy Guns -- Le Disko
Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- Zero
We Got This Far -- Sedona
Psy'aviah -- Something Evil
Informatik -- Temporary (the synthetic dream foundation mix)
Biomekkanik -- Pitch Black Ocean
Velvet Acid Christ -- Black Rainbows
Kirlian Camera -- Odyssey Europa (premiere version)
Colony 5 -- Knives
Stromkern -- Stand Up (extended remix)
Rotersand -- Extermine Annihilate Destroy
Tristesse de la Lune -- Time Is Moving
Diary of Dreams -- Kindrom
Diorama -- The Girls
ohGr -- Jako
Royskopp -- What Else Is There
Goldfrapp -- Ride A White Horse
Ministry -- Revenge
Metric -- Help, I'm Alive
Client -- Lights Go Out
Schiller mit Heppner -- Leben (I Feel You)
Suicidal Romance -- Make Me Blind
Panic Lift -- Hold On
System Syn -- Like Every Insect
Aesthetic Perfection -- Pale
The Retrosic -- The Storm (sirene)
Suicide Commando -- Until We Die
:Wumpscut: -- Crown of Thorns (suicide commando remix)
Blutengel -- Angel of the Dark
Ayria -- Disease
Tristesse de la Lune -- Strangeland
Diorama -- Child of Entertainment
Shiny Toy Guns -- Major Tom (Coming Home)
Veil Veil Vanish -- Anthem for a Doomed Youth
System Syn -- Here's to You
Bruderschaft -- Forever (original club mix)
Covenant -- Like Tears In Rain
De/Vision -- Time to Be Alive
Necessary Reponse -- Vapor
Depeche Mode -- Precious

To My Wife

2010-02-14T08:36:00.000-08:00

I love you.

I’m not really sure how else to say it than that: I love you. But there are so many pieces to that.
I love the way that you look. I love the way that you smile.
I love you. I love the way that you feel when I touch you. I love the way that you touch me.
I love the way that you make me feel: giddy, young, naughty. In love.
I love your practicality. I love your effort, and your supportiveness, even though I usually feel like I don’t deserve all that you give.
I love waking up next to you. I love feeling warm from your touch, and hot from thinking about you.
I love not knowing what to expect on a day that I wake up next to you. I love waking up and holding you in my arms.
I love your intelligence. I love your sense of humor. I love how hard you’re willing to fight to make us better.
I love watching you sleep. I love hearing your voice. I love your face, holding it close, caressing it. I love the feel of your hair in my fingers.
I love how you dress. I love how you smile. I love looking at old pictures of you, and realizing how I love you even more now than I did then, whenever “then” was.
I love to help you out around the house. I love to make you breakfast. I love to bring you warm drinks at night.
I love the way that you look at me…even when it’s “the crabby look” (:)), but especially when you look at me and melt my heart because I can tell how much you love me, too.
I will always love you. I will prove to you, each and every day, that I deserve the love you’ve given me, and the love you continue to give to me. You are so beautiful, so wonderful, and so warm.

I love you.

Another Dark Playlist

2010-01-29T11:54:00.000-08:00

Just because. This is about 4 1/2 hours worth of music for those with an appreciation of spending way too much time in the dark.

Acretongue -- Hollow (V 2.0)
De/Vision -- Addict
Ravenous -- Silverray (Guardian Angel Edit)
Neuroticfish -- Music for a Paranormal Life (Intelligent Tribal Mix)
Helium Vola -- Omnis Mundi Creatura
Die Form -- Rain of Blood
Stabbing Westward -- Drugstore
Apoptygma Berzerk -- Love Never Dies
Beborn Beton -- Another World
Fictional -- Blue Lights
And One -- Panzermensch
VNV Nation -- Sentinal
Colony 5 -- Knives
Aesthetic Perfection -- The Siren
Funker Vogt -- Martians on the Moon
My Life w/ Thrill Kill Kult -- The Days of Swine and Roses
Controlled Collapse -- Selfless
Fiction 8 -- Let Go
Assemblage 23 -- Collapse
Diorama -- The Girls
The Birthday Massacre -- Play Dead
Siouxsie & the Banshees -- Into the Light
She Wants Revenge -- Out of Control
Rob Zombie -- Living Dead Girl
Revolting Cocks -- Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?
OhGr -- Water
Numb -- Blood
Mentallo & the Fixer -- Decomposed (trampled)
Necessary Response -- Spilling Blood
System Syn -- I Am Here
Rob D -- Clubbed to Death (Kurayamino mix)
David Bowie -- I'm Afraid of Americans
Delerium -- Silence
Garbage -- #1 Crush
Peter Murphy -- I'll Fall With Your Knife
Depeche Mode -- Precious
Concrete Nature -- Vampyres
Diary of Dreams -- The Curse
Informatik -- Temporary (synthetic dream foundation mix)
Mesh -- Who Says? (rough mix)
I: Scintillia -- Melt
Destroid -- Judgement Throne
Bruderschaft -- Forever (original club mix)
Ashbury Heights -- Corsair
Ayria -- Invisible
Imperative Reaction -- As We Fall
Unheilig -- Phoenix
Biomekkanik -- Pitch Black Ocean
Technoir -- Breathe (Iris remix)
Icon of Coil -- Dead Enough for Life
The Dust of Basement -- Your Light (club mix)
Edge of Dawn -- Stage Fright
Grendel -- Zombienation (V2.5K)
We Got This Far -- Sedona
Velvet Acid Christ -- Black Rainbows
Kirlian Camera -- Odyssey Europa (premiere version))

I'm on TV!

2010-01-12T12:18:00.000-08:00

No, this article isn't about me...but if you fast forward to about :21 seconds remaining, you'll catch a quick glimpse of my geeky self reading a book on the train.

Autographs available upon request.

I felt like being a DJ the other day...

2009-12-23T11:46:00.001-08:00

so I threw together a playlist for the imaginary goth/industrial club in my mind. Despite the fact that it doesn't contain a lot of new music (outside of A23) and has one definite no-no (Lady Gaga...oh, well, I'm allowed one bit of randomness), I don't think it's half bad.

Clan of Xymox Obsession

Soil & Eclipse Thief of Always

Depeche Mode A Pain That I'm Used to

Lady Gaga Pokerface

Unheilig Fang Mich Auf

Covenant Call the Ships to Port

Rosetta Stone Adrenaline (extended)

Fictional Blue Lights

Bigod 20 On the Run

Pinworm Acetone

VNV Nation Legion

Skinny Puppy Inquisition (extended)

Battery The Betrayel (megamix)

Thrill Kill Kult The Days of Swine and Roses

Sister of Mercy Nine While Nine

Snake River Conscpiracy Lovesong

London After Midnight Kiss

Juno Reactor God is God

Garbage #1 Crush

Die Form Rain of Blood

NIN Reptile

Mesh Trust You

Apoptygma Berzerk Love Never Dies

Wolfsheim Heroin, She Said

Depeche Mode Lie to Me

Assemblage 23 Collapse

Beborn Beton Another World

Heavy Water Factory Vampire (tasture mix)

SITD Snuff Machinery

Stromkern Night Riders

Delerium Euphoria (Firefly)

Rob D Clubbed to Death (Kurayamino mix)

Love & Rockets Haunted When the Minutes Drag

The Cure Lullaby

Rob Zombie Living Dead Girl

Wumpscut Hang Him Higher

KMFDM Anarchy

Razed in Black Oh My Goth!

Project Pitchfork Timekiller

Megaherz Du Oder Ich

Stabbing Westward Save Yourself

Depeche Mode John the Revelator

Massive Attack Inertia Creeps

Switchblade Symphony Wallflower

Siouxsie & the Banshees Into the Light

Informatik Entropy

Suicide Commando The Reformation

VNV Nation Chrome

Imperative Reaction Drown

Funker Vogt A Dream

She Wants Revenge I Don't Wanna Fall in Love

Covenant Bullet

Diary of Dreams Butterfly:Dance!

Dead Can Dance Yulungu

Concrete Blonde Bloodletting (the Vampire Song)

Assemblage 23 Spark

Bigod 20 Like A Prayer

Fluke Atom Bomb

Unit 187 Dead Dog (punter mix)

Hocico Forgotten Tears (suicide commando mix)

Das Ich Destillat (VNV nation mix)

Numb Blood

Wolfsheim The Sparrows & the Nightingales

Skinny Puppy Testure (12" mix)

Snog Hey, Christian God

Hey, Son, the Novel's Done! (Mostly)

2009-11-22T07:13:00.000-08:00

I finished writing the novel project out by hand last night. I'm not sure if I'm 100% happy with the ending, but we'll see. My word count in Nanowrimo is bound to stay unchanged for a few days while I type the rest of my handwritten draft in (the last I checked, as soon as you've submitted 50,000 words you can't add any more, so I plan to get the rest typed in and then submit it).

The final word count for "Red" should be somewhere in the 60-65K range, and while this particular novel doesn't lend itself well to a sequel, the bizarre setting has tremendous potential, and I could definitely see myself setting another story there in the future.

This has been a very fun writing exercise, and unquestionably the most fun I've had writing in a long, long time. I'll keep making minor tweaks as I finish up the typed draft and look at doing a more serious revision in the coming weeks. (The goal here will be to make sure a revision gets done...I've historically been pretty bad about following through on that.)

As ever, thanks to Lib and the kids for putting up with me during this whole enjoyable ordeal -- as always, I couldn't have ground out tens of thousands of words without your support! =)

Novel Progress

2009-11-07T08:39:00.000-08:00

Up to about 18,000 words...strange that my little widget hasn't updated like it's supposed to. I'm very excited about this project!

NanoWrimo, Day One -- Success!!!!

2009-11-01T20:23:00.001-08:00

Daylight savings gave me some extra time to write this morning...and boy, did I write. I hadn't even done a word count till a short time ago.

This is a good start, since it'll be much tougher for me to update during the week.

Here's the brief novel description posted to the Nanowrimo site:

In the blasted wastelands of a doomed future, a young woman has embarked on a deadly mission. Her quest will take her through the foulest depths of a world crippled by corrupt magic and dark creatures, where mankind struggles against the undying forces that brought about the end of the world.

Her mission is simple: to end the ongoing war between human and vampire, by whatever means necessary.

This woman's name is Red, and she is being hunted.

Hunted by the vampires who are afraid she won't reach her destination.

And hunted by the humans, who are afraid she will.

Nanowrimo Beckons

2009-10-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

It's almost time for Nanowrimo -- which means I need to make a decision on the novel-to-be!

If you've ever considered writing a novel; if you already write novels and need an excuse to write another one; or if you're just really desperate for something to do this November, sign up! You'll be glad you did. :)

Tales from a Fast Year (Or, the "WTF 2009 LOL Story")

2009-10-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or has 2009 just sort of screamed past us? It's been sort of like a drive-by shooting of a year.

It's been a busy and eventful year, highlighted (in more ways than one) by my dear wife's online yarn shop, Liberty's Yarn. The amount of work she's put into her product, marketing and store is downright humbling, sometimes, but (at least from my perspective, which is primarily that of spectator and wrangler of wary children who might keep Lib from getting work done) it seems to have paid off for her, as she has strong online presence, a steady flow of business and she had a great showing at the Sock Summit down in Portland this past summer.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, I took an actual vacation this year, hanging out with the kids for a few days in Portland while Lib peddled her quality wares. Portland is a beautiful town, and it was nice to spend some time down there and see the sights (especially the Oregon Zoo...holy crap that place is awesome!).

Aside from that, other highlights for the year thus far include:

* Starting up a new D&D campaign.

* Working.

* Getting numerous rejection letters from publishing houses and editors, which has led to...

* Struggling with what I want to do with my writing, and deciding (finally) to get some of the 2,000+ pages I've written in the past few years revised and out there for publication, even if that means self-publishing and/or e-publishing (two options I was not terribly excited about before).

* Working.

* Trying to keep the kids on track.

* Trying to help Lib out with the business in whatever small ways I can (which usually just amounts to me entertaining the kids and doing the dishes).

* Trying to stay sane.

* Getting into a good exercise retinue (which 16 mile-a-day bike commutes doing the week).

* Working. Did I mention that one already?

We're also to be blessed with my brother-in-law Koul coming to visit us, starting tomorrow. We haven't seen every one's favorite dry ice and duct tape fanatic in a while, so it'll be fun to have him.

As we come in to the final stretch of the rest of the year, we've got Holiday Hell (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas), our 9th Wedding Anniversary, my 3rd "Novel in November" outing, a new season of NBA basketball, a lot of knitting and D&D and, of course, work. Is it any wonder I haven't had the time or (more accurately) the energy to blog?

Well, I'd best get back to 2009...don't want to miss another second!

Time to Start Blogging Again....

2009-10-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

I've been living exclusively on Facebook since the Mesozoic Era, but with Nanowrimo rapidly approaching and a renewed drive to get "Darker Sunset" published, I decided it's time to jump back onto the Blogwagon. (You know..."Hi, I'm Steve and I'm a Blogoholic"...'Hi, Steve'...that sort of thing...)

I'll be revisiting the look of the blog page here pretty soon, as well as trying to post some regular updates on what has become for me a veritable cornucopia of writing projects: publishing "Darker Sunset: Hunters & Thieves", getting the hand-written drafts of books 2-6 in the series typed; revising "Razor" and "something black..."; and thinking ahead to my next Nanowrimo project, an as-yet-unnamed sequel to "something black...".

So...stay tuned, there's more to come!

D&D, Black Dawn Campaign Adventure Log, Session 2: Following the Trail

2009-06-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

After a much needed rest, the band of marooned heroes – Malkar, the swordmage; Geralt, the Sulajji rogue; Theothia, the human druid; Sol, the half-Dracaj warden; and Joar, the half-Doj warlord – resumed their pursuit of Lucan Keth, an escaped Bloodspeaker terrorist they’d agreed to capture for the warden Argus; in return for this service, Argus would help the larger body of survivors from the crash of the Black Wing pass safely through Dracaj-controlled territory.

The blood eye that the party had acquired from Argus told them that Keth had continued on to the remote mountain-based trading settlement of Tain. However, the blood eye also indicated that Keth had taken a minor detour to a small abandoned building at the bottom of a narrow valley; since he hadn’t stopped there long enough to take any significant rest, the party surmised he had some other purpose there, and their deigned to uncover it.

The building, as it turned out, was an abandoned but stocked monastery and library, one of the last remnants of a long-dissolved cloister called the Brotherhood of the Carfex. And it was not empty: a small force of Gorgoloth, led by a pair of Gol sorcerers, desperately searched for something among the thousands of books. (This unit, it seemed, was part of a larger Rathian military force apparently intent on wiping out all civilized life in the area.) After a lengthy and confusing battle – one that saw more than a few painful falls from the upper level of the building to the ground floor – the villains were scattered.

Piecing together the tomes, scrolls, memory stones and notes the Gol had gathered granted the party some important facts. Apparently, a diabolic adventuring couple named Bloodmoon and Callador, who’d been tempted to the ways of evil by “a demonic source of otherworldly power” called the Scourge, had been defeated by the Brotherhood some time before the Black War. The lovers and the Scourge had then been interred in a chamber east of Tain called the Bloodwinter Tomb. The Brotherhood had not been able to destroy the Scourge, so they hired the best arcane engineers, demonologists and binders they could find to seal it and the lovers into the Tomb permanently. Unfortunately, some unexplained event led to the downfall of the Brotherhood and the Tomb’s premature sealing: while Bloodwinter remained a powerful oubliette, its wards were incomplete, and could be broken.

The information hinted that the Scourge’s influence was such it could compel beings who’d come too close to Bloodwinter so that they would return and break the seals…and Geralt guessed this might be the case with Lucan Keth, a frightening notion since another scroll indicated that the means to actually open the Tomb were located in a Brotherhood bookshop in Tain.

With renewed concern over what it might if Keth were to escape them, the party set out for Tain…but not before they were attacked by a squad of hostile Dracaj hunters and magi, part of the local tribe that laid claim to the area. After dispensing with these troublesome foes, the party renewed their pursuit.

Any questions over Tain’s fate were dispelled as the party approached the town: it was abandoned and in ruin, devastated by more Gorgoloth mercenaries and the Scourge madness seeping from Bloodwinter Tomb. Though the town was now largely abandoned, it quickly became apparent that scattered mercenary units still prowled Tain’s streets, one of which – a Gorgoloth squad led by a dangerous human mage, a pistoleer and a fully operational Motorgun Walker – challenged the party as soon as they arrived at the city gates.

Once these enemies were vanquished, the adventurers decided to take to the streets of Tain in order to pass through the city as quickly as possible, since the breadth of the settlement meant that to circumvent the city would take far too much precious time. After all, it seemed that Geralt was right: the blood eye had revealed that Lucan Keth had passed straight through Tain, and the party now intended to do the same, and catch up with him before it was too late.

D&D, Black Dawn Campaign Adventure Log, Session 1: The Hunt

2009-06-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

It began with a crash.

The engines of the Blackwing – a turbine-powered vessel carrying passengers, trade goods and prisoners on the last leg of its lengthy voyage around Sethia – exploded and sent the ship shattering against the sharp stones of the east shores of Rimefang Loch. Those passengers who survived the crash found themselves beset by the attacks of prisoners who’d escaped from the hold, as well as a diabolic wastelands hunter called a Blightwalker. Luckily for those survivors, five of their own number were would-be adventurers: Malkar, a swordmage escapee from the undead-controlled city of Tanith; Joar, a half-Doj warlord who wholly distrusted magic and technology; Theothia, a human druid with newly found prophetic dream powers; Geralt, a Sulaj rogue on the run from other more powerful criminals; and Sol, a half-Dracaj warden and former mercenary.

After these heroes dealt with the prisoners and the Blightwalker, the survivors gathered what supplies and provisions they could and prepared to make the rest of their journey along the dangerous coastline. There was, however, a problem. While surviving the deadly Dracaj-controlled coast would be made much easier with the influential word of a Black Warden, Argus, the Warden who’d brought the prisoners on board, refused to help anyone until two of the more dangerous prisoners who’d escaped in the wreck were returned to his custody. After some debate, it was decided that the greater body of survivors (well-armed with flintlocks) would wait it out near the ruins of the ship; that Argus would pursue the mechanically altered serial killer Vance Creyzak, who’d headed north along the coast; and the five inexperienced heroes would pursue the Bloodspeaker terrorist Lucan Keth, who’d set his sights inland. Equipped with a bizarre thaumaturgic compass that would lead them to Keth, the newly formed group set off into the hazardous Razortooth Mountains, warned by Captain Graves of the possibility of Rath-funded mercenary groups operating in the area.

It didn’t take the party long to find evidence of these mercenaries: a mountain village that Theothia had visited on occasion in the past had been laid to waste, and the bullet-addled and blade-ruined bodies of the dead had been piled high in the center of the settlement. Worse still, an unknown magical taint in the area had caused several of these unfortunate villagers to animate as hostile undead and attack the party. Once these undead were dealt with, the party laid as many of the dead villagers to rest as they could before they moved on.

The party moved higher into the mountains. In a desolate clearing surrounded by dead trees the party caught up with the desecrators of the village: a small unit of Gorgoloth soldiers and barbarians led by a Meldoarian thaumaturge-captain. As if this force wasn’t significant enough, the captain also controlled a deadly homunculus war machine called a Motorgun Walker, as well as a Bloodwolf. Though there were some misgivings about taking on such a sizable force, the party had revenge on their minds, and soon they’d surrounded the unit and launched their assault. The battle went well at first, as Gorgoloth soldiers fell before the party’s initial attack, but very soon the powerful Gorgoloth barbarians and the captain’s deadly magic tipped the tide in the mercenaries favor. The battle raged for some time, and each side saw its members fall one-by-one. The deciding strike came from Malkar, his last act before as was rendered unconscious by the thaumaturge: he unleashed a deadly cryo-blast that tore through the mage’s defenses and killed him. With the mage’s life went the mercenaries’ Motorgun Walker (which promptly broke down) and their control over the Bloodwolf, who turned on its former masters before returning to the wilderness.

In the end, only Theothia was left standing on the battlefield, and it was up to her to revive her companions so that they could recuperate and carry on with their mission. Lucan Keth was gaining ground on them by the hour, and they desired to catch up with him before he reached the mountain trading city of Tain.

D&D, Black Dawn Campaign Player Handout Excerpt #4: Races

2009-06-19T10:08:00.000-07:00

PLAYER CHARACTER RACES

In addition to humans – the dominant species on Sethia – here are the available PC races for this campaign.

Bloodspeakers

Though technically not a race, Bloodspeakers were, prior to the Black Dawn, among the most feared and hated denizens of Sethia. Bloodspeaker mages were born with the ability to quite literally breathe magic – which took the form of clouds of dripping bloody haze that coalesced and was shaped by its creator – and this fearsome aspect made the entire race a despised minority in all of Sethia, due primarily to the perceived tendency of its members to wreak destruction wherever they went. Bloodspeakers were born, it seemed, quite at random: one’s parent did not need to be a Bloodspeaker, and just because one had a Bloodspeakers talents did not mean that her children would bear them, as well. There were perhaps one Bloodspeaker for every hundred or so that were not.

Bloodspeakers were shunned and avoided in Den’nar, which was preferential to the treatment they received in Jlantria, where they were hunted, incarcerated, and killed with appalling regularity. Arcane tests and equipment developed that allowed Bloodspeaker to be rooted out and hunted, though these tests were far from reliable, and many innocent people were killed. The hatred of Bloodspeakers became a witch hunt. Anyone could be a Bloodspeaker, since they looked just like any “normal” person, and the threat of being accused of being a Bloodspeaker soon weighed heavy on citizens of the Jlantrian Empire. To the Throne and the Church of Corvinia, Bloodspeakers became a physical embodiment of the evils of society: they were a convenient bind to be thrown over the general population in order to keep them under control.

Since the Black War and the Black Dawn, the stigma regarding Bloodspeakers has lifted somewhat, due largely in part to the dissolution of the Jlantrian Empire. That being said, Bloodspeakers are still treated with a general malaise by other races, and the fact that militant Bloodspeaker groups like the Revengers still carry out violent criminal acts in the name of their race certainly hasn’t help to alleviate the enduring tensions.

Doj

Despite being a race of imposing giants, history has proved the Doj to be one of the most exploited Nethermost races: their past is filled with periods of enslavement at the hands of the Eidolos, of being driven from their ancestral homeland by the Dracaj, of being experimented on with Meldoarian war thaumaturgi and of being slaughtered by the Cruj. True Doj appear as large (albeit somewhat stocky) humans roughly fifteen feet tall; their hair is generally curly and dark, their eyes are black, and their skin ranges in color from white to nearly ebon. It is believed that the Doj race was once both larger and more culturally advanced as a society, but centuries of war, underground imprisonment and surviving cruel thaumaturgic modifications has greatly reduced the size of the average Doj and effectively stymied their societal development.

There are no actual Doj lands remaining: these giants have been so thoroughly decimated by history and circumstance that they bear little left to grant themselves any sort of unified identity. Large bands of Dojian raiders roam the Nethermost, battling whatever they encounter, while others travel in caravans, merely attempting to avoid the Cruj and the Eidolos. Doj on the surface are almost always “half-Doj”, an offshoot race that has evolved from the Crujian slave stock and that is much smaller (roughly half the size) of their subterranean cousins, and who generally trend to have gray skin and gray or white hair. When most surface dwellers think of Doj, it is almost always the “half-Doj” they are actually referring to.

Most Doj encountered will be half-Doj on the surface world, who readily find work as mercenaries or specialized laborers. The Gray Watch outside of New Koth is the largest surface assembly of these sad creatures known to exist.

Dracaj

The Dracaj are a race of cunning, magic-yielding reptilian warriors who ruthlessly scheme to dominate the Nethermost. Dracaj appear as roughly human-like lizards of varying color, with slightly elongated arms and pale white eyes that bear no pupils; the creatures can either crawl or walk erect, and their tails are roughly twice as long as their bodies. Dracaj speak to one another in a strange, guttural language of bark-like roaring noises.

The Dracaj are among the more indecipherable of the denizens of the Nethermost. They are subtle and cunning, and rarely engage in open conflict, although they are known to patrol the borders of their domain with murderous alacrity. Trespassers into Dracaj territories vanish into the depths of the Nethermost, subjected to terrible flesh altering experiments, rendered blind and then sold as slaves, or else put to work in rare ore mines buried miles below the surface. The Dracaj are also rumored to have highly unsavory sexual appetites, with humans as their choice of fetish.

There are several sub-species of Dracaj, classified by scholars according to color: red (small, quick, superior understanding of magical technology), blue (primitive, more lizard-like than human-like), gray (human sized, most adept at magic) and black (giant-sized, skilled warriors, highly barbaric). There also exists the so-called half-Dracaj: not true hybrids at all, but the offspring of once-captured humans who were partially imprinted with the Draconian genetic structure in a strange attempt on the part of the evil race to conquer through forced reproduction. Half-Dracaj are fairly uncommon, and most first-generation have difficulty re-adjusting to normal life, though their offspring are generally well accepted.

Gol

These strange, cursed people came to be as result of Meldoarian magic, though the Gol are not necessarily of Meldoar themselves. The Gol are a diminutive race of near humans with terribly scarred flesh, opaque eyes and a proclivity for sorcery and witchcraft. Gol first began to appear in both Jlantria and Den’nar roughly eighty years prior to the Black War, claiming to be the survivors of some calamity brought on by Talosian witch magic. Their diminutive bodies, they claimed, were not their own, but vessels that their individual souls were trapped as part of a mass, failed experiment Meldoarian experiment. Unfortunately, due to the fickle nature of Talosian magic (which tampers with time and consciousness, often with unexpected results), the Gol have been left without any clues as to their true origins or identity. They live in prisons of flesh: lost souls bound in unfamiliar bodies.

Hard to believe as their stories were, Veilwardens of Jlantria and Den’nari mystics have authenticated the collective Gol tale through experimentation and mind reading. At the point of their initial appearance, there were roughly 10,000 Gol scattered through both Empires, all sharing the same general sense of their shared fate even though most, it seemed, had never met.

The Gol population has fallen sharply over the years due to an apparent lack of ability to reproduce. The Gol’s misshapen frames are blessed with unusual longevity, however, and the scattered refugees of whatever calamity befell them found homes in both Den’nar and the normally xenophobic Jlantria before the War, and many of them found work as alchemists, mages and soothsayers, all arts they seem naturally adept at. They are a crass, angry people, deprived of the knowledge of their own origins, forever displaced in a world that views them with both amusement and pity. Today, there are perhaps 1,000 Gol remaining in the world.

Sulaj

Buried in a number of hidden villages deep in the Dusk Hills, the Sulaj are a quiet race of mystics, sorcerers and warriors. An offshoot race of humans, the Sulajji are pale-skinned, fair-haired, and with milky eyes, a result of a millennia of incarceration in the Nethermost. The soft-spoken Sulaj are athletic and graceful, and they hold a strong and rich scholarly tradition through the passing down of whispered tales and astral dirges. Sulaj are incredibly secretive and, in their own way, highly xenophobic, as they are reluctant to share information or work with outsiders unless placed in a situation where they have little other choice.

After a bloody rebellion that enabled the Sulaj to escape from the subterranean Crujian metropolis of Meledrakkar, they escaped to the surface world, where they were forced into hiding for a good many years by the militant Jlantrian Empire, which viewed them as intruders and insurgents. The Sulaj eventually found refuge in the more peaceful Empire of Den’nar, where they were allowed to develop their own communities unmolested. Though relatively isolationist, the Sulaj were considered free citizens of the Den’nari Empire, and individuals often set out on their own in search of knowledge or to aid in the greater good. A few even found homes in Jlantria, though generally out of plain sight. During the Black War, the Sulaj made a name for themselves acting as Veilwardens, assassins and scouts; it was primarily through the effort of valiant Sulajji agents that Chul Gaerog was destroyed and the war ended.

D&D, Black Dawn Campaign Player Handout Excerpt #3: Geography

2009-06-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

GEOGRAPHY

It’s a big world out there. Here’s a guide of the basic knowledge you have as we start the campaign:

Black Scar

Black Scar is a dreaded prison complex in a secret location. Black Scar houses the most diabolic host of criminals, creatures, madmen, terrorists and sentient magical energies ever seen. The Black Wardens, who are as corrupt and as mercenary as they are fearsome and merciless, are among the most feared individuals in the civilized world.

Blackmoon Canal

Built across a dangerously narrow channel that leads from the Blackmoon Sea to the Ebonsand, the canal is one of the most complicated marvels of Meldoarian magical engineering to exist, and its presence helps ensure Meldoar’s control over all southern sea trade.

The Bone March

An inhospitable cold desert that appears to have been drained of color, as the black soil and gray dust is only occasionally dotted by stagnant pools of water, lone and dead trees, and small clusters of dark rock; even the sky is always the same stale gray.

Corinth

A carefully guarded religious city once controlled by Jlantria, Corinth’s hundred-foot walls provide shelter from barbaric Gorgoloth raiders and harsh winter winds. Corinth’s remote location and its relatively weak military capabilities are the only reasons it is not the most desirable Sethian city-state to relocate to. The Church of Corvinia bears a stronger presence in Corinth than in any of the other city-states.

Dirge

Old Koth. Long thought destroyed during the Black Dawn, it was discovered a few years ago that Koth remained, though it has changed. Now a city-state of hostile undead and tainted by warped, chaotic magic that shapes matter seemingly at its own mad whim, the twisted and nonliving citizens of Dirge, thankfully, keep more or less to themselves, though that is bound to change.

The Dusk Hills

A solemn expanse of short hills, thickly populated by dense trees that keep the area dark regardless of the actual time of day. The Hills are most notable for the presence of the Sulaj, who quietly make their homes in the deepest, darkest folds of the area.

The Ebonsand

The largest body of water in the known world, the Ebonsand separates Sethia from the unknown lands to the east; it is vast enough that no one has ever crossed it in its entirety. The Ebonsand is a haven for pirates, brigands and unchecked criminal activity, and traversing its waters is considered risky, at best.

The Gray Sea

This cold body of freshwater was once completely controlled by Jlantria; it is so named due to the heavy mists that creep along the surface like smoky eels. Strange aquatic creatures roam the misty waters, as do human and exiled Dracajian pirates.

The Grimm Steppes

A deep set of earthy clefts, broken valleys and steep drop-offs dotted with blackened hollows and rocky hills. Though relatively small and isolated, the Steppes are incredibly dangerous, and are avoided by all save the strange denizens of Dirge, which lies to the northeast.

Kalakkaii

Kalakkaii has become one of the last bastions of civilization, a refuge for any lucky enough to escape the Bone March and the mad city of Rath. The population of Kalakkaii swells then ebbs due to disease and trouble with human bandits, red Dracaj and occasional Troj raiders; lately organized crime has also become an issue, as rival gangs have made attempts to subtly take control of Kalakkaii’s last remaining exports (namely wheat, dried fruits and nuts, silk, paper, skins, oils, parchment, clockwork tools, and wax).

The Nethermost

The Nethermost is a vast network of twisting tunnels, behemoth caverns and dark underground cities under the surface of Sethia, populated by underground cities and settlements belonging to the dominant subterranean races, places such as Meledrakkar, Il’draz'zakuul, Shul Ganneth, Voth, and Blackfang, ruled by bizarre races like the Cruj, the Eidolos, the Dracaj, the Maloj, the Tavash, the Regost, the Lith, the Shav, and the Gaj. There are many access points to the Nethermost, but most are difficult to locate, as well as heavily guarded.

Rath

Rath is the last city of Meldoar, a necromantic metropolis ruled by witchcraft, grotesque bio-arcana, astrochronomantic clockwork technology and depraved weaponry. It is widely accepted that Rath is a dangerous place, but the Meldoarians are bound by their own secret agenda, and little true information is available on Rath outside its own walls. The city remains a dangerous and frightening enigma.

The Razortooth Mountains

This sharp and craggy mountain range once served as a Jlantrian barrier against possible invasions. Difficult to pass and populated by dangerously sharp rocks in some places, the Razortooth Mountains are more notorious for the hundreds of Bloodspeakers slain there in Jlantrian run death camps during the Black War.

The Reach

The Reach is a vast expanse of snow, icy plains and frozen tundra. The Gorgoloth tribes make their home in these bitter plains, and the shells of Jlantrian military forts stand along the perimeter of the Reach in a ghostly chain. Besides the Gorgoloth, the Reach is also home to a great many snow bears, giant elk, ice worms and winter wraiths.

Rhaine

Rhaine is an ancient, dreary city of cold stone towers, well-used docks, cracked cobblestone streets and dismal weather. It is a haven for pirates, prostitution, slave trading, magical narcotics, black market steam-tech and general thuggery. Rhaine is currently at war with the rival criminal city-state of Thornn.

Rift

New Koth. Rift City. New Koth is a city that has been cleft into two sections by the unnatural canyon called the Carrion Rift. The larger section of New Koth is held by the military might of a band of mercenaries called the Ebon Hand, while the smaller, deadlier section of the city is controlled by a cadre of militaristic vampires known as the Hungered. Both sides wage battle across the Rift for the fate of the city and the magic and relics contained in the Rift’s dark nadir.

Rimefang Loch

Rimefang Loch is a vast and frozen lake in central northern Sethia, connected to the Gray Sea by the River Gray. The Loch is lifeless and cold, the mirror surface of its cold waters unmoving even in the wind. Rumor has it that a sizeable population of black and gray Dracaj has built malachite fortresses along the eastern bank. The remains of Old Koth – or Dirge – stand on the shore, casting a further pall over the area.

Tanith

Ruled by the sometimes feared Brotherhood of the Chain, the city of Tanith is a repository of knowledge and wisdom, as it houses some of the most impressive libraries and mystic channeling stones in all of Sethia. Tanith is also the only city outside of Rift to house a significant undead population, an undead caste that lives in harmony with its subjugated living inhabitants.

Thornn

Thornn is a black market city whose economy revolves around drugs, prostitutes, gambling, pit fighting and smuggling. Made from great sandstone blocks, magically reinforced tents and mecha-arcanically enhanced siege towers, Thornn’s outer walls sport deadly barbed lances. Thornn is currently at war with the rival criminal city-state of Rhaine.

Wormwood

The Wormwood is a large and blighted forest. The Wormwood has become a dead and corrupted place, filled with necrotic soil saturated by foul magical energies. Rumor holds that black blood flows through the Wormwood like water, that toxic ooze leaks from the trees and that foul, and that mutated creatures roam the forest. It is also believed that the terrorists called the Revengers have somehow made a lair in this dark place, inside an unnatural redoubt called the City of Thorns.

D&D, Black Dawn Campaign Player Handout Excerpt #2: History

2009-06-16T11:50:00.001-07:00

THE WAR
For nearly 1,000 years, the continent of Sethia – a massive shelf of land that dominates the upper half of Malzaria – was dominated by three empires: Jlantria (a highly-religious matriarchy, highly advanced in science, magic and warfare), Den’nar (a loose confederation of desert nomads and shamans), and Meldoar (a twisted witchocracy of dark magic, thaumaturgy and terrifying experiments). While the power shifted frequently between these three forces, it was not until the Black Wars that hostilities finally came to a head.

When war did come, it arrived in the form of a revolution led by a powerful sorceress named Carastena Vlagoth: the Blood Queen. Possessed of such intense power and motivated by dark intelligences, this Blood Queen and her followers -- battle-trained Bloodspeakers, the mechanically gifted giants known as the Cruj, the barbaric marauders called the Gorgoloth, and the incomprehensible Eidolos -- cut a swath of destruction through lower Jlantria and upper Den’nar. Meldoar joined the devastating war on the side of the Blood Queen, unleashing their foul clockwork horrors and time-bending magic on the rest of Sethia.

The horror brought by the continent-wide war was unimaginable. Hordes of Gorgoloth armed with Crujian war technology stormed through western Jlantria in a tide of black steel. Crujian shock troops unleashed waves of burning gas, self-detonating golems and towers of detonating shrapnel that killed thousands. Deadly units of battle-trained Bloodspeakers used spatial rips to strike at strategic locations and assassinate key leaders. The Blood Queen led her armies from Chul Gaerog, a black mountain that existed between dimensions and that could take its commander to wherever she desired to go. The war raged for thirty years. The world shook as the seas filled with blood and the land took on the gray pallor of death. Meldoar’s Witch Knights worked with the dark engineers of Meledrakkar and jointly labored on a deadly vortex bomb called the Zero Engine, which was to end the war once and for all.
Eventually, at the battle of Crucifix Point, a concentrated effort was launched on Chul Gaerog that led to the Blood Queen’s bloody demise. Chul Gaerog exploded in a shower of black fire, cold stone and steaming blood. With it went the Zero Engine, which either detonated with no effect or else failed to go off entirely.

THE BLACK DAWN
The depths of the damage done to the world by the Blood Queen’s campaign would not become clear for another three decades, when the Zero Engine truly exploded.

Rebuilding had given the world both hope and an uneasy unity. Thirty years had passed since the disastrous War had ended. Change was in the air: the Empires’ control over their holdings had begun to wane, new forces were rising from the ashes of the war, and the public faith in their leaders had been permanently shaken. The threat of further conflict loomed. Dangerous creatures emerged from the wilderness and the uncharted seas, and the population of the already volatile Black Scar Prison swelled. People wanted change, and they embraced who they thought would bring it: rebels, criminals, killers.

And then, out of nowhere some ten years ago, on a cold morning that would later be known as the Black Dawn, the explosion came.

A true vortex bomb ignored both spatial and temporal limitations: the Engine had been constructed within and resided in a dimensional fold, a liminal space between times, places, and physical realities. When Chul Gaerog was destroyed, the Zero Engine did indeed detonate, but the effects of its devastation were released into the temporality thirty years in the future, and its effects were widespread, as the Engine seemed to co-detonate in several widely distanced locations simultaneously.

Much of Sethia was ravaged. Jlantria and Den’nar were both devastated, their cities laid to waste in silent explosions of concussive force that literally bent the air and sent ripples through flesh and ground that tore the fabric of reality to shreds. Meldoar suffered equally hard losses, though having helped design the Engine, the Witch Knights were afforded some measure of forewarning, and they managed to shield the capital city of Rath from the worst of the effects. Tidal waves swept apart most of the ships in the sea; great rifts and valleys formed in the earth, some of them miles deep. Debris and resonant foul magic from Chul Gaerog rained down from the sky, creating dismal and cursed locales such as the Wormwood and the Carrion Rift.

No conquerors came to claim victory after the explosion occurred; no master plan was hatched that capitalized on Sethia’s sudden devastation and vulnerability. The blast had simply come, and it brought the world to its knees.

NEW KOTH
In the wake of the Black Dawn, the denizens of Sethia have been hard-pressed with the issue of survival. With no centralized government, few resources, and a landscape polluted by foul magic, shattered structures and with dwindling supplies, the survivors of the Black Dawn have had little choice but to gather, and rebuild.

One of the last military fortresses left standing was a ramshackle structure called Fort Hightower, originally part of a blockage against the hostile western Reach. Before long, refugees from all across the ruins of Jlantria began to congregate there, and what had once been a small town grew into a much larger settlement that would eventually be known as New Koth. It had been a miracle that Hightower had survived at all – upon the detonation of the Zero Engine, a massive rip had pulled the small city apart.

New Koth today stands as a city divided by a mile-wide canyon that reaches at least two miles deep. Dark magic and the ruins of ancient civilization have been uncovered in the depths of the tear, now called the Carrion Rift, but this very threat has also become a salvation, for the exploration of the Rift has fueled the city’s economy, granting it goods to trade with other settlements, and a draw for would-be treasure hunters, scientists, and explorers from wherever they may be. And while an evil force has congregated in the smaller section of the city -- resulting in a constant and small scale war – New Koth has become something of a bastion of civilization in the blasted aftermath of the Empire.

While numerous other city-states have risen to put their imprint on Sethia, New Koth is unquestionably the most powerful, and likely the most dangerous. And it is to this dark, shattered place that your characters are bound, and where your fate awaits you.

Excerpt from the Player's Handout for my Black Dawn campaign: Post-Apocalyptic Steampunk Fantasy

2009-06-15T14:02:00.000-07:00

THE BLACK DAWN

In an instant, millions died.

The Black War had been over for a decade. The Blood Queen was dead; the Cruj, Eidolos and Gorgoloth had retreated back to their lands in the Reach and the Nethermost. Chul Gaerog, the Black Tower, exploded after Vlagoth’s body was thrown off of its bladed apex. The uneasy truce between Jlantria and Den’nar would continue, and they continued to work against Meldoar, the traitor empire led by the cursed Witch Knights who’d supported the Blood Queen’s thirty-year war. The world was scarred, but it would heal, given time.

Thirty years after the war, the Zero Engine exploded.

No one even knew what it was until after it had gone off: a Possible Bomb, a temporal explosive device that waited between folds in the time stream, between the membranes of separate realities. When it exploded, it exploded across worlds: mirror bombs, alternate bombs, bombs from several possible parallel universes all detonated simultaneously, and the effects of all of those explosions spilled over to the world of Malzaria.

When the Engine exploded, the world shook, and in an instant millions died. Cities exploded in shards of stone and steel; caustic vapors swept across the land in black clouds of ash and steam; the sun was hidden behind a veil of skeletal dust and rancid smoke. Over the course of one morning – the Black Dawn – a war that was already over took its greatest toll.

Now, the Empires are gone. The cities are just cinder and rubble, and the forests and pastures have been blasted into scorched fields and smoldering bogs. It’s been ten years now since the Black Dawn, and people of the Sethian continent are still putting together the pieces. Militant city-states spread across Sethia represent the last bastion of civilization’s hope, but these cruel fortress towns wage war with another and protect their own interests above all else. Every city, from the criminal trade ports of Thornn and Rhaine to the isolationist zealots of Corinth to the struggling mercantilism of Kalakkaii, has its share of problems.

New Koth, the most powerful of the new city-states, may be the worst of them all. Life there revolves around the Carrion Rift, a deep canyon that cuts through the heart of the city: in its depths lay the entrances to an ancient necropolis of arcane lore and treasure. This place is called Skullheim, and the exploration and plundering of its riches fuel the strongest city-state’s economy. But there are things in Skullheim that would best be left undisturbed, for that city's arcane citizens experimented with dark forces and foul magic. Worse, New Koth must contend with the Hungered, a militant force of vampires at war with the city’s rulers -- a ruthless band of cutthroats and mercenaries called the Ebon Hand – over the rights to explore Skullheim. New Koth’s war against the undead forces of the Hungered carries on, day and night, from the opposite sides of the grim canyon.

But however dangerous life is in the confines of the city-states, outside it’s worse. Lawless raiders, cannibal cults, Gorgoloth barbarians and Maloj hunters stalk the wastelands, from the edge of the poisoned Wormwood to the shifting horror of the Carnivore Mists, across the barren Bone March to the frozen fields of the Reach. And there are forces that want to tear down the city-states and destroy what’s left of humanity: the armies of the vast subterranean nations of the Nethermost; the twisted monstrosities in the tainted city of Dirge; and the Meldoarian Witchocracy’s last standing city, Rath.

In the era of the Black Dawn, magic and technology are the tools to civilization’s survival, and the means by which the city-states will pull themselves into the hard future. Whether you use thaumaturgic engines, firearms, magic-powered bio-arcana, ancient shamanism or a good old fashioned bastard sword, the world needs an adventurer like you to help rebuild, to explore, and to battle off the sometimes overwhelming evil forces that wait around every corner. Riches and opportunity await adventurers brave enough to undertake tasks as such charting the path to the Bloodwinter Tomb, exploring the ancient ruins of Krezzel Dul, navigating the deadly waters of Rimefang Loch, uncovering the secrets of the Witch’s Eye and the Chain of Scars, and foiling the nefarious plans of the Black Circle.

This is no world for the weak. Prepare yourself: the battle for survival already started. Now it's your turn to join the fight.

Welcome to the Black Dawn.

I Have Not Posted In About 4 Months...

2009-06-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

...and that's just inexcusable. It's also because I discovered Facebook, where blogging anything more than a few words long is just overrated. It's like blogging for people with ADD.

Life has been busy, busy, busy. We have chickens. We have bikes. I'm ready to run a D&D game again. The kids are growing waaaaaay too fast. We have a garden. We're slowly but surely getting rid of the unwanted detritus in our yard. DWs yarn business is going well, and she has a big show coming up in August. Basketball post-season is nearly done (GO MAGIC!!). The weather is nice. Life is good.

Since I share most of my random thoughts on Facebook, I'll probably go back to using this blog as a repository for D&D and writing related topics. I'll try to label such posts, and I'll probably start with some of the campaign background for my upcoming "Black Dawn" campaign, a steampunk inspired 4th Edition setting that has kept me quite busy as of late. Hopefully that will go up before October...

Go Spurs!

2009-02-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

This was a fun game to watch, and one of the best of the season IMHO.

Squirrel With a Singing Bologna Sandwich

2009-01-24T20:19:00.001-08:00

This is a clip from "Jack's Big Music Show", a cute kid's program that DS and I both enjoy. I think this bologna sandwich is the man.

Go Spurs!

2009-01-18T21:45:00.000-08:00

I got to catch most of this game on the radio. I'm a fan of both the Spurs and the Bulls, but it's the Spurs who I'll root for down the stretch over...well, everybody.

A Happy Birthday Poem to My Wife

2009-01-14T08:52:00.000-08:00

It's my wife's birthday today, so I spent this morning concoting this Grammy-award winning song for this special day:

Today you are twenty-nine

(Again)

And that's a sign

That you're as wonderful and wise

And pretty (that's no surprise)

As you have been for so long

So we wrote for you this song:

"We Love You, Liberty

And we hope that this will be

A very wonderful time

For you."

(It's tough to rhyme!)

Happy Birthday, Angel. We Love You.

Tools!

2009-01-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

Ok...I have to admit that I'm not usually much of a "guy" when it comes to tools.

That's all changed. Check out the coolest hammers you'll ever see.

Writing Excerpt from "something black..."

2009-01-04T12:23:00.000-08:00

Here's an excerpt from my latest Nanowrimo novel, "something black...". I'm hard at work on the sequel, "the hollow", but just for the fun of it, here's an excerpt from a "flash forward" sequence of my little scary story.

tomorrow morning…

Mist the color of blood. A sky like bleached bones. The wind was as cold as a winter’s breath and strong, strong enough that it could be felt even through thick clothes and the thick wall of bones that they’d built since the beginning of this war.

It is a war, Kane thought. He’d never thought of it that way before. He’d always thought they were just surviving, just doing what they could to keep the human race from going away, even if they didn’t know why. But it’s not that simple, he realized. I guess it never was.

There were only three of them now, and soon there very well could be none. Their faces were as dry and as pale as the bones that littered the ground, and their eyes were sunken, hollow, ringed with the sort of black that, in the old world, you would’ve had to apply with Halloween makeup. Kane flexed his fingers. There was so much grime and grit accumulated in his skin and beneath his nails that they’d never be clean again, even if they could find another facility that actually had running water. Much of it had been accumulated digging the Kane for all of the bodies they’d come across. The rest had come from killing. He couldn’t help but realize that he was rubbing someone else’s dried blood or skin into his scalp every time he ran his hand through his lengthening blonde hair. Even now, after all they’d seen and been through, the notion of being covered in someone else’s remains made him wince.

It’d be nice to wash up, he thought, and he couldn’t suppress a quiet laugh. Jesus, listen to me…we’re going to die, and here I am wishing I could wash my fucking hands. Stress did that to you, he supposed. Stress. Understatement of the century there, bud.

The ground was as thick as clay, dry and cold, and it smelled of age. Dead, thick-limbed trees swayed in the bitter wind; Kane spied an occasional dry leaf as it floated across the backdrop of the bloody horizon. They were camped at the top of a steep, craggy hill that overlooked a low valley of old farmland. Thick, brackish water had swallowed up the crops and soil some time ago, and now the thick mist, made red by the setting sun, clung to the water like a shackled prisoner. Kane smelled meat, old meat, and heard the sound of dying breaths, like leaking air tainted by soft moans.

“They’re close,” he said quietly. The others just nodded. He heard the clack of metal, the kiss of steel, the sound of guns being loaded. It wasn’t going to do them much good, but it was better than nothing.

Kane stood up. Even with the trees looming overhead and the wall of bones at their backs, the world felt so…open. Empty. He looked up into the sky, and felt tiny, like it would swallow him up. When he was young, he used to be just a little afraid when he stared up at the stars, shaken by the infinitesimal nature of the sky, frightened by the notion that, if he were somehow to fall off of the surface of the earth, he would literally fall forever. He hadn’t felt that sensation for over twenty years, until now. He knew what it meant. They all knew what it meant, and there was no need to communicate it. His mind went to that other world, the world before, and as he tried to remember, he readied himself: fixed the leather armor in place, secured the steel plates over his shoulders, elbows and knees; loaded the guns, too many guns, not enough guns, meaningless, all they had; the katana that he’d found in the old pawn shop slung across his back, and the knife in his boot. He was winded by the time he finished, not so much from the physical efforts of preparation, but from the dread that stemmed from a horrible truth he’d barely been capable of acknowledging.

He could not remember life before the black. It hung there, just out of reach: the notion of a job, of a wife, of children and friends and TV and sports and eating out, but the specific memories were blocked off, like they’d been wrapped in a sack and thrown into the water. All he saw was the sack, bobbing, sinking, and floating away. Soon, if he lived that long, he knew he’d forget completely that there had ever been a time before the war: a time before the black.

Kane let a single tear fall.

The howl came fast from the night: the blood red sun had just finished its descent, leaving a faint, dripping haze on the horizon that set the mists alight. The curdled sound erupted from the black like a knife through skin. No matter how many times he heard it, Kane’ nerves tingled at the howls, as hard and metallic in their tone as to almost be a physical presence. Calming breaths, one, two, three, and a flex of the fingers. One more count, and then he was ready.

The others came to his sides, flanking him. None of them had any reason to make a stand, except that there was nowhere left to go, nothing left to do.

We are the champions of the damned, Kane thought. God help us.

Another Holiday Survived

2008-12-28T08:31:00.001-08:00

OK, so we technically haven't survived the New Years just yet, but with the big D-25 out of the way it feels like we managed to scrap our way through another year with our sanity more or less in tact. The kids made out great, I got way too many movies and books, and my wife got a power saw! (Yes, I'm frightened....) We still have some returns to deal with (one of my DS' big gifts, in particular, needs to be exchanged for something that doesn't require rebar and concrete), and since the ol' XBOX 360 has been shipped off to the geniuses at Microsoft for some repairs, there are a couple of gifts that we can't use just yet, but overall the family made out just fine, we've all had a good time...and my God, I think I've eaten as much food in the past month as I had through the entire first three fiscal quarters of 2008 combined. ;)

Happy Holidays, everyone. Be safe, and here's looking forward to a great 2009!

Go Spurs!

2008-12-21T20:03:00.001-08:00

WARNING: Hopeless basketball addict and Spurs fan will randomly post video recaps of games.

The "Saw" Parody Sequence from "Scary Movie 4"

2008-12-16T13:55:00.000-08:00

Very stupid, but very funny. Don't watch this while the kids are up.

My Wife Rocks

2008-12-13T19:49:00.001-08:00

Anybody who can keep up with this family, take care of anything and everything related to these crazy Holidays, knit a closet's worth of cool stuff and somehow still find time to deal with a demanding moron like me deserves more than a big "I Love You"...she deserves a frickin' MEDAL!

Another November, Another Novel

2008-12-01T13:58:00.001-08:00

Well, actually, finally a novel may be more like it, since my debut effort two years ago (Razor) was really just the first part of a longer (still...ahem...incomplete) project, and last year's effort (The Ending Dream) was never completed, even if I did hit the requisite 50,000 word mark.

This time, however, I actually wrote a novel in November. I'm happy with this one, as it's the first writing work I've actually completed in quite some time, and it somehow managed to incorporate a little something of all of the writing-related ideas that have been floating around in my over-sized head for the past several months. It needs quite a bit of revision and development work, but overall I'd say this one is a keeper...Hell, I even left it open for a sequel...:)

And now for some shameless, somewhat silly ad copy:

something black...

The end has come.

Shadows have risen, and now feed on the living. A dark fog has fallen over the world, spreading madness and chaos wherever it goes. The ghostly highways of America have been abandoned, and the streets of her cities flow with blood.

A small band of survivors -- led by a widowed veteran, a cop and a mysterious woman -- may be the last people left alive on earth. They'll do whatever they can to escape the dark creatures that scour the land, unaware that one of their fellow survivors may hold the key to saving the human race...and that one of them may yet bring the world's doom...

Something evil is coming. Something black...

Goodbye, Bob

2008-11-26T08:37:00.000-08:00

I lost a good friend last night.

Bob, the handsome pug displayed above, came to us not that long ago with his sister/girlfriend/personal assistant/nurse, Bailey. In just a short time, these two brought an unrequited amount of love and warmth into our home with their gentleness, their unassuming ways and their constant need to be held and pet.

Unfortunately for us all, Bob was something of an old man, and last night, after a day just like any other, Bob laid down at my feet while I was in front of the TV and settled down for his final nap.

Bob was about as sweet of a dog and as good a companion as anyone could ever ask for. We'll miss his frumpy, no-nonsense, "Whatever, just pet me, OK?" attitude; we'll miss his wonderfully goofy facial expressions ("Bob's making a funny face", my 6-year-old son would say...he'd also gently extend Bob's ears out and say "Look, Bob is like a wolf!"); and we'll miss his quiet, gentle manner.

The world won't be quite as bright without you, Bob. We'll take care of Bailey, so don't you worry (or, perhaps more accurately, Bailey will take care of us). You just get a good rest, old man, and go with all of our love.

Good bye, Bob.

Another bit of MST3K Madness For Your Viewing Pleasure...

2008-11-24T15:15:00.000-08:00

This one had me rolling...enjoy!

Long Time, No Blog...

2008-11-19T16:21:00.000-08:00

...but that's because I've been busy writing my Nanowrimo project, "something black...". More details and excerpts to follow, but here's a quick rundown of my progress:

Get Out There And Vote, Dammit!!!!!

2008-11-04T11:06:00.000-08:00

That is all...

I Think This Pretty Much Sums Up How I Feel About the Election At This Point...

2008-10-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

Stolen from The Daily Show.

Another Article Up

2008-10-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

With Nanowrimo right around the corner, it was good to get a little bit of writing done here in the past couple of weeks. In spite of the recent announcement regarding the questionable future of D&D Minis, here's my latest article for 2.0, and Part 2 in my relaunching of the older article series that first got me into the game. Enjoy!

Happy Anniversary, Honey!

2008-10-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

Ok, it was yesterday, but I didn't forget! My lovely wife and I celebrated our 8th happy year of marriage yesterday by roaming around old downtown Sumner, window-shopping for antiques and dining at a lovely little Italian cafe that made a mean salami sandwich. It was a nice, quiet day free of work, worries and children. ;)

I love you, Angel. I always will. Thank you for the best 8 years of my life, and here's to the next 80. :)

New Article is Up!

2008-10-13T09:30:00.001-07:00

I was always a fan of the old "Art of Warbands" articles on the DDM website -- truth be told, they're what originally got me so excited about the game -- so I was very happy when I was asked to relaunch the series. Here's my first attempt: check it out!

The Noggin' Song

2008-10-01T16:21:00.000-07:00

You know you've been watching TV with your 6-year-old too much when you get this silly little tune embedded so deep into your subconscious that you actually wake up humming it. (Yes, I need help.)

I Waited Too Long to Get Into Basketball

2008-09-24T15:55:00.000-07:00

I have a habit of picking up hobbies when they're going out of style. Take professional basketball, for example: earlier this year I took a keen interest in the sport, fueled primarily by DS's enthusiasm. I got to know the players, downloaded some playoff games to see what all of the fuss is about, and even started to understand the rules. My son and I now go to a local court and shoot hoops when weather permits (alas, not all that often in Washington), and we just watched with some heartbreak as our WNBA team, the Storm, got knocked out of the Playoffs by the down-and-dirty Los Angeles Sparks.

Now, with the NBA season right around the corner...oh, wait. No basketball team here. Bummer.

No worries: the Seattle Sonics/Oklahoma City Thunder are at the bottom of my watch list for this season, though I must admit it would have been fun having a local team to root for. CURSE YOU, CLAY BENNETT! MAY YOUR PROSTATE ENLARGE TO UNFATHOMABLE PROPORTIONS!

I'm not sure what fostered this recent interest...growing up, I was about as far removed from interest in sports as one could possibly get. I ran track, briefly, in the 7th grade, where I also participated in lunchtime games of football and soccer, but there's where my sports involvement/interest ended. Now, for reasons i can't completely understand or condone, I've turned into a veritable NBA fiend. I can tell you all about a 3-second defensive violation or sprout off the shooting averages for a good 2-dozen players from last season. I play NBA 2K with my invented Seattle Sonics team every night (just started the season, actually...we had lots of pre-season games to practice...). I grab snippets of highlights from last season on my breaks at work, and I just joined a fantasy league.

What the Hell?

Oh, well, no sense in fighting it, even if my behaviors as I get old(er) do just tend to confuse me.

So, here I sit, anxiously awaiting a sports season to begin with no local team to cheer for, but with no small amount of enthusiasm nevertheless. Go Spurs/Suns/Clippers/Blazers (west) Celtics/Pistons/Cavs/Bulls/Bobcats (east)!

(It's easier to enjoy the games, i find, if you have lots of different teams to support. ;)

The Best Advice On Voting You'll Ever Hear

2008-09-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

Stolen liberally from my DW:

So, It's Only Been A Month Since My Last Blog Post...

2008-09-15T16:11:00.001-07:00

...What the heck is up with that?

I'll summarize:

Work has been H-E-L-L. It began with the auditors annual colonoscopy in August, followed by a number of "emergency" re-orgs, training sessions, and it just never stopped. Having just done someone else's work for a week, I'm now back to another upcoming SOX deadline, several new duties I'm expected to perform starting a few days ago, and a search for an elusive payment on freelance work done 1300 months ago.

We took a vacation, which was awesome, but it feels like we've been sort of "behind" ever since then. Or maybe I'm just behind...not sure. In any case, the kids have started school, DW is starting a side business selling dyed yarn, DDs B-day has come and gone, and my mom's BD is coming up. Plus we now have cable (NBA!), and I've been absorbed into my XBox NBA2K7 game. Again.

We're acquiring 2 more dogs. I'll elaborate more on them once they've visited again, but suffice to say a) they're adorable, and b) they're...REALLY adorable. They'll be visiting this weekend. To prepare for their coming, we've been putting up a fence...which is a lot more fun than it sounds. That's more or less been my activity of choice for the past two weekends.

All in all, it's been a whirlwind, and we haven't even gotten to the "busy" time of year yet....wheeeeeee!

Some Awesome Photos That My Wife "Stumbled" Upon

2008-08-14T13:28:00.001-07:00

Check them out!

Summer Is Already Coming to a Close...

2008-08-12T12:59:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, it feels like it just began, so I'm a bit bummed. One tends to look back at their summer breaks (especially when they're young) and take stock of everything they did. Part of the reasoning behind this is our naturally competitive nature, of course: when you get back together with your junior high friends, it's important to have done more cool stuff with your summer than they did. (Come to think of it, we do the same as adults, comparing exotic vacation spots visited and personal sporting equipment utilized...). It was very important to DW and I that we keep the kids busy this summer *without* breaking the bank, and I think we've done just that.

* Zoo visits x2 (and more to come, since we bought an annual pass)
* Trip to Michigan to visit DWs family (which itself included a trip to an amusement park, rafting, swimming, and other assorted activities)
* Enough crafts and projects done at home to open our own shop
* DS and I have hit the basketball court on several occasions
* Hikes/walks aplenty
* Northwest Trek (an awesome little photo safari where you view local wildlife)
* Trips to the movie theater (7 for me, 3 for my DD, 2 for each DW and DS)
* Barbecues aplenty

Of course, the quantity of these activities is in long run fairly meaningless; what's important is the question of whether or not we had fun, and I think I have to answer with a resounding "Yes". In fact, this is the most enjoyable summer I can remember in a looooong time, and the only bad thing about *that* is that DW and I have set the bar high for next summer. :)

Enjoy the rest of August, everyone!

Daezarkian Is Writing Again

2008-08-07T14:30:00.001-07:00

No. Way.

It's been way, way, WAAAAAAAY too long since I did some productive writing, so I'm stoked.

While "Darker Sunset" has received its third official rejection, I've been quietly revising the first two books of my so-called horror trilogy, "Razor". That revision is still a work in progress, but that didn't stop me from starting up the long-avoided third installment yesterday during a "break"*. I'm happy to say that I've pumped out 15 pages since yesterday, which is exactly 15 pages more than anything else I've written all year long.

The "Razor" series is sort of hard to describe...it's not quite horror, not quite action, not quite fantasy, but it works awfully hard to incorporate elements of all three while still striving to be as relentlessly gory, offensive and sex-filled as it possibly can be.

"Razor: Angel" is a fairly traditional horror story that follows a pair of professional hit men as they track a vampire from Colorado to Washington and attempt to put an end to her feasting days, only to learn that she is the least of their worries...indeed, as the local sheriff of the lonely northwest town of Ravenwood has come to discover, this vampire may be humanity's only hope.

"Razor: Hell" is two interconnected stories. The first involves an investigative reporter and a government agent who embark on a mission of revenge and find themselves in the middle of a massive supernatural conspiracy that spans across the globe. The alternating story involves an epic journey through a world known as Hell.

"Razor: Serpent" is intended as the climax of the series, and it involves a brutal war between opposing forces that have long vied for control over a source of immense source of mystical power. Where the first book takes place entirely in "the real world" and the second novel spends time both on Earth and in Hell, this third book is a more fantasy-style story set entirely in a dark, fictional world.

So there you go. You may never get to read them, but this series has for the past couple of years greatly revitalized my writing habits. Because of that, the least I owe to the story and these characters is to finish their tale.

* Break = Any moment or moments spent avoiding real work, while still typing furiously and looking furtively at the screen so as to deceive one's supervisor into thinking they are doing an outstanding job.

Random Music Video of the Week

2008-07-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

Rob Dougan's "Clubbed to Death". This is a fun video with some nice visuals and vintage 1930s era fashion, and it's all fun to watch even if it doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense. Oh, and don't wait for the lyrics to kick in...there aren't any.

Help: I'm In Michigan and I Can't Get Up!

2008-07-24T05:37:00.001-07:00

I'm here in Michigan visiting my wife's family, and things have been truly awesome. DWs family lives in a beautiful home surrounded by green, tons of beautiful birds that come and visit every day, and a house large enough that I can actually make some noise in the morning and not worry about waking people up on the other side of the house. (As I write this, DW and DD are still asleep.)

DS and I have enjoyed shooting some hoops outside, while everyone got to go and catch a movie last night after a fun dinner out. Today we're going to go and hit the DW's aunt's house for dinner, and tomorrow we're going to an amusement park. And none of this stuff was even on the brochure!

I am pleased to say that I have not thought about work once since we've arrived (until now, where the thought of work arrived only long enough for me to realize that I hadn't thought of it...) Unfortunately, eventually, I'll have to go back and feed the work demons a bit more of a soul, but for the next few days I'm going to continue to enjoy the first true vacation I've taken in years. :)

Cheers!

My Favorite George Carlin Routine

2008-07-11T12:43:00.001-07:00

Be warned, it's chock full of foul language...but man it's funny.

RIP, George

A Very Brief Summary of Summer Films Seen to Date

2008-07-07T13:22:00.000-07:00

No frills reviews. Quick, to the point, and easy to digest. All reviews are out of 4 stars.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
***
(previously reviewed)

The Incredible Hulk
**1/2
Hulk smashes, and he smashes well. A nicely paced first half devolves into a too-long finale where computerized monsters whack each other endlessly. Norton is good as Banner, and Tim Roth once again proves he's a great villain. Loud, cheesy summer fun.

Wanted
***
Still not a fan of McAvoy, and the whole thing was a bit too far in the Funny Nihilism filmmaking camp, but this visually stunning film is never dull and has more action, explosions and logic-defying stunts packed into its 110 minutes than all three Matrix films combined. Morgan Freeman has some wickedly memorable lines; I'll never think of looms the same again; and Angelina Jolie looks good nekkid.

Hancock
***1/2
Unjustly panned by critics everywhere, Hancock is a tightly paced, efficient superhero flick with loads of attitude, humor and a surprising amount of heart. The film doesn't have the most airtight of plots, I grant you, but the excellent direction, energetic performances and eye-popping production values more than overcome the films few shortcomings. Will Smith is the man. Peter Berg is rapidly becoming one of my favorite directors. My favorite summer movie so far.

The Dark Knight
(coming soon...like, say, when it's released)

It's hard to blog...

2008-07-03T11:36:00.000-07:00

When you're so busy Plurking.

It's been a busy week at work here, and the family is just gearing up for the 4th, and we're also getting ready for our big trip to Michigan to visit my in-laws at the end of the month. Have a safe and happy Independence Day (watch out for the aliens), and, if you're lucky (or unlucky) I'll have something more substantial to blab about next week.

Plurking is Fun!

2008-06-30T14:31:00.001-07:00

It's like stream-of-consciousness blogging...which is, indeed, a very strange thing....

http://plurk.com/redeemByURL?from_uid=2539915&check=-1736699578&s=1

Wanted R-Rated Trailer

2008-06-23T13:53:00.001-07:00

I have to admit, I wasn't excited at all about Wanted based on the original theatrical trailer, but this one has me a lot more than curious...indeed, I might actually have to go and see this now. (And I don't think it's just because this new trailer features graphic violence and language...I just think it's a much better trailer than the original.)

Again, note the R-rating: this trailer gets bloody and features Morgan Freeman dropping an F-Bomb. You've been warned.

Wall-E Trailer

2008-06-23T13:34:00.001-07:00

OK...this looks seriously freakin' awesome!

The Death of a Legend

2008-06-23T09:16:00.001-07:00

George Carlin, my all-time favorite comedian, has passed away. And...well, that sucks. Few comedians could make me laugh as hard, and few men made the notion of fighting the establishment so damned fun.

Here's a nice article about him.

Take it easy, George, we'll miss ya!

The Zen of Sarcasm

2008-06-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

I've seen this floating around on the web before, but someone here at work just reposted it, so I thought I'd share it here, as well. Good words to live by. ;)

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.

3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

4. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

5. Always remember that you're unique. Just like everyone else.

6. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

7. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

8. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

9. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is probably not for you.

10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

11. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably a wise investment.

12. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

13. Some days you're the bug; some days you're the windshield.

14. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

15. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

16. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

17. Duct tape is like 'The Force.' It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

18. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.

19. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving.

20. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

21. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

22. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

Best Father's Day Weekend...EVAR!

2008-06-16T10:33:00.001-07:00

Another Father's Day has come and gone, and it was, in a nutshell, totally awesome. DW got me Alton Brown's "Manly Food" edition of Good Eats on DVD and a big gift certificate to go catch all of the those summer flicks I've been so excited about (not to mention a deluxe CD set that's still on the way); DD drew me an original picture of a family of bears (exceptionally well done, currently on my "desk" at home) and a home-made card; and DS also got me a card, as well as a home-made barbecue brush and a complimentary bottle of BBQ sauce. Vast, unhealthy quantities of burgers, corn dogs, and barbecue chicken were consumed by all, we played some basketball, did some fiddling around the house and even took the kids biking...and all this with my DW and DS being sick! You guys rock! (And, as if all that weren't enough, I got to watch some "for Dad's eye's only" bloodshed in the form of the new Rambo movie...what more could a guy want?! :)

It was a wonderful, relaxing weekend. I'm fairly certain I don't deserve a family this great...;)

I Love You Guys!

New DDM Article Is Up

2008-06-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

Check out the third and final installment of my Desert of Desolation Internal League article over at the WotC site.

In other (WotC-related) news, my Tiefling Warlock Lucan Keth (also a character from my "Crown of Blood" novels) finally returned to Mike Mearls' lunchtime D&D 4.0 game today, and kicked some serious tail!

(Note to the rest of the party...next time, let's bring some Fighters...)

The Big Book Is Off to DAW...

2008-06-11T14:05:00.001-07:00

After a brief but frustrating experience with a less than reputable publisher, Book One of the lengthy "Crown of Blood" saga has been sent to DAW Books for consideration. Weighing in at a healthy but trim 120,000 words, "Hunters & Thieves" is a dark tale of magic, crime and destiny...and maybe, just maybe, it'll see print before I start collecting Social Security.

Wish me luck!

The World's Oldest D20

2008-06-09T12:02:00.000-07:00

Check it out.

My Horrific Day (Summarized in the Form of a Movie Trailer)

2008-06-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

It drones on....and on....and on....

("I have a bad feeling about this...")

It emphasizes the same point over
and over
and over again!

("We have a situation! I repeat, we have a situation!")

It points the finger...

("Watch out!")

...at everyone else!

(screams)

It sucks the life out of you, and leaves nothing in its wake!

("Oh God, no! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!")

It's...

THE MEETING

In a meeting...no one can hear you scream.*

*That's because all of the oxygen in the room has been sucked away by a ceaseless tirade of jargon, thus depriving you of the air needed to scream properly.

I Kick Arse At Virtual Basketball

2008-06-04T13:01:00.001-07:00

It looks like I have to add this game to the ever-growing list of things that I get addicted to. Last night, after many fruitless attempts, I finally managed to get the Chicago Bulls to triumph over the Miami Heat. Life's small victories...

I also just finished watching the Rifftrax version of Predator, and laughed my a$$ off. I'm a big fan of the movie, but Mike Nelson's treatment of the Governator made me see the film in an entirely new light.

Nice "Spoof" on Youtube Commentary

2008-05-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

Check this out over at the Rifftrax blog:

http://blog.rifftrax.com/2008/05/29/stupid-comments-wanted/

A special nod to Mike for making use of a knitting video. :)

Movie Review: Indiana Jones & the City of the Crystal Skull

2008-05-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

I felt that, since this was the first time I've actually made a trip to the theater to see a movie (at a whopping $9 for a single ticket!) in nearly 2 years, I thought I'd mark this relatively monumental occasion by sharing my own thoughts on the latest Indiana Jones outing...

Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crytsal Skull
Starring: Harrison Ford, Shia LeBeouf, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Rating: ***

I will admit to having approached Indy's latest outing from the "cautious camp": while I was excited that Indy 4 was finally being made, it was pretty clear that there was no real need to make the film apart from satiating fan desires (and, of course, to make money, because it turns out that Spielberg, Lucas and Ford are quite poor...) That being said, my expectations were low, so I was pleasantly surprised to find this latest outing -- which pits whip-cracking, wise-cracking archaeologist/adventurer Henry "Indiana" Jones (Ford) against the KPG, South American natives and a horde of special effects -- an enjoyable, if somewhat familiar romp.

After a rollicking chase sequence through the fabled "Area 51" in the scene's opening sequence in 1957 -- wherein Indy and his partner Mac (Winstone) are harassed by a KPG super spy Irina Spalko (Blanchett) and her minions -- Indy finds himself pulled along with a young biker named Mutt (LeBeouf, displaying a surprising amount of charisma) in a quest to track down a fellow archaeologist, Oxley (Hurt). This quest takes Indy into some unfamiliar territory when the truth of what "Ox" discovered, and what it could mean if that discovery falls into Russian hands.

Let's break it down simply:

What worked:
* Ford still kicks a$$ as Indy, even after all of these years. The cadence of his performance is a bit different, but once you fall into step with "Indy senior" it's easy to stay on track with him through the rest of the film.
* Karen Allen still kicks similar a$$ as Marion, and the scenes between she and Ford are wonderful.
* Blanchett as the villain. Spalko may be fairly generic, but Blanchett infuses her with acerbic wit and real menace. She's easily the best villain in the series since Tot in the original Raiders.
* LeBeouf. I hate to admit it, but he was a nice addition to the film, and if LeBeouf can keep himself out of trouble I think he has a very promising future in Hollywood.
* The setting/theme. Some people will be bothered by where Indy 4 winds up, but it all worked for me. As the film is set in 1957, Lucas and Spielberg really play up the pulp aspects of the period, plumbing through their collection of "Amazing Stories" magazines with aplomb: the Red Scare, Area 51, Roswell, fear of nuclear weapons and a general sense of paranoia all find their way happily into the film.

What didn't work:
* Too much CGI. I'm not a fan of CGI in the first place, but I can forgive moderate, effective use. It had no place in a series known for its groundbreaking stunt work; Spielberg relied on it far too heavily, particularly in the film's centerpiece action chase (which was good, but it would've been better if it wasn't so painfully obvious it was all taking place on a green screen).
* Ray Winstone's "Mac". There was nothing wrong with Winstone's performance, but in addition to being a flat character there just doesn't seem to be much use for him at all -- he doesn't contribute to the plot, doesn't provide any strong conflict, and in the end even vanishes in a fairly low-key fashion in a scene that might as well have been lifted from "The Mummy".

Overall, this was a fun film, and for the sheer spectacle worth seeing in the theater (provided you can avoid paying full price, unlike myself).

With any luck, I'll catch "Hancock" here in a few weeks, and "The Dark Knight" after that. In the meantime, next up I'll post some actual "writing" on my so-called "writing blog".

Busy, Busy, Busy

2008-05-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

That's the word of the week, in case you hadn't guessed. Between taking care of the kids while the DW recovers from a twisted back, running around like a teenage prom queen in a slasher flick here at work, and trying desperately to finish the last installments in my series of DDM 2.0 web articles (see the first two installments here and here), I haven't had a ton of time to breathe. Regardless, that hasn't kept me from getting excited about this summer's movie season.

Now, to make one thing real clear...I don't get out to the movies all that often. And when I say "all that often", I mean...well, not at all. Between the excessive cost of going to the movies, the difficulty in finding baby-sitting, and the relative speed and ease with which one can get movies after they come out on DVD (or Blu-Ray, or whatever your choice of home media is during this so-called "format war"), I've more or less given up on going to the theater, especially when faced with a summer movie season like that forced on the movie-going public back in 2007 ("Revenge of the Threequels!"). This year, however...well, I may just have to get up off my lazy butt and drag someone along to the theater with me, as there are some tasty treats on the horizon.

Here's a breakdown of the major studio releases for the 2008 summer movie season, as presented by the good folks over at Rotten Tomatoes:

Major Summer Releases 2008

May 2
Iron Man
Director: Jon Favreau (Elf, Zathura)
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges
My Thoughts: I wasn't excited about this one until I saw the trailer, at which point I became understandably intrigued. Iron Man's massive success thus far, coupled with fantastic reviews and overall good word-of-mouth, makes me think I may need to go and pay the Iron Dude a visit.

May 9
Speed Racer
Director: Larry & Andy Wachowski (The Matrix Trilogy)
Starring: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox
My Thoughts: After seeing the trailer, my thoughts were that this film could either be really good, or it could just suck. Public opinion and reviews have been leaning towards the latter, but I may still give this one a once-over once it comes out on DVD. (If nothing else, it should have good Rifftrax potential...)

May 16
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Director: Andrew Adamson (Shrek, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
Starring: Georgie Henley, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Ben Barnes, Warwick Davis
My Thoughts: Ho-hum. The first Chronicles of Narnia was entertaining, but far from one of my favorite films. I've heard generally positive things about the sequel, however, so I'll give it a shot somewhere down the line.

May 22
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Director: Steven Spielberg (Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, Munich)
Starring: Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent
My Thoughts: I'm excited about this one (and ashamed that I missed my opportunity to pre-screen it earlier this week). While the reviews have been mixed, so long as Spielberg, Ford & company are operating at even 50% efficacy, it's bound to be a blast. This might be one to actually sneak off and go see while it's hot.

May 30
Sex and the City
Director: Michael Patrick King
Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Hudson
My Thoughts: Never seen the show, never wanted to. Pass.

June 6
Kung Fu Panda
Director: Mark Osborne & John Stevenson
Starring: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, Ian McShane
My Thoughts: The DW is excited about this one. I think it could be fun, especially with the impressive vocal cast, but based on the trailer, I'm not sure I'll rush out to see it.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Director: Dennis Dugan (Saving Silverman, The Benchwarmers, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry)
Starring: Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Alex Luria, Emmanuelle Chriqui
My Thoughts: This one has potential. It looks pretty stupid, to be completely honest, an "old school" Adam Sandler flick, before he went all soft and mushy. I actually prefer the "newer" Sandler films, however, but I'll still Netflix this one down on the line, as the premise is pretty fun and the trailer cracks me up.

June 13
The Happening
Director: M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village)
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Spencer Breslin
My Thoughts: Oh. Yeah. Shamalyan has disappointed with his last couple of films (I still get pi$$ed when I think about The Village), but I won't forget that he's the guy that gave us Unbreakable and Signs. The Happening has real potential, and the fact that it bears an "R" rating indicates that Night is moving into even darker territory than he has in the past, which is saying something considering the grim nature of his films. I'm very interested to check this one out.

The Incredible Hulk
Director: Louis Leterrier (The Transporter, Unleashed)
Starring: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson
My Thoughts: This is one of the weaker comic book film offerings that the summer has to offer, but even then, it looks intriguing. The trick will be to see if Norton & his impressive ensemble supporting cast are able to make this "new Hulk" a) not as artsy and pretentious as Ang Lee's Hulk, and b) not just another superhero movie. The previews haven't done a lot for me, but I'll still be willing to give it a try, if for no other reason than to see Norton, Tyler, Hurt and Roth all in the same film.

June 20
Get Smart
Director: Peter Segal (Anger Management, 50 First Dates)
Starring: Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Terence Stamp, Alan Arkin
My Thoughts: I have high hopes for this one. Get Smart was a favorite show of mine as a kid, and while the movie will necessarily drift from the series (as it should), this movie has some great comic potential, especially with the inspired choice of supporting players. I'll keep my fingers crossed for this one.

June 27
Wanted
Director: Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Day Watch)
Starring: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Common
My Thoughts: Meh. The least-inspired comic book film of the summer. Matrix-looking people doing Matrix-like things. I may be wrong (I know that DW thought this one looked good), but if the marketing campaign for this one just continues to show me that Hunted is going to be another Matrix-light, I'll have to pass.

Wall*E
Director: Andrew Stanton (A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo)
Starring: Fred Willard, Jeff Garlin, Ben Burtt
My Thoughts: You pretty much can't go wrong with Pixar. Some of their efforts (Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, Finding Nemo) are better than others (Cars, Bug's Life, Ratatouille), but even a "bad" Pixar film is better than 90% of the other animated fare out there. And Fred Willard rules.

July 2
Hancock
Director: Peter Berg (The Rundown, Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom)
Starring: Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman
My Thoughts: Woot. I was mixed on this one at first, but after learning that Peter Berg was at the helm and having viewed the second trailer, I'm all over it. Sure, it's a super-hero movie, and somewhat in the vein of Mystery Men, but it looks damned entertaining. Another one I may have to sneak out and see rather than waiting for the DVD.

July 11
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Director: Guillermo del Toro (Blade II, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth)
Starring: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Luke Goss, Thomas Kretschmann
My Thoughts: This will be fun. Hellboy wasn't a major favorite of mine, but it was still entertaining and accomplished what it set out to. Del Toro is a talented director and Pearlman is always a pleasure to watch, no matter the role, so this will easily find its way into my Netflix cue.

July 18
The Dark Knight
Director: Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige)
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal
My Thoughts: Double woot. Probably the film I most eagerly look forward to this year (edging out Hancock and Indy, who make up numbers 2 and 3). The previews have just confirmed what most everyone has guessed: this movie is going to kick some proverbial a$$.

Mama Mia!
Director: Phyllia Lloyd
Starring: Meryl Streep, Chrinte Baranski, Julie Walter, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard
My Thoughts: This looks like fun. I'm not what I'd call an Abba fan, but I've heard good things about the show, the casting is fun, and musicals are always fun.

July 25
Step Brothers
Director: Adam McKay (Anchorman, Talladega Nights)
Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Richard Jenkins, Mary Steenburgen, Adam Scott
My Thoughts: Pass. Will Ferrell is very hit or miss for me. My favorite films of his have been Stranger Than Fiction (where he played things straight and was backed by a highly original story and a stellar supporting cast), and The Producers (where he had only a minor role). This may prove to be a terribly funny movie, but it's not one I'll be lining up to see in any format.

The X Files
Director: Chris Carter (The X Files)
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Xzibit, Billy Connolly
My Thoughts: Pass. Was never really into the show, and I can't imagine the new film would make a lot of sense to me...though the supporting cast is interesting. (Wonder if Billy Connelly's character will get killed, like they do in 99% of his other movies...)

August 1
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Director: Rob Cohen (Fast and the Furious, xXx, Stealth)
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Maria Bello, Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, Luke Ford
My Thoughts: Could be fun. I'm not a huge fan of director Rob Cohen, and, while I like Maria Bello, I'm sad to see that Rachel Weisz has stepped out of her role as Edie. Regardless, the trailer is fun, Brendan Frasier is reliably fun to watch, and Jet Li is a great villain. Should be good, brainless fun.

August 8
Pineapple Express
Director: David Gordon Green (George Washington, All the Real Girls, Snow Angels)
Starring: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Amber Heard
My Thoughts: This looks damn funny. Seth Rogen is turning out to be a popular comic actor, and James Franco can be good given the right role. I'll Netflix this one, for sure.

August 15
Tropic Thunder
Director: Ben Stiller (Zoolander)
Starring: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Brandon T. Jackson
My Thoughts: I'm mixed on this one....it could either be extremely funny, or just flat-out lame. The trailers have me leaning towards the former, but I'll need to see a bit more before I commit any money towards this one.

Ok...a much longer post than I thought. Time to get back to work (and see if I can't come up with a creative way to get to some of these movies...)

True Life Jedis Get Drunk and Beat Each Other Up

2008-05-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I love the news.

A Sordid Tale of a 13-year old WOW player and his Fraudulent Credit Card Adventure with Texas Prostitutes

2008-05-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

Enjoy!

Weekend Sailing (or, Why My Wife is So Friggin Awesome)

2008-05-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

My wife is the coolest woman in the universe.

This weekend, she sent me on a day-long sailing class. I'd looked into sailing very briefly a few weeks ago, more as sort of a whimsical "wouldn't that be cool" sort of a thing. And lo and behold, before I know it, I'm in a class learning the 56,438 different nautical terms that identify the little metal piece on the front end of the foresail, getting confused by the physics of tacking versus jibing, and then I'm out on the water, hoisting the mainsail, adjusting the traveler and grinding the foresail lines. What a day! I'm going to look more into sailing, now, I think (as well as *ahem* learning to swim), because the entire day was just a blast.

We followed up with a very tiring Mother's Day, which started with breakfast provided by my wife's new rice cooker and that culminated in dinner at my mom's. All in all a fun (but exhausting) weekend.

And, to recap...my wife rules. Eat that, "other" wives!!!

Zombies!

2008-04-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

My recent obsession with the film 28 Days Later, coupled with my wife's discovery of an awesome blog over on Ravelry, has led us to question....are we prepared in the event of a zombie apocalypse?

Are you?

This is something that requires serious attention, I think. Sure, you may be prepared for a break in...or a flood...hell, even the possibility of a volcanic eruption might not rattle you in the slightest. But can anyone out there seriously tell me that they're ready for ZOMBIES???!!!

I didn't think so.

I'll be the first to (reluctantly) admit that my own house is far from zombie proof. The wall of big windows in the living room is just screaming for aggressive ghouls to come crashing through, and in the event of an overrun of hostile zombies we'd be forced to retreat to roof in order to keep ourselves safe. Luckily, however, the DW created stocked us up on emergency supplies a few years ago, and my extensive knowledge of zombies will of course prove to be a great benefit, and while we may possess only a modicum of firepower, we have plenty of improvisational weapons that have proven their worth against zombies in popular media.

There is no better weapon than being prepared, so while I zombie-proof my residence and you consider what needs to be done to better prepare yourself for a Romeroesque apocalypse, consider this resource to help get you pointed in the right direction: The National Center for Reanimation Prevention and Control (NCRPC).

This gold mine of information will make hardened zombie killers out of even the wimpiest citizens. Be prepared, citizens -- you never know when that rage virus will strike!

(Please note that my tongue is planted firmly in cheek here. Also be aware, however, that being prepared for a zombie invasion is, in many ways, like preparing for any major disaster, and it certainly never hurts to be prepared. The excellent book The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, besides being a terribly fun read, also provides plenty of great real life tips on how to be prepared for any big emergency, whether that be a fallout, hostile takeover at the hands of Canadians, or the much more likely event of a zombie uprising).

Good zombie hunting!

Busy Times & Scary Trailers

2008-04-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

Wow, been a while. I suck at blogging! :)

Well, it's been a busy month. My DS had his tonsils out (poor guy is on a largely liquid diet for another week or so), I've shifted locations here at work (window seat = Yay!; next to boss = BOO!), we finally got the dog spayed (she was thrilled, I assure you), and I helped my dear Mom move into her new house. (I didn't do much, to be honest, aside from eat those yummy Costco sandwiches and make pithy comments.) All this while my dearly beloved British overlord of a VP assigned me a very unenviable task during the one week I had little choice but to miss half of my days at work, which led to an extremely long Friday (when everyone else is normally gone) and a very tired late night Sunday as I finished everything up.

So. Fun.

But in the meantime, I've seen some more movies!

For reasons that aren't entirely clear to anyone (myself included), roughly once a year I get on a bizarre horror movie kick that lasts for about 2-3 weeks. (I do the same thing with rap music.) I've always been a fan of well made horror films, but the recent trend that Hollywood has taken with the production of "torture porn" (horror films that revolve around the sadistic mutilation and degradation of others; these victims are normally captives, and the perpetrator is generally not a supernatural entity, but rather just a weirdo) put me off just a bit. While "Saw" may be a fine movie, I'm fairly certain it didn't warrant 3 (soon 4) sequels. "Wolf Creek" could never have been made and I'd have been happy. The same goes for "Hostel" and its sequel, and even the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes".

Recently, however, I was lucky enough to discover a trio of excellent films that are all scary, well made, well acted, and that use as their staple villains three old favorites from back when horror stories were still in their infancy: vampires, werewolves, and zombies! Without going into detail, just check out the trailers below, and know that all three films are worth catching on Netflix (I've actually purchased 2 of the 3, as well, and I don't buy movies nearly as often as I used to).

While all of these films are unquestionably violent, they are all also genuinely scary, peopled with well-developed characters, and enjoyable to watch. My personal favorite of the three was "28 Days Later", which I've already watched twice and that bears images and scenes that have lingered long in my memory after viewing (so much so that the film is the second by Danny Boyle to make it onto my own personal "top 10" list, which just reached 11 films....time to shift something off, I guess...)

30 Days of Night (Vampires):

My thoughts: 3 out of 4 stars. Handsomely made, very scary film that manages to actually make vampires scary again. I've decided that I like Josh Hartnett as an actor, especially in these types of roles (he was also fun in "The Faculty"). "30 Days of Night" does a lot of things right, and even though it has its share of problems (there are plot holes the size of pot holes, and anyone who still believes that the light in Alaska works as depicted here and in films like "Insomnia" should probably have their head closely examined), the film is overall highly enjoyable, and a great Halloween treat.

28 Days Later (zombies):

My thoughts: 4 out of 4 stars. One of my new favorite films. Atmospheric, well acted (Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson, especially, are awesome), directed and executed, and very, very frightening from start to finish. While not technically a "zombie" movie in the strictest sense of the word, I'm not really sure what else to classify it as...the one classification I have come up with, "A Post Apocalyptic Infected Ghouls on Speed Film", is just sort of a mouthful.

"28 Days Later" is a difficult movie to forget, and not an easy one to step away from once it has you in its hold. It's a rare horror film that is much more than the sum of its parts: at times exciting, at times touching, oft terrifying, and always engaging. All in a all it's a great film that just all around kicks arse. See it...now.

Dog Soldiers (werewolves):

My thoughts: 3 out of 4 stars. Great, gory fun. The direction is clunky at times, and there truly is nothing original going on here, but the movie is so well crafted that I found myself not worried about that in the least. The movie is also surprisingly funny, often at the most shocking of times...I think it's a British thing...

That's it for now -- take care!

Movie Reviews, Because.....Well, Because!

2008-04-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

I don't normally review movies, but for no real valid reason I've been getting back into watching films again, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on some of the movies I've viewed recently (by choice or otherwise...)

Note: On the very rare occasion that I review a movie, I use a fairly standard best out of 4 star ratings (1 = sucks, 2 = average, 3 = good, 4 = perfect), with the option for using half-star ratings, as well. I tend to judge a movie based on a) how well it accomplishes what it sets out to accomplish, and b) how much I enjoyed it. That being said, there will be some films I give favorable reviews that many may consider to be "crap" movies, and there will be some popular films that I give poor ratings. Luckily for you, I don't see movies until they come out on DVD these days, so what I'm reviewing is going to be limited to what's been in our Netflixcue and what the family has recently acquired as gifts or purchases.

That being said, on to the reviews, presented here in alphabetical order:

"Death Sentence"
2007, Directed by James Wan, starring Kevin Bacon, Kelly Preston, Garrett Hedlund, Aisha Taylor & John Goodman
Rating: **1/2

While the box office and critical results have been dubious, I'm pleased to see that members of the so-called "splat pack" of up and coming horror directors are branching out and trying different things. Doomsday is at the top of my "want to see" list at the moment, and that films recent release inspired me to check out Death Sentence, James Wan's follow-up to his incredibly popular Saw. In Death Sentence, which is loosely based on a novel by Brian Garfield (author of Death Wish, an excellent 1972 film which has the unfortunate honor of being remade sometime next year), mild-mannered executive Nick Hume (Bacon) is pulled out of his seemingly idyllic life by the murder of his son at the hands of a ruthless street gang as part of an initiation ritual. When Nick realizes that the young killer is unlikely to get the punishment he deserves, Nick refuses to testify, thereby allowing the killer go free so that Nick can administer his own justice through murder. Unfortunately for Nick, this revenge killing only brings the attention of the gang's leader (Hedlund), who declares war on Nick's family. Much blood ensues.

I'll be the first to admit that there is little in the way of originality in Death Sentence: if you've even seen a revenge flick or vigilante film, you can most likely guess what's going to happen and when. The overall plot of the film is highly improbable, and the narrative flow is clunky and oft times unbelievable.

Now, that being said, you may wonder why I gave it an above-average rating.

First off, while the film's overall narrative arc is unrealistic, the reason this deficiency draws so much attention is because of how well the film's little moments work. The details in many scenes lend a sense of realism and credulity to the story, enough that I was taken in very early in the proceedings and found myself unable to stop watching even as the story grew somewhat preposterous. The montage of family home videos at the beginning of the film are a fine example: generally in films this device is excessively cheesy and ultimately unbelievable, but here the footage felt very real, and I think fulfilled its job in establishing a snapshot of the Hume family without drowning the audience in saccharine. Nick's hesitation prior to committing his first vigilante murder, and his subsequent reaction after the deed is done; his early hand-to-hand battles; his ineptitude in the art of purchasing and handling firearms....all of these moments are so well handled that they make the film enjoyable even when the plot takes a short walk off of the cliffs of reality. Much of the efficacy of these scenes is a result of Kevin Bacon's excellent performance and Wan's sure-handed direction.

From an action perspective, Death Sentence contains more than its share of well-staged sequences, particularly a chase scene that culminates in a struggle atop a parking garage and a a bloody shootout in an old hospital for the film's climax. Wan is very adept at crafting tension, and while his work does come across as somewhat derivative (the ending shootout, in particular, echoes the climax of Taxi Driver), it is efficiently staged. Horror fans expecting Wan's trademark extreme violence will likely be a bit disappointed, but the film is still heavy on the bloodshed, more so than typical action fare (though I do wish that directors would stop relying on CGI-enhanced gore effects...it just looks silly.)

What struck me most about Death Sentence -- and this is likely the ultimate source of the 2-and-a-half star rating -- is how perfectly Wan establishes and maintains the movie's grim tone, to the point where I wish he'd have helmed the recent Punisher film in lieu of Jonathan Hensleigh. Wan has a good understanding of what makes a revenge tale such as this work.

"Music & Lyrics"
2007, Directed by Marc Lawrence, starring Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore, Brad
Garrett, Haley Bennett & Campbell Scott
Rating: ***

Ever since college, I've become something of a fan of romantic comedies. There are good ones and bad ones, naturally, and it can oft times be difficult to know until it's far too late. Good ones, for me, include Love Actually, While You Were Sleeping, 50 First Dates, The Wedding Singer, and the cream of the crop, When Harry Met Sally. The bad ones...well, suffice to say there are a lot. I'm happy to say, however, that Music & Lyrics falls into the category of "the good ones".

There isn't much new or original being presented here, but the story we're given works, primarily due to the chemistry, comedy and charisma of its two leads. Alex Fletcher (Grant) is a has-been pop icon of the 80s (the movie opens with a hilariously over-the-top music video from his heyday, which somehow manages to combine all of the tacky wonderfulness of every one of my favorite electro-pop 80s music stars into a 3 and a half minute package) who makes his living now living in the shadow of his former band mate, indulging his own whims and playing the carnival and fairs circuit, where his old fans (once teen aged, hormonally charged girls, now middle-aged, hormonally charged mothers and housewives) flock to see him. A chance for a return to stardom presents itself in the form of a Britney/Shakira-like po-star Cora Corman (Bennett), who would like to give him a comeback opportunity with a duet with her on her new album...if he can compose a song for her in just under a week. Despite the enthusiasm of his manager (Garrett, as funny as ever), Fletcher hasn't written any new material in over a decade, and he has no lyricist to work with. Luckily for him, aid comes in the unlikely form of his substitute plant lady, Sophie Fisher (Barrymore), who has a natural talent for poetry and lyrics. Much comedy and the inevitable love ensues.

What I liked most about Music & Lyrics, besides Grant's inimitable ability to deliver one liner after one liner with deadpan assurance, is the fact that the film never pushes the "cute" or "saccharine" aspects of the story too far, and instead lets the story unfold naturally. The inevitable complications that always arise in the third act of films such as this are not (surprisingly) the result of a mis-perception of an old flame that resurfaces for either of the leads, but instead a very natural (if somewhat quirky) conflict that arises over the fate of their joint artistic venture. Naturally, everything works out ok in the end (not to give anything away), and the movie leaves you with a nice, happy feeling, just as a film like this should.

If you're a fan of Hugh Grant movies, or Drew Barrymore movies, or just well-made romantic comedies, there's plenty to like here. (And if Hugh Grant's line about how his tight pants make him a more sensitive person doesn't force you to burst out laughing, there's probably something wrong with you....)

"Sunshine"
2007, Directed by Danny Boyd, starring Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose
Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, Troy Garity & Benedict
Wong
Rating: ***1/2

I may be one of the only self-proclaimed "film geeks" to have never seen a film by Danny Boyle before now. I've read the reviews, certainly, and I was even moderately interested in watching Trainspotting after having read the book in college; additionally, being a zombie fan, 28 Days Later has been on my "gotta watch this" list for about 3 decades. But, for whatever reason, I've never actually had the opportunity to sit down and watch one of Boyle's films, and this one might have gotten skipped over, as well, as it not been for a) a great trailer (which caused it to get added to my Netflix cue), and b) a slip-up on my part that bumped Sunshine to the top of my Netflix cue. I'm happy for the mistake.

Sunshine is a stylish, atmospheric, and tense science fiction film that places a surprising amount of emphasis on the science aspect of things (which is a lot more than most sci-fi films made these days tend to do) and less on crafting a stereotypical Hollywood-style sci-fi film. That said, the final 1/2 hour of Sunshine does stray into more typical thriller territory (a fact that all but condemned the film in many critics eyes), but even with this shift in tone "Sunshine" is a thoroughly enjoying, at times nail-biting experience.

The film is set roughly 50 years in the future. Our sun is dying, so a last-ditch effort to rekindle the star is in order. The mission is undoubtedly suicide: the 8-person crew of the Icarus II must transport a massive explosive device close enough to the sun that it can essentially reignite the sun from within, which means almost certain doom for the cosmonauts involved. The real trouble begins when, at the advice of Capa (Murphy), the engineer who designed the bomb to be delivered to the sun, the Icarus II diverts its course to investigate a distress call. If Capa's hunch is correct, answering the distress call can reward the crew with something that might be vital to their mission; if he is wrong, he may doom their mission altogether.

One thing that struck me about Sunshine is the level of realism: everything about the ship, the crew, and the mission bears the sharp ring of truth. The tension in the film (at least until the last 1/2 hour) stems from the difficulty inherent in something as taken for granted (in sci films, at least) as changing course. Putting on a space suit to make repairs or board another vessel is no simple task, but a major, potentially deadly undertaking. And even the most noble-hearted people may act in unpredictable ways when placed in a situation where not only their own lives are in danger, but those of the entire world.

For a relatively low budget film, Sunshine's special effects are remarkable, and Boyle's direction is sure-handed and (with some exceptions) doesn't draw too much attention to itself, even when conjuring such memorable images as the brightness of the observation deck or a massive fire viewed through glass walls. The performances are all excellent: there are no action heroes here, but scientists, engineers and astronauts placed in a desperate situation. We get to know only as much about the characters as we need to know, which is another refreshing touch to the film: there are no unnecessary flashbacks or secrets from the past to muddle the screenplay, just a fairly straightforward and exciting tale about a small group of people determined to save their world.

Late film shift in tone notwithstanding, Sunshine left an indelible impression on me, such that it has joined the dubious but exclusive echelon of films that I count as my favorites.

That's it for now (phew). I'll review some more films soon, probably some horror films that I've acquired from Netflix (30 Days of Night and 28 Days Later are both on my immediate list).

Birthday Burgers, Proximate Relatives, Revision Deadline

2008-03-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

And now, your general update on my wacky life.

Happy birthday to my son, who turns the ripe old age of 6 today! We spent the day having doughnuts with his class, visiting Burger King and Toys R' Us, and later playing with various bits of birthday-related booty and growing large on Alton Brown's "manly" sliders, homemade sweet potato fries and dark chocolate cake. All in all, a great time. ;)

I find myself going in cycles when it comes to food. Every time I get serious about trying to get fit and lose weight, I somehow wind up consuming my body weight in burgers and not getting to work out at all over the course of an entire week. I have somehow managed to lose roughly 7 pounds since the end of February (an accomplishment I am very proud of), but since I haven't worked out at all this week and ate at Burger King today, I think I may be back down to having lost only 2 pounds....but oh, well.

My Mom is moving to town, which will be fun: my wife and I have been trying to get our parents to move out to Washington since we arrived some 4 1/2 years ago. (Since my mom is getting here before hers, I'm pretty sure the DW owes me a plush banana.) My brother-in-law will also be coming into town for about a week: it'll be nice to have a fellow rivet-head* about.

In the meantime, various tax returns, company bonuses and funds from article writing have given us a nice financial push; my children continue to demand more attention and care than actually exists in the known universe; and my wife is as beautiful as ever. I'm hard (mostly hard) at work revising "Darker Sunset", with a self-imposed deadline of September 15th of this year. We'll see..it would be very nice to get the revision/type-up done once and for all so that I can actually work on getting this damned thing published.

*A rivethead is someone that listens to Industrial Music, particularly aggro-industrial music. If you actually needed to read this footnote, consider yourself lame.

Part 2 of My Latest DDM Article is Up

2008-03-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

Check it out here.

RIP Gary Gygax

2008-03-04T15:43:00.000-08:00

Thank you, Gary, for creating such an exciting and enjoyable hobby. D&D brought me together with people in the way few other things have. D&D was how my family spent their nights when we first moved to a city far from home; it was how I exercised my mind and relaxed all through school; it was the one thing that my friends could all share, even when we felt ourselves growing apart.

Thanks, Gary -- and I wish you nothing but natural 20s at that big gaming table in the sky.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome

Movie Clip: The Wild Bunch (Final Shootout)

2008-02-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

Why? Why not!!!

(WARNING: This clip contains graphic violence, and a higher bodycount than most Schwarzeneggar films.)

Sick & Sunny Day

2008-02-17T20:40:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning and was delighted when I realized that I was going to experience our second -- yes, SECOND! -- day of sunshine in Washingstone this year! My DS and I watched some TV and prepared oatmeal for the girls while we laid plans for our glorious day.

And then, against all odds, DS turned out to be quite sick. The poor guy had trouble keeping any food down, so instead of the afore-planned day outdoors we hung out and watched more shows, hoping to get the little guy feeling like a winner again (and intermittantly cleaning up his inability to hold down so much as a glass of water). In the midst of this, our durned dog made a run for it while my DW was off at the store getting food supplies for dinner, so my DD and I took turns trying to the fetch said canine while the other stayed with the ittle boy. Luckily, my DD found success and returned the dog home; I, on the other hand, only got a faceful of gravel, two scraped hands and what I believe is a disloctaed right thumb. Oh, the joy!

But the day was actually pretty good. The little man sat with me and we surfed Youtube for a while, and he seemed to be feeling almost up to specs by the time he went to bed. The Wife made some truly fantastic homemade chicken noodle soup and brought home some fun shows from the library. And my DD, having finally re-acquired her DVD player after nearly two months of being grounded, has once again vanished into the black pit known as "her room".

Among the many, many, many kid-friendly videos that my son and I watched on Youtube, we managed to stumble across this:

I remember waiting around on Saturday mornings with a blank tape in the VCR ready to tape this one if it ever came on during Saturday Morning Cartoons...and now, finally, after over twenty years, the wait is over. Ain't technology great?

I have a new DDM Article Up - Yipee!!!!

2008-02-13T21:27:00.000-08:00

Check it out here.

Another Random Music Video

2008-02-01T13:11:00.000-08:00

From the Violent Femmes!

Make My Day

2008-01-27T20:50:00.000-08:00

My DW granted me a "Make My Day" award. Yay, I made someone's day! :)

I, in turn, nominate Lyoncage, one of my dearest and oldest friends. Lyoncage is a super-geek extraordaire (yes, that's a compliment, for all of you unitiated folks out there), an insightful purveyor and critic all forms of modern media great and small, and a damned fine singer, to boot. ;)

Mr. Brown

2008-01-27T20:42:00.001-08:00

If you're a fan of food (and yes, I'm a fan of food....just ask my ever expanding waistline...), chances are you've watched The Food Network. If you haven't...well, you should.

If you've watched the Food Network, then chances are you've heard of Alton Brown, an extraordinarily entertaining guy with his own show ("Good Eats"), a host of books and one of the most creative and innovative presentation styles you've even see on a cooking show. If you think of Rachel Ray or Paula Dean when you think cooking shows, you should give Alton a try...I've never seen anyone else make use of Ken dolls, football plays or sock puppets in their recipe presentations. Alton is fun because he shows us how to make better versions of the foods that a lot of us grew up on or love to eat and feel guilty about (pizza, burgers, cake, cookies...stuff like that...), and shows us ways to prepare them that are both a) new and unique, and b) oddly familiar and traditional. Essentially, he's presenting "high food snob" ways to prepare corn dogs and donuts, which, in my book, is just awesome.

(As a side note, I'd like to mention that "Good Eats" is one of my 5-year-old son's most oft requested shows to watch. It's also the reason that he's always in the kitchen, trying to add "2 cups of flour" and "1 cup of sugar" to anything and everything that is being prepared for any given meal. My son's enthusiasm for Alton's show is also why he and I prepared peanut butter waffles this weekend, and why we had chocolate waffles on Christmas morning...after all, the episode "The Waffle Truth" is one of his all-time favorite things to watch. How many 5-year-old's do you know who are obsessed with a cooking show?)

Recently, my DW located a second show of Alton's called "Feasting on Asphalt", an enormously entertaining chronicle of Alton's motorcycle trek from one end of the continental U.S. to the other, tasting non-franchised, "mom & pop" food every step of the way. Alton & his crew took the back roads of America to, quite literally, get a taste of Americana..and man, did it make me hungry. From cracklin' cornbread to the swinging steaks to old fashioned breakfast diners to speciality biscuit shops, watching Alton's trip made the entire family go and get some "road food"...instead, we wound up at Krispy Kreme, but it was a guilty pleasure he rarely allow ourselves, so it was a real treat. We're seriously considering taking a road trip later this year, to get a little slice of Americana ourselves. ;)

In any case, if you're at all a fan of food, or of "back roads Americana" literature and television in general, you should check out Alton's stuff...you'll be glad you did.

(Oh...I almost forgot to mention that Alton also hosts the new version of "Iron Chef America"...another great show that I'll have to talk about another time...)

To Arms! To Arms!

2008-01-21T15:19:00.000-08:00

Back in the day (for purposes of today's blog, "the day" is back in 1984, when I was in the 4th grade and only slightly less mature than I am now), I received the coolest game ever invented: Crossbows & Catapults. (For the record, the other coolest games were "Thunder Road", "Fireball Island", and "Cops & Robbers", but we'll discuss those another time...). In this game, two opponents set up their small Medieval armies (complete with towers, walls, and seige weaponry) on either end of a large, flat playing field. Once set up, you proceed to pummel your opponent's stronghold with plastic ammunition launched from your siege weaponry....what could be more fun than that? Alas, like so many other bits of my childhood (the afore mentioned games, the original S'Mores cereal, etc.) this excellent game went the way of the proverbial Dodo.

Or did it?

A few months before Christmas, I conveniently saw this product in the local Target. My jaw dropped, my hands got all sweaty, and I felt a stirring...yes, my wife was looking even more gorgeous than usual that day. But once the shock of my wife's unearthly beauty passed*, I realized that this game, while cosmetically different, was indeed the same game I'd grown up with (though the actual, physical remnants of the game I'm sad to say, ultimately wound up in the hands of my younger brother, thereby sealing its fate. Leaving something with him is like letting a ravenous wolf babysit your barbecue-sauce lathered toddler...it's just asking for trouble). So much "reinventing your childhood" toy marketing has been waged against today's unsuspecting parents recently (G.I. Joe reissues, anyone? Transformers? My Little Pony? He-Man?), but most of it left me unfazed. While I was certainly a fan of those toy lines when I was a youngster (save for My Little Pony, unless they were being marked, tagged and hunted by my Cobra tanks), their reappearance had little overall effect on me. But "Crossbows & Catapults"...even as a boy I'd had obscure tastes, and to think that someone else had also liked this game enough to actually re-issue it was almost like having my entire childhood validated.

Needless to say, the game went onto my Wish List, and -- praise be the In-Laws -- I received every last piece under the Christmas tree!

The game is simple: as I described above, you pretty much set up little plastic castles and destroy them with toy siege weapons. Back in "the day", your armies were the Vikings and the Barbarians (I always played the Barbarians, because the troops looked cooler). Nowawdays, in this Tolkien-savvy world, the armies consist of Humans and Orcs (I like the new armies better, and naturally play the Orcs, since they remind me of myself, gnarly teeth and all). The rules are incredibly simple, and all movement and distance is measured in inches (which reminds just a bit of Warhammer, even if Crossbows & Catapults...or "Battlegrounds", as it's now called...is an infinitely simpler system, as it is designed for kids.)

The best part? Shortly after Christmas, my 5-year-old son and I broke out the game and played it on the table out in the living room which seconds as my desk. We didn't worry too much about the rules (he's 5, come on), but just shot each other's castles with the new, super-cool weapons like the Orc Triple Crossbow, the Trebuchet and the Battering Ram. We had an absolute blast. The game got put away, but then again this weekend we broke it out again, and this time my 13-year old daughter played against my son. Though she may not ever admit it, they both had tons of fun (even if my son got a little..."possessive" of some of the ammunition pieces). What was fun for me was watching them: here were my kids, enjoying something I'd had when I was their age. It brought back good memories...which means it was a present well worth getting. :)

* Give me a break, it's a like a DC 22 Save, and we all know how low my Wisdom score is...

Happy Birthday!

2008-01-14T12:57:00.000-08:00

Today is my lovely wife's birthday -- 29 and counting! :)

I love you, hon...Happy Birthday!

Spread the Word

2008-01-06T10:02:00.001-08:00

Stolen from my DWs blog. I normally don't post stuff like this, but this is an important issue, and the argument in this video is quite brilliant. It's about 10 minutes long, but it's well worth it.

Happy Holidays/I Need a New Hobby

2008-01-01T16:44:00.000-08:00

I love the holidays. Not so much the last-minute frantic present purchasing, the indigestion from overconsumption of trans-fat laden dips and chocolate treats, or the inescapable hangover from consuming far too much eggnog, but the general...cheer. Both of my children were tremendously excited about Christmas this year (that's not saying much for my hyperactive 5-year-old son, but it speaks volumes in regards to my near comatose 13-year-old daughter), and while it took some time for my wife and I to catch the Christmas bug ourselves, we eventually did.

And boy am I glad.

My son was literally bounding up and down like a jackrabbit on a sugar rush when he rose (surprisingly late at 0730) on Christmas morning, and both he and his sister tore through their gifts with relentless aplomb. Everyone got plenty of loot (between my wife and I we acquired "Lost Season 3", "Battlestar: Galactica Season 1" and "House Season 2", and it was only last night that we finally had the time to push our way through the rest of the 3rd season of "Scrubs"..suffice to say, we've got plenty of tv to catch up on...). My son has been playing his new video games almost non-stop (just as my wife and daughter have been extensively playing Viva Pinata on the new XBOX 360...yes, Santa got a little jolly this year...). And I...well, I've been watching the shows, hanging out with the kids, and above all enjoying my time off. I haven't had to get up before 7 a.m. in almost 10 ten days (which is a sublime feeling), and I've become about as lumpy and couch-potato like as one can imagine.

But it hasn't been all fun and games!

Deciding that the roll of fat that has slowly but steadily creeping around my mid-section is a) not an alien entity, and b) not going away on its own, my wife turned me on to a great website called SparkPeople, which, among other things, has a great tool for tracking your daily calorie and fat intake. Just seeing the information compiled before your eyes is almost enough to motive you to stop eating altogether. (You never knew how many calories "light" popcorn had...). With the aid of exercise (I walk at least 2 miles every weekday, and three times a week I throw in 35-45 minutes of cardio exercise when I have the time), I may actually start to look less like Jabba the Hut and more like a young Obi-Wan Kenobi. (I feat that reference made little sense, but you get the idea...).

I've also decided that I need a new hobby. Right now my past times consist of a) writing (which I have done little to none of in about 2-3 weeks), b) playing D&D Miniatures online (this is pretty much what I do when I'm not hanging out with the family or working), and c) watching movies or TV. Earlier today, after having my poverbial a$$ handed to me in two games of D&D minis games in a row versus some fine European opponents and getting extremely cranky about the results, I came to a realization. While I do indeed hate to lose (and, for the record, I generally lose badly...I can admit it...), it's not the losing that upsets me so much as the feeling that I suck at the ONE hobby/pasttime of mine that I've really kept up with. Its a terrible feeling, like a runner realizing he doesn't know how to sprint, or a knitter who fails time and again to construct something as rudimentary as a dishcloth. The more I ruminated on my two unfortunate losses, I came to realize that the most fun I've ever had playing DDM is when it was NOT my primary focus or hobby (such as during NanoWrimo). You see, I have what you might call an obsessive personality, and I tend to focus on one thing (hobby, job, whatever) with such psychotic intensity that I have been known to actually give myself cramps. This is bad, for such intense compartmentalization lends to my acting like a completely moody dick. And no one wants that, least of all me.

Now, the obvious answer is "Start writing again, dip$hit"....and I will (woe be the world at large). But this is 2008! Time to buck some trends! I want to try something else, a new craft or hobby that I've never tried before!

I just have no idea what. Maybe a "Dad" type hobby, something involving power tools and wood chippers (my wife shudders at the thought, recalling how I nearly severed my right finger in a Village Inn back when I sold knives...). Maybe something crafty to express my Carson Creely side, like knitting, latch hook or embroidery. Or maybe something completely nonsensical and deranged, like improvisational taxidermy or freestyle bison lancing.

Who knows -- if you have any suggestions (oh, ye 8 readers o' mine), drop me a line -- I'm willing to try anything at least once!

In any case, Happy Holidays to all!

Industrial "Heroes"

2007-12-18T11:19:00.000-08:00

"Heroes" is an interestng show, one that I like a lot more than I thought I would based on what I'd read and heard about it. (For the record, the same holds true for "Lost", which I am now hopelessly addicted to.) While the show has some issues in the writing department, it's overall very enjoyable, and I've enjoyed watching the 1st season alongside my darling wife, who turned me on to the show (she's already seen all of it, including up to most recent episode of season 2, while I just finished the penultimate chapter of the first season.) While much of the plot/story is somewhat derivative of....well, most every comic book I've ever read...the show has some great ideas for how super powers would work and be used in the real world (including some highly creative uses for telepathy and telekinesis), nicely developed characters, and an undeniable momentum that carries you along even when you're not sure if the writers know where they're leading you. (In case it doesn't sound like one, that little review there was a recommendation: it's a great show, and I can easily see why it's become so popular.)

Coincidentally, quite a few months ago, before I knew anything about "Heroes", I ran into this Youtube video while searching for music by Imperative Reaction (a talented agro/electro/dance industrial band that I like). This video (made by one Evilatino) puts scenes from the episodes "5 Years Past" (one of my 3 favorites of Season 1, with the possible exception of the unseen finale) and "Landslide" to the song "Closed In", to pretty good results. (Of course, I knew some of the names of characters but didn't know what any of them looked like, so when I viewed this video for the first time I was completely mistaken about what I thought was going on.)

(Be warned that the scenes here contain spoilers to those episodes, and to the season in general, so if you haven't watched through the end of season 1 and you're interested in the show you may want to skip this. Also note that there's a bit of violence in the video, what with people getting their heads telekentically opened like tuna cans, and whatnot.)

The Best Snowman Ever

2007-12-09T15:20:00.000-08:00

Snow in Washington! (No way!) Truth be told I'm not all that fond of the stuff...it's nice to have around for the holiday atmosphere, but it does murderous things to my commute, and try as I have to come to appreciate the whole "melting snow inside of my socks" thing, that particular sensation has yet to find a fond place in my memories.

But, in any case, we don't get much of the white powdery stuff here in Washington, so the kids and I seized the opportunity when this early portent of a White Christmas decended earlier today and constructed the beautiful snowman that you see above!

Now...before you get too critical, please keep in mind that we don't have a lot of experience with snowman construction. In fact -- and I'm prepared to be as incorrect about this fact as I've ever been incorrect about anything, which is qite a bold statement indeed when one considers how incorrect I am half of the time about everything else -- so far as I can recall this is the first snowman I've ever built. Sure, I may have participated in the construction of somone else's snowman back when I was in elementary school in the 1600s, I grant you, but such duty was likely akin to holding the carrot nose (which I was allowed to do only in exchange for not speaking) or else fetching one of the grown-ups a beer while they made the snowman (one of my favorite grade school activities, I must say...my Dad used to pay me $1 a beer!).

No, I do believe that this was my first tour of duty as Head of Snowman Construction Operations.

Yes...he's a little dirty. And...sort of...lacking in tallness...but hey, with the aid of my trusty minions (aka son and daughter) I think "Whitey" here is a fine first attempt in what is destined to be a future saturated with snowman construction!

I Did It!!!!!

2007-11-29T21:40:00.000-08:00

While I'm nowhere near to being finished with this silly little project, I surpassed my 50,000 word requirement for Nanowrimo (though my week has been so crazy I honestly couldn't tell you if it happened yesterday or today). "The Ending Dream" isn't even remotely finished (I've barely scratched the surface on Part One of the novel, to be perfectly honest) and I won't even say it's my best work (my writing has taken something of a strange turn this year...which isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind you), but it was a fun distraction, and since I'd so long intended to work on this project I'm going to try my best to keep rolling with it. Of course, I also have about four novels worth of already written material that desperately needs revision...oh, well, one thing at a time.

In other news (and I should have blogged about this days ago), M&M (or "Mom & Michael", as they're more popularly referred to) are moving to Washington! Michael actually arrived on Tuesday after a very lengthy drive, and we're excited to have them about...it'll be nice to add to the repertoire of local family folks (and it seems that my baby bro may be joining us, as well...it's going to get crowded, I think).

In the meantime, I'm going to lay off on the excessive blogging for a while. My darling wife signed me up for Nanoblowpo...no, wait...Nanoblomo...wherein one was supposed to blog every day for the month of November. Well, I nearly did it (one post was eaten, and I missed one day this week), but in the meantime I'll be back to my once a week or so blog postings.

November is nearly finished -- have a great weekend, and bring on December! I can take it! (Wait, no...not in the face!!!!...)

Writing Update (And Little Else)

2007-11-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

Work is hell. Enjoy the widgit.

Tis' the Season

2007-11-26T15:29:00.000-08:00

Christmas Shopping!!!! Ahhhhhhh!!!!!

I actually enjoy Christmas shopping. I love the buying of "loot" for others (especially kids) and anticipating their opening it days/weeks/months down the road. I love searching through wish lists, standing in line at stores and hunting down great sales. I love trying (generally unsuccessfully) to come up with new, original or even just unexpected ideas of what to grab for people. I love hiding the loot, wrapping the loot and then showing off the wrapped/hidden loot in oblique manners to pique the curiosity of the intended gift recipients.

I may be a bit insane for liking all of these things. But so be it.

What I DON'T like is budgeting for Christmas. This year, we've had unexpected car repair bills, unexpected medical bills, the unending headache of mortgage and credit card payments, and a trip to DC for my daughter looming juuuuust over the horizon. Because of budgeting headaches, I think I can understand why some people don't like Christmas, or at the very least don't get as excited about it as perhaps they used to. I'm trying -- desperately trying -- not to become one of those people. It's tough, but I know I can do it.

To everyone who may be feeling a bit dragged down by the whole "sick of gift buying/gift budgeting" flu this holiday season, here's what I tell myself when I feel the bite: keep your chin up. You'll work through it, just like you always have. And, in the end, you'll be a happier person for all your efforts. :)

(This unusually chipper blog post brought to you by the letter "A", for: Accountant who's finally done with stupid a$$ meetings for the day...)

Lost while waiting for "Lost"...

2007-11-25T21:44:00.000-08:00

I don't want to dwell, or sound like too much of a fanboy, but I'll admit it right now: I'm a "Lostie". I'm re-watching Seasons 1 and 2 in anticipation of acquiring my DVD copy of Season 3, which I of course plan to devour and re-watch in preparation for Season 4, which should, at the very least, prove interesting.

The only thing I don't like about "Lost" is that most other shows just can't even compete with it for my attention. Do I know every secret and every connection? Do I fully comprehend what the heck is going on and where things are going? Do I have my expectations on how things should turn out so I can be disappointed when the ending doesn't fit my theories? The answer is "Heck No!" on all counts, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

"Lost" is, quite simply put, a continually intriguing, exciting, and entertaining slice of intellectualized science fiction/mystery, and, in my humble opinion, it's getting better and better as it rolls along. Some have accused "Lost" of spinning its own wheels or being directionless, but I almost hesitate to acknowledge those arguments. "Lost" is consistent with delivering what it's viewers have come to expect. It is a show that delights in presenting mysteries, not solving them. It is a show that delights in the journey as much as -- if not more than -- the destination. It is a nigh unsolvable labyrinth of Byzantine connections and intriguing plot twists.

In the end, when the series is finished and all secrets have been revealed, the payoff will probably pale in comparison to the build up that got us there, but no matter: I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey much more than I have with almost any other television show I've ever watched, and I'm glad to be a part of the "Lost Experience", wherever it may end up going.

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Excerpt from "The Ending Dream" (Chapter One, Further Continued...)

2007-11-24T17:11:00.001-08:00

All eyes turned in his direction. Dane stood as tall as he could, and raised his sword over his head. The gust of wind that rushed at him was almost strong enough to pitch him off of the cliff, but he stood firm and tightened his frozen fingers grip on his vra’taar. One Gorgoloth held firm to their Crujian prisoner, while another stood over the humans, maul poised over the head of the woman, who chose that moment to stop screaming: her eyes were locked on the enormous stone and metal hammer head, which was easily as large as she was.

That left one Gorgoloth to advance on Dane. The giant’s leonine mane flowed like a pale cape in the thick wind; his pale simian fangs were stained red, and his thick and knotted ebon muscles were bound in a mesh of chain and bone. He stood just over eight feet tall, and he held a massive flail in each hand; their spiked tips dangled close to the stone as he advanced, where they struck down and flared like flints.

Dane held his sword high. Coming up the incline, the Gorgoloth would have little height advantage over him, even if his reach with those flails would be difficult to get around. Movement flashed in Dane’s eyes on the other side of the bridge, but he focused on the advancing giant. He felt the Cruj’ inhuman eyes on him, watching, more intent than all of the rest. He felt himself teeter as the giant ascended: the slope was ice blue stone covered in brittle snow and scree as sharp as blades. Dane glanced over the side: the bitter bank terminated like a cut into the endless stale fog that choked the air like a rancid breath.

He heard the chain snap, saw the iron head sail towards him, but he was far ahead of his opponent: in a fluid motion Dane rolled forward, well within the arc of the swinging stone, and in a quick cut he severed the chain and sent the flail head flying through the air behind him. They were frozen in a dream: Dane dreamily watched the Gorgoloth draw back his left arm and pull the other flail into the air, but Dane dove at him, and moved up and into his chest with the vra’taar with such speed that the giant’s body shuddered as it folded itself over the blade. Cold blood fell onto Dane’s arm and neck as he twisted the blade, shifted the massive weight away from himself, and with a heave sent the massive body over the side. The giant cried out as his black body was swallowed in the bed of frothy smoke below.

Voices sounded up above. Dane saw another woman – a warrior, from the looks of her, familiar and yet entirely unknown to him – ascend from the opposite end of the bridge, a mirror of his own position. More Gorgoloth trailed behind her, rushing at her with axes and enormous spears while she made a dangerously fast descent down the slope; bits of loose stone and black ice fell away before her.

Dane felt the ground shift, and he heard a loud crack of stone. There was too much weight on the bridge. The ship’s wood creaked, loudly, as if voicing its protest. The Gorgoloth on the bridge looked back and forth between Dane and the dame. Time seemed to freeze as Dane readied himself for the hammer blow that would follow. The dame, he saw, also had a vra’taar in hand, and for a moment, even though he couldn’t clearly see her at that distance he knew that at that moment they locked eyes, that they saw in each other a kindred that would last only moments before they both died protecting people they’d never before met. They raised their blades overhead at once; their radiant blades refracted the dead light of the pale sun.

For that moment – perhaps the first moment in his entire laugh – Dane was proud of himself.

The Gorgoloth moved closer. The maul in the giant’s hands was covered in fetishes and jagged bone protrusions, and the sling that dangled from the hooks at hammer and hilt was woven of beaded human flesh. Dane crouched down and set his blade. The white eyes of the black giant fell on Dane, and then past him. Dane saw a shadow in the reflection of those eyes: a cloaked wraith that floated through the air in a haze of silver and grey.

The maul swung, and missed, and even as the resounding impact against the stone sent up sparks and echoed through Dane’s skull he leapt forward into the air and arched his vra’taar down to take the giant in the throat. At that moment, a funnel of churning flame violently tore the world apart: it was a lance of cold white fire, and it tore through the sky and ignited the air.

Everything happened at once. Dane felt hot blood wash up over him as his momentum forced the dead Gorgoloth to the ground; the impact knocked the wind out of Dane and jolted his limbs with such terrible force that he felt his bones nearly snap. Shouts and steel hammered his skull as he rolled forward and onto the slope, where his motion rolled him painfully forward down loose stone and a rain of sparks. Dane’s eyes opened for a moment, long enough to see the dame escape down from the opposite hill, long enough to see the Cruj struggle against his captor, long enough to see the Gorgoloth sentry walk towards him, languidly. Its bare and clawed feet crunched ice and rock beneath their path as the giant almost playfully advanced to where Dane would end his uncontrolled descent. Its axe was ready, and Dane almost felt it cleave in half well before the haft was even raised and his executioner’s massive teeth gleamed in the white fire, which was just moments before the sky seemed to explode.

There was, for the briefest of moments, a splotch of darkness in the sky: a blot of ink, a hole. Then there was the fire, which erupted in a whirlpool of churning white and blue that had the consistency of ice but that burned with such intense heat Dane almost screamed. Bits of the flaming goop sprayed onto his armor, and if not for his continued fall towards the nadir of the stone bridge the heat would have undoubtedly eaten through his armor. His would-be executioner was not so lucky: the Gorgoloth’s eyes and face were burned in a spray of flaming ice that latched onto its black skin and clung there like a burning parasite. Heat lashed against Dane like whips of fire. Something died in front of him; sticky drops of red rain hailed down onto the snow. The sound of the explosion shook the air.

Dane landed at the bottom of the bridge, hard on his face. He tasted blood and felt ice pressed into his face like splinters. Though the air had been knocked from his lungs, Dane struggled to rise. The fire was gone, but the sonic vibration left in the air in the wake of the strange explosion still resonated. Dane came to his knees with the help of a beautiful blonde-haired woman. She had deep green eyes and a scar down one side of her face, and she wore the black and purple armor of The Fallen, even if she bore a Dawn Knight’s blade. Dane looked behind her, and saw that all of the Gorgoloth had shared a similar fate as that who’d been ready to kill him: their flesh had been burned away by the same dreadful fires, the fiery plasma vomited up by their burning hole in the sky. Their bodies writhed on the ground all along the bridge and on up the slope that led to the far ridge; smoking vapors rose from their immense corpses.

© 2007 Steven Montano

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Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-11-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

(There's not much more to say when you're as bloated and tired as I am from having consumed 87 pounds of the world's best Holiday food. ;)

DDM WOTC Internal League: Match Update

2007-11-21T19:17:00.000-08:00

A busy work schedule and the general wussiness of my fellow gamers here at work has led to my only being able to get 2 games played in the League thus far, and I'm honestly not sure how many more there will be...that being the case, here's a quick summary of my second match.

Mount(s) Doom!, v 2.0
Eternal Blade (54 points, Commander 4)
Rage Drake (65 points)
Nightmare (44 points)
Blood of Vol Fanatic (30 points)
Boneshard Skeleton (7 points)
Map: Market Square
5 Activations, 200 points

vs.

Steve Winter (Website Manager, D&D RPG)
Eternal Blade (54 points, Commander 4)
Mercenary General (43 points)
Large Fire Elemental (31 points)
Blood of Vol Fanatic (30 points)
Shadar-Kai Assassin (24 points)
Statue (10 points)
Flamesnake (8 points)
Map: Hellspike
7 Activations, 200 points

Map Played On: Hellspike
The Winner: Mount(s) Doom! strikes again
Final Score: 190-37

New Piece: Nightmare! (which will not be used, as I've already given it to my daughter as a consolation prize for having an extremely crappy Monday...she's been drooling over that piece since she first saw it)