It can’t be the hardest quiz if I got 60%
Posted: July 27, 2011 Filed under: Dungeons and Dragons, games 3 CommentsHappy Birthday, Gary Gygax. I was surprised I scored as high as I did since so many others seem to know so much more Gygax-lore than I do.
Stefan took the Hardest Gary Gygax Quiz in the World and got 60%!
You are a Gary Gygax Myrmidon. You are mighty in the ways of Gary Gygax. You’re probably a First Edition or OD&D player, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you had an original copy of the Chainmail rules.
Paladin Code: You completed this quiz without using Google.
I am getting old
Posted: July 27, 2011 Filed under: wierd stuff 4 CommentsI was visiting my parent’s house in Saint Louis a week ago and noticed a copy of AARP magazine on the table. (AARP is the “American Association of Retired Persons” (or something like that)). The magazine, by itself, was not surprising. My father finally retired and he likes to look through magazines while sipping his morning coffee.
But I was alarmed to see Han Solo on the cover:
Desperate for attention, Glenn Beck sinks to a new low
Posted: July 26, 2011 Filed under: Dero, douchebaggery, politics, wierd stuff 2 Comments
Glenn Beck apparently saw all of the headlines about the attack in Norway by Anders Breivik and said to himself, “How can I get in on some of that attention?” Well, he gave it his best shot by comparing the people who got slaughtered at the Utoeye camp to ‘The Hitler Youth,‘ provoking hoped for howls of outrage from all over and once again getting his own name into the headlines.
Why do they do this?
Posted: July 26, 2011 Filed under: movies 5 CommentsIn almost every single movie where someone on foot is being chased by a car, the person being chased always seems to run along the road rather than off of the road. Why is that?
Currently Reading: The Hunger Games
Posted: July 23, 2011 Filed under: books, ideas, inspiration, post apocalypse, reviews Leave a comment
“The Hunger Games” is a 2008 young adult novel by Suzanne Collins (it is the first of three books in a series by the same author). My S.O. is currently writing a young adult novel, and, as a result, she ends up reading other things that have been published for young adult readers (most of which, according to Annie, is wretched stuff). She recommended I read ‘The Hunger Games,’ and, since she knows my taste fairly well, I finally got around to starting it a day ago.
I didn’t like the highly regarded “Ender’s Game” enough to finish it, and, in most cases, I’ll pass on literature written specifically for young adults. Although I am only about half way through “The Hunger Games” and am glad I picked it up. Collins is an excellent writer; her prose is spare without being bland and her characters are interesting. Since the book is for young adults, the main character is a fifteen year old girl named Katniss.
‘The Hunger Games’ takes place in a dystopian future where the inhabitants of the outlying towns (known as “districts”) work in near wage-slavery in order to support the lavish life of the privileged in the Capitol. Every year the Capitol hosts an event called “The Hunger Games.” A boy and a girl are selected at random from each district and fight to the death in a setting known as ‘The Arena.’ The last survivor’s district is given extra food and privileges for the coming year, so there is great pressure for the children selected to succeed.
The entire contest is televised. Participants are released into the ‘arena’ and expected to compete and win by any means necessary. Supplies like food, tools, medieval era weapons like spears, swords, bows and arrows, etc., are available if the participants are lucky enough to reach them first. Players are allowed to form alliances if they wish in order to ‘gang up’ on other players, but, eventually, they will need to turn on each other since the games end when only one survives. In addition, according to their popularity with the television viewers and the bribes provided by ‘sponsors,’ different participants may be occasionally given helpful items like a loaf of bread or some medicine, so smart players attempt to appear interesting or appealing to the viewers.
Katniss ends up being one of the ‘tributes’ to participate in “The Hunger Games.” Before his death, her father taught her how to hunt in the woods, fish, forage for nuts and berries, set snares for rabbits, etc. While the other players compete against one another for food supplied by the game masters, Katniss feeds herself with her hunting and foraging skills.
I’m only about 1/2 way through, but have enjoyed the book immensely so far despite the fact that it is written for a younger reader. Although the book is not as emotionally brutal as 1984, I think the book is not written ‘down’ for a younger audience. Her prose is solid; we learn a lot about Katniss‘ world and her opinions in passing and in context rather than having it laboriously explained. The book explores themes of Independence and personal responsibility but (as I am about 1/2 way through) is not too heavy handed in trying to get young readers to think about these topics.
I have been avoiding reading the Wikipedia entry on the book before I finish it. Suzanne Collins claims she was inspired to write “The Hunger Games” while channel surfing between news from the Iraq war and reality television shows. The idea of ‘fight to the death’ gladitorial games in a distant future isn’t original, but I think the book is good enough that I don’t care that I have seen these themes before.
Definite recommendation.
Bavaria is for Beer, Skiing, Polka and Pilgrims
Posted: July 21, 2011 Filed under: wierd stuff 6 Comments
It seems there is yet another thing I have to cross off of the itinerary of my next Bavarian vacation. The remains of Rudolf Hess, noted Nazi propagandist and skydiver, were exhumed from his grave in Wunseidel, Bavaria. The tombstone was removed and the remains shall be cremated and scattered at sea.
Hess’ grave was a noted tourist destination for goose-stepping tourists from as far away as Iowa who would come to gawk at the tombstone and pay their respects to the ‘last man in Spandau Prison.’ The general creepiness of the visitors who would travel from distant lands to leave flowers and shed tears are one of the reasons that the town of Wunseidel decided that this was one tourist attraction that they would prefer to do without. That and all the skinheads who liked to descend on their town for rallies in which the ‘achievements’ of a dubious regime and it’s suicidal leadership were celebrated. Perhaps Wunseidel’s populace would like to become known for other things… or think that being unknown is preferable to being known as the Neo-Nazi ‘Sturgis’ of Bavaria.
Check out Hess’ Groucho eyebrows in the pic at right. Although Rudolf’s dad was as Aryan as the driven snow, his mother was a Greek, which probably required considerable pruning of the Hess family tree in order to make Hitler’s right hand appear presentably Aryan.
He also provided considerable fodder for conspiracy theorists. Hess started off as Hitler’s right hand man but abruptly ended up parachuting into England Scotland where he was promptly imprisoned. Some said Hess was attempting to broker a peace deal; others said he feared assassination in Germany and decided to ‘escape’ to England Great Britain. Like the child of divorced parents, the former allies and the USSR had a ‘shared custody’ arrangement at Spandau Prison. Hess could look forward to Russian guards one month, American guards the next, etc. Long after the West had lost interest in keeping Hess in prison, the USSR continued to insist he remain there, giving rise to yet more theories on what secrets Hess knew and why the Russians wanted to keep him there. Hess hung himself (or was murdered by the British, according to the theorists) in 1987. Before he died, one of the prison doctors made headlines by declaring that the man in Spandau was NOT Rudolf Hess. Others insist that it was indeed Hess but trying to quash conspiracy rumors with facts is a hopeless enterprise.
GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
Posted: July 19, 2011 Filed under: ideas, inspiration, movies 6 Comments
There is a very short post by James M. over at Grognardia which has garnered 70+ comments and counting. James M. stuck up the picture at right (which is of the actor who is playing the part of Thorin, leader of the dwarves, from Jackson’s “Hobbit” film) along with a caption saying who it was. Most of the comments (I haven’t read them all) seem to be debating the issue of whether or not this ‘looks’ like one of Tolkien’s dwarves or not. 
I don’t think the above ‘Thorin’ looks how I pictured him. I lived in Germany as a wee kid and had access to all kinds of really old fairy tale books as a kid which somehow made me imagine dwarves as somewhat more stumpy, grouchy looking garden gnomes with wrinkled faces and impossibly long beards. I know that’s just a step away from the somewhat maudlin Walt Disney Snow White cartoon, but Disney’s images and mine may have been drawn from the same sources (we had a pile of illustrated German fairy tale books that I think inspired me to want to draw, some of which were old when my mother was a child. Among them is Heinrich Hoffmann’s “Struwwelpeter” which is probably still in reprint today and continues to guarantee that German kids grow up somewhat perverse and twisted — but there are no dwarves in Struwwelpeter; just kids getting killed, mutilated or humiliated).what I have been doing
Posted: July 17, 2011 Filed under: mosaic, project 15 CommentsI’ve been putting in long hours on a mosaic tile floor as a part of a commission at a non profit in Saint Louis. I hope to finish today. This is a pic that was snapped by someone’s smart phone; I plan to take better pics before I go… but the project means sore hands, sore knees, a sore back, etc.
Hitting the Road
Posted: July 13, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized 4 CommentsI’ll be away from home for about a week and don’t know how frequently I will be able to check the blog, email or reply to comments.
I am sure you will all get along fine without me.
The Success and Failure of Gygaxian Naturalism
Posted: July 13, 2011 Filed under: Dungeons and Dragons, games 5 Comments
One of the fun things about D&D that was integral to the whole concept of the game from day one was the idea that ‘things’ in the D&D world more or less worked like they did in the real world but with magic and the fantastic and mytholgy just rolled in. So rats ate dead adventurers, kobolds ate the rats, goblins ate kobolds, etc., and a big gelatinous cube came through and cleaned it all up in order to prevent the dungeon passages from getting impassibly clogged with bones, torch stubs and orc dung. I think some people call this “Gygaxian Naturalism” (although I don’t know who coined the term or how it was originally intended; this is the meaning I have gathered through the context in which I have seen it used).
“Gygaxian Naturalism” is probably not good enough for science, but a vague outline of the circle of life exists in the fantasy world, allowing us to sit down and enter the fantasy world with enough ‘real world’ knowledge to help us along. It’s one of the things that helps a new player easily immerse themselves in the game. So one might know, without having been told, that in the fantasy world water is wet and our newly rolled up dwarf characted will drown if held underwater. The fact that one had to employ knowledge of the real world to navigate the fantasy one made immediate intuitive sense to me when I first sat down to play. How far my character could move in my turn was deduced by how fast I wanted him to move (did I want him to stroll or run?) and whether or not he was heavily burdened with armor, weapons, treasure, etc. It is difficult for me to convey how ‘different’ this was in my circle of friends in 1978 when we first started playing.
One of the places where ‘Gygaxian Naturalism’ breaks down for me is in the intersection between monsters of myth/legends and those same/similar monsters presented in D&D. Initially, learning that in D&D, ‘Medusa’ was not the proper name of one of the gorgon sisters killed by Perseus but rather the species name of a woman with snakes for hair and a parlyzing gaze was somewhat confusing. Discovering that “gorgons” were not the daughters of a sea god but were, instead, a bull covered in iron scales was, similarly, disconcerting. This made my meager knowledge of mythology less useful in the gaming context but delivered the advantage that in the Greek myths, Perseus could defeat Medusa only once since once she was dead she was gone, whereas in our D&D games we could kill (or, more likely, be petrified by) medusas every session. I think the trade off is well worth it.