RPG blog anthology update

Good news regarding Open Game Table -- Studio 2 Publishing has picked it up for distribution into the book and hobby trade. It should be available in stores in three or four months. Indie Press Revolution should be stocking it also.

Tickets to the big show

Only 15 days until the movie...

Picked up our tickets today for the first showing on Thursday. Many venues are having early screenings, 7 and/or 9pm. It beats having to go at midnight -- much easier for Mrs. Kaiju to go earlier.

It's funny, I've been waiting for this movie for nearly three years. Now that it's almost here, it will be a little sad not to have the anticipation, the snippets of news parceled out, the constant checking for more updates every day. I've been looking forward to this more than any film I can remember. Maybe the closest would be the wait for The Phantom Menace -- and we know how that turned out (I really enjoyed parts of it, but that's a story for another post).

It's difficult to think that any movie can live up to the expectations that we, the fans, have put on it. I'm glad to say that the early reviews have been generally positive, even with some of the industry press and foreign critics, who tend to not be as forgiving. All good signs.

I suppose that I don't need to have movie-anticipation-letdown for very long. Paramount already signed up the creative team to work on the sequel several weeks ago.

Sidebar and link update

This is something I meant to do before our trip a few weeks ago; just a bit of page cleanup and updating broken links. I also added the nifty subscription feed drop-down boxes.

I'm saving the old link information here for myself, but you might find it amusing too.

Magister Ludi Roleplaying Resources - great site but now getting a forbidden URL message.

Random RPG Idea Generator - Off-line? Maybe their URL registry expired.

The Gamestas - Once hosted an amusing gaming podcast. Is it .com now? Answer unclear.

Deeper in the Game - great gaming theory blog, but now gone private? (login required)

Burning Void -- Invalid URL? Their blog hasn't been updated for a while. The articles seem to have migrated to Errant Dreams.

Kaiju Shakedown - Variety Asia Online's movie blog - invalid URL? The main page disappeared too.

Dave Arneson and others, R.I.P.

(Late posting...)

I read on icv2.com and rpgblog2.com that Dave Arneson has passed away. Like most people, I knew about Gary Gygax but it wasn't until several years into my gaming life that I found out about Dave Arneson, which is a shame because he was probably responsible for more of what I enjoyed about Dungeons & Dragons, and role-playing games in general. For a great Arneson story read Ben Robbins' Braunstein article.

The RPG hobby has matured (age, not behavior) enough so that we're starting to lose some of the Founders. The past year has been bad in this respect: Gygax, Erick Wujick, Robin Crossby, Bob Bledsaw, and Keith Herber. In 2007 we lost Chuck Crain.

The best way to remember these giants - besides donating to a favorite charity - is to play. Roll the dice, draw some cards, move some miniatures... have a few laughs with your friends.

In other gaming news, Wizards of the Coast decided to fight PDF piracy by pulling all of their PDF product from legal sale. I should have purchased the Rules Cyclopedia when I had the chance.

Rock Band/Star Trek cross-promotion

Only 35 days until the movie opens...

Paramount has been pulling out all the stops on promoting the movie and the ST franchise in a big way, but here's one of the oddest:

Paramount and MTV Games announced a promotional partnership for the new Star Trek movie and the popular rockin’ videogame Rock Band. The promotion kicks off today and will include music track giveaways, an in-game Star Trek themed battle of the bands and a futuristic avatar contest. You can even win your own personal screening of Star Trek.

I feel that the more promoting they do -- and in many different directions -- the better it is for the movie and creating a bigger fanbase. Get all the details at the official Rock Band Star Trek site, or the summary at Trekmovie.com.

RPG Bloggers Anthology

The release date for Open Game Table: The Anthology of Role-Playing Game Blogs, Volume One was announced last week. I've been eager to see it since the project started rolling on The Core Mechanic. And even more excited because the majority of posts that I nominated made it into the book!

Sample bits, including the table of contents, are available on its Lulu product page, and a preview was just posted to Wired's GeekDad blog.

It might seem odd to collect blog postings into a printed book, but I think it's great. Much of the most creative work going on in the RPG world is happening on blogs -- not just those of the professionals, but normal players, too. It would be a shame for the best of this writing to get lost in the intertubes. Granted, I'm one of those people who love the printed page and the artistry of a well-designed book, so I'm going to enjoy reading these posts in convenient off-line paper format.

Also, since one of the intentions behind the project was to get exposure for the RPG blogging community's work out to those folks who might not know about it (the people who buy their gaming books at the store with no other real contact with the hobby-at-large), I really hope we see this in the distribution chain and on store shelves.

My stack of partially-read books

Recently I've had a few people ask me what I've been reading. I haven't been able to give a straight answer. Much of the reading that I have done lately has been gaming-related, for the Freeport campaign -- rulebooks and sourcebooks -- but I've also tried to read some "real world" books.

We've been so busy and scattered around here lately that I find myself in a very unusual position. I'll pick up a book and start reading, then a real-life problem distracts me and I don't get back to it right away. When I get back to reading, another book attracts my attention and I start on the new one. It seems like a bibliophile's particular form of ADD.

At one point in the last couple of months, I've found myself somewhere in all the following books:

• World War Z by Max Brooks (which is returning back home soon, E.)
• The Nature of "a Work": Implications for the Organization of Knowledge by Richard P. Smiraglia
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
• Flying the Black Flag: A Brief History of Piracy by Alfred S. Bradford
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
• Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters by William Tsutsui
• The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe (I plan to review this soon)
• Watchmen trade paperback
• Shadows over Baker Street

That's only a sample of the to-be-read stack. I don't want to think about the DVD pile...

Speaking of Watchmen, here is a comparison between Watchmen and The Incredibles by Baltimore Sun movie critic Michael Sragow.

Goodbye, Circuit City

I'm really disappointed to see the end of Circuit City. It was always nice to know that there was another large electronics retailer out there, for competition and for an alternative. Sometimes they would have a good sale price on an item. We got our TV from CC, and I've purchased computer memory on sale there (Kingston Value RAM that constantly crashes our machines...).

I went to the local CC for the liquidation sale about four weeks ago. Deals were scarce but items were still on most of the shelves. They still had a ton of video games, a decent selection of DVDs and many of their CDs were left. I picked up two '80s CDs for Mrs. Kaiju. It's sad but the sale prices were still a bit steep. That might be a reason why they're going out.

I went again this past Saturday. Now that the discount prices are actually discounts, the shelves are bare. Surprisingly at 50% off, I found a nice collection of DVDs. The video games were wiped out except the strategic stockpile of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock w/ included guitar for XBox 36o.

One thing I was looking for was an HDMI cable. Many of their cables were still left and 60% off list price. Even so, it's very difficult for me to see paying $56 for a store brand HDMI cable. The only worthwhile item I found on this trip was The Dirty Dozen on Blu-ray for $12.

Target had GE branded HDMI cables on sale last week but when I got there, they were sold out. It's OK, the store was substituting a sale price on a 50-foot coax cable instead. A perfect replacement! I went over to Menards and got a six-foot cable for $15.

It's easy to find a cheap price on the internets, but there are some moments when you need an item that day, and that's getting a little more difficult.

Picture meme

The home computer is getting back to normal, so now I can participate in the meme that Edige tagged me with recently.

This photo is from a real estate site that was advertised on a news story I was reading several years ago. I believe it was for a condominium development. Chicago? Miami? I don't remember where.

I took drafting and architecture classes in high school and briefly considered it as a career, so I really enjoy looking at building plans. It really helps, too, being a gamer, as floor plans and diagrams are prevalent in adventure descriptions and sourcebooks. That's why I kept this, thinking it might be useful someday.

Here are the rules:

1. Go to your pictures folder
2. Post the sixth one
3. Tag six people

I'll tag Ms. Kaiju, Viking Moose, Terling, and Miakoda (others have already been tagged...). Who else could I tag?

Computer issues

First post in a while. I had hoped to write more but we've been having problems with our main computer. I'll be spending the weekend re-formatting, re-installing and updating. Good times!

Favorite Music Friday

Welcome to the first of what will hopefully be an ongoing regular feature here at Kaijuville. Partially to keep track of these things, partially because of feeling nostalgic recently, and inspired by VM's New Wave Saturday posts, I thought I'd offer up a few of my favorite songs along with some commentary about them and what they mean to me. It might be the song itself, or maybe an association with something else at the time. Our opening act is Pat Benatar from 1982:



Great song, but I also like the World War II "commando raid behind enemy lines" storyline. I can't resist any story about sneaking into Nazi castles (see also Where Eagles Dare or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). Bonus movie trivia: look for Judge Reinhold at 0:58.

The other thing going on here is something that I'll elaborate on further later, but for now I'll just mention the idea of seeing what people were nostalgic about at that time. I remember a general vibe of '40s and '50s nostalgia in the early '80s, probably started by American Graffiti and Happy Days in the 1970s.

a Hammer Studios DVD update

Besides an initial preview, I neglected to mention anything about the release of several Hammer films last year.

Sony released two sets of four movies that were originally released in the US by Columbia Pictures: Icons of Adventure (The Pirates of Blood River/The Devil-Ship Pirates/The Stranglers of Bombay/The Terror of the Tongs, review) in June and Icons of Horror (The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb/The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll/Scream of Fear/The Gorgon, review) in October.

Under a licensing arrangement with Legend Films, Paramount offered The Man Who Could Cheat Death (review) in October.

Warner Brothers, as part of a Sci-Fi Double Feature series, released Moon Two Zero and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth as a Best Buy exclusive in July, then widely in October. Dinosaurs is the full uncut British version despite the US running time listed on the back.

I've updated the R1 Hammer DVD list.

Cuteness

This is a good time for something happy and cute. Something that my friends Auzumel and Devilbird would call "elemental cuteness". Therefore, I present a photo from a card our dear neighbors sent us -- a kitten wearing a sweater:

It makes me giggle every time I look at it. And that's a very good thing.

More of the usual shenanigans soon.

RPG setting ideas -- The "old-school" experience

(Partly based on conversations with Big D, and also to keep track of these links)

This post is another one in a series seen here and here. For a while I've been thinking about playing a retro-clone based on the "old-school" D&D experience. I know trying to recapture that lightning in a bottle is usually a futile effort, but still I think it could be fun to try.

Possible rules to use:

• Labyrinth Lord
• Castles and Crusades
• OSRIC
• Basic Fantasy
• Barbarians of Lemuria
• ZeFRS
• Original D&D or Rules Cyclopedia (Basic/Expert/Companion/Masters)
• Microlite2o
• Dragon Warriors
• Microlite '74
• Swords & Wizardry
• A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming
• Mazes & Minotaurs
• Forward...To Adventure!
• Spellcraft & Swordplay
• Broadsword
• Red Box Hack
• Storming the Wizard's Tower
• BASH! Fantasy Edition

(more later as I find them)

Shiner Bock now available in Indiana

"Schlitz didn't pay a penny for this endorsement - and probably won't. R.E.H."

Earlier in the year I had been searching around for stores carrying Shiner Bock, a beer brewed in Shiner, Texas. It's sort of an "unofficial" favorite beverage of Robert E. Howard fans.

So I was surprised when this weekend, at the grocery store, I happened to look in the beer aisle and saw Shiner's Bohemian Black Lager and Hefeweizen on the shelf. Today I confirmed that Shiner started selling in Indiana about two months ago.

But if you plan to imbibe while you're at Howard Days in Cross Plains, deep in the heart of Texas, remember that Callahan County is a dry county.

New Bond and Star Trek 2009 Trailer

Mrs. Kaiju and I saw the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace on Saturday night. It was excellent, as expected. We didn't have a chance to watch Casino Royale again before seeing QoS like we wanted. The new film picks up immediately after it, so even though it works on its own, QoS is very much like the second half of CR.

Half of the reason I wanted to see QoS this weekend is because we're big Bond fans (and Mrs. Kaiju is quite a Daniel Craig fan). The other half is that the new Star Trek trailer is being shown with most prints of QoS, and I wanted to see it the right way -- on the silver screen -- before watching it repeatedly on the web.

Wow. That completely rocked. The snippets of scenes that we see look fantastic, and it's just a well-made preview in the way that it's structured. Trek is coming back in a big way. I am even more excited about the movie than I had been before. A high-def video of the trailer hits the official site tomorrow and Entertainment Tonight should be running it on Monday's show. Check it out... I don't believe you'll be disappointed.

Update: The so-called "TV spot" trailer was on ET tonight. The scenes were mixed around, and none of the Corvette chase was shown. Overall, I think it was a pretty effective 50 second spot. I'm disappointed that it's the sort of piece that we hardly ever see on ET anymore. It's become less of an entertainment news and preview program and more celebrity gossip.

Radar Clones from the Moon

Something I had been thinking about since seeing Revenge of the Sith -- there's a character who is one of the leaders of the clone army named Commander Cody. Knowing George Lucas, this is obviously a nod to the hero of the serial Radar Men from the Moon.

There is a guest post on Wired's GeekDad blog that references this, and also the band Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.

Check that page for links to information, plus YouTube videos of Radar Men from the Moon and appearances by the band.

"It’s a new ship, but she’s got the right name."

Big Trek news this week -- the first trailer for the new movie with real movie footage premieres in front of Quantum of Solace this weekend.

Also, the first photo of the new Enterprise was released on Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog, and it immediately set off heated discussion in the on-line fan community. This follows the usual pattern of 1) some people say they like it, 2) more people say they hate it, 3) the first group accuses the haters of not following the Trek philosophy of diversity and change, and 4) the haters say the new movie producers have ruined their childhood and "invalidated" 42 years of TV series and movies... as if all those books and DVDs will somehow spontaneously combust. *sigh*

As for me, I just don't think there's enough there in one still frame to form any kind of opinion. Part of it looks like fish-eye-lens distortion. There are a few seconds of the Enterprise in motion visible in the trailer, which will help. I'm also thinking that since alternate timelines are an important part of the storyline, I'm not sure if this is the One True Enterprise, or one of several we'll see.

History

Just in time for Lincoln's bicentennial, shortly after Inauguration Day.

Finally...an update

Yes, can you believe it? I haven't posted anything new since July. It's been a fast but stressful summer. You can read more about it over on Mrs. Kaiju's blog.

One big reason why I'm breaking my silence is the release of the first official photos from the new Star Trek movie. There are six pics exclusive to various entertainment sites but you can find links to each at Trekmovie.com.

There's more in the new Entertainment Weekly which should hit the stores tomorrow.

And I'll do my best to keep the blog updated in the future...