I Pine To Die In The Forest

Something about yesterday's Penny Arcade struck a chord in me. I really like the Lookouts and the whole strip stuck with me, I hope that the "metamind" will choose to pursue the Lookouts story. Unless something more awesome appears. I just really liked the strip and I am convinced that the expanded storyline involves one of those little kids dying in some horrific, yet noble, fashion.

Also, if they could throw in a deep crow, that would be the shit.

Burn Notice is back and I am giddy with delight. It is a glorious show and season two was quite epic. The first episode of the new season delivered decent entertainment value and I think it shows what we can expect for most of the season. The beauty of Burn Notice is that it has shorter seasons (I believe season two had like fourteen or something around that, could be wrong) so there are less stupid filler episodes that you get on twenty plus episode seasons. Supernatural has like twenty-two episode seasons and I think Grey's Anatomy had like twenty-six or something and both of those had idiotic filler episodes where really only the bare minimum of plot-related stuff happens. Dexter and Doctor Who both have really short twelve or thirteen episode season and they always deliver. Doctor Who does have some filler episodes, but they are for comedic effect I think and generally involve a lot of running, which the Doctor does fairly often and to my great amusement.

I started watching Flight of the Conchords and find it to be hilarious. Heather hates it as much as she hates The Office. The thing about The Office (and Flight of the Conchords too I think) is that all my enjoyment of the show comes from the fact that all the humor is completely deadpan and all the characters are completely serious about the insane and idiotic shit they do. The Dwight character on The Office isn't like "hehe, I'm going to cut of the face off of this dummy and it will be funny" the character completely believes in what he is doing and that it is a valid thing to do in the situation (It helps if the actor is convincing too), and that is part of what makes it hilarious. Plus, the songs on Flight of the Conchords are very amusing.

I finished another review of my story last night (the third, plus all the times I've reread chapters), tightened some things up, deleted other stuff. I need to be careful when I read through the thing, I keep expanding on stuff and fleshing out descriptions, and obviously this increases the word count. I think I should be working on reducing the word count a bit and eliminating irrelevant bullshit. Like towards the end of writing the thing I started adding in some insane thing about sea-folk being possessed by some manner of life devouring presence and that presence...to avoid spoilers I must be vague, the presence and the sea-folk it possessed try to fuck shit up. It was all tacked on towards the tail end of the book (the last three chapters I think) and it really served no purpose other than "oh look, stuff", so I tore it out last night. I think it shows I'm growing as a writer, or that I'm growing as an editor. I noticed The Rise of the Tau had a bunch of kitchen sink syndrome shit and I think that helped me to notice what I should be looking for in my own writing.

So far so good with WoW. I haven't gotten sick of it yet. I managed to put a level and a quarter on Benjamin (my higher level rogue) and about eight onto my low level hunter Akulna. Benjamin is currently wandering around Shadowmoon Valley in the Outlands. The quests are quite thick and I haven't even been into the Razoredge Mountains (which I don't quite know how to get into yet). I think Friday night I might put in an hour or so of mining/engineering work with Benjamin, I took up engineering with him when I saw there were Gyrocopters in the game. Fuck yes is all I have to say to that. Too bad I put so much money and time and effort into alchemy, which was a nice skill. But I have like 40 super mega healing potions in the bank and gyrocopters and explosives are totally worth it.

I think I'll pick up Prototype this weekend, unless I read a terrible review or something of that sort before Saturday. Seems like an interesting game, and it is a sandbox,(or at least it was last time I read about it), and you can morph your limbs into some fucked up shit, which is also a plus.

I find it very hard to believe that the guys chose Spineplate for their NPC in DnD last weekend. They could have chosen Smiling Jack, master of the bardic colleges, or Laram or Bald William, the right and left hands of Cenn the Reaver. But no, they chose Spineplate the bestial and somewhat not-quite-right soulless (which they didn't even question, which is standard procedure for them I suppose, I'm not referring to his intelligence either, which is actually above average. Its his voice, it is one voice and lacks the echo that other soulless possess, seems odd and is definitely something I would want to know about when dealing with a weird animalistic undead robot, but that's just me). I think I played him pretty well though, I managed to stick to one word answers and only had to translate for him the one time because the second scenario relies upon what was translated being made clear to the guys. I guess I just don't know their movitation for Spineplate as a choice, I made a point of saying that he had a big metal plate welded to his face with his citizenry identification etched into it (like the plate of metal with Mythbusters on it when they're about to cut to a commercial or come back from one), but every NPC had one of those behind their ears just like the players do, Spineplate doesn't have ears and is made of metal so he had to be numbered somehow and it is a pretty obvious physicaly feature that needed to be put into his description. The guys latch onto some weird stuff sometimes.

I think I'm going to try and work on the warden's creed, the Lookouts creed kind of inspired me. Plus, I figure it makes sense that an organization like the wardens would have a creed or something to be sworn when they gain their badge.

In other news, Traith has to find a way out of city of bards. Part of the deal that let him into the city was that if he tries to leave, every hand will turn against him. Too bad he didn't find the answers he was looking for down there. For those of you reading this and playing DnD, he meets up with Spineplate (and blows out the back of his skull). The Traith story is set like fifty years before my DnD scenario though.

Music: Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie