Pantheon of the Gods

Originally posted: Jul 27, 2006 on MySpace

Event Description - Bring your 3 most powerful figures to the table:
one feat card per character.

Universe - HeroClix

Event Date - Thursday, July 13, 2005 12:00pm

Participants - Armando, Bryan, Joe, Robert
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All hell broke loose on the grounds of the Xavier mansion as Dark Phoenix rose again with the help of the trickster Loki! The same powers that brought back the dark entity also ripped a hole in the dimensional fabric, allowing him to also recruit the young and impressionable Mary Marvel. The Shi'Ar, immediately aware of this threat dispatched the Gladiator who also pulled assistance from the alternate universe but from completely different points in time, as the top contenders Superman and Shazam came to his aid. The god of war himself recognizing the threat this dimensional rift could cause made to close it and was mystically torn into two versions of himself. There could be only one god of war and a rivalry began with that creation. Again the rift spit out aid as Green Lantern followed Shazam from the future, intent on stopping him and a befuddled Tick was thrown into the fray, trying to stop an imposter god. Meanwhile the conflict on The Raft out in New York was put on hold as The Sentry and Count Nefaria recognized a greater threat, joining the god of war in trying to stop the Phoenix.

As the duplicate gods battled the Gladiator's efforts were valiant and his comrades proved their strength against the mighty Phoenix, suffering terrible injury along the way until Count Nefaria slipped in and destroyed the risen body of Jean Grey. Loki, his plans temporarily thwarted withdrew, leaving Mary Marvel to fight the Tick and Superman. With the Phoenix gone, the hero hating insane Shazam drew his teammates to battle with the other super powers that had converged, leading to the fall of both instances of the mighty Ares. Taking advantage of the confusion and the weakening do-gooders, Loki slipped back into the fray and eliminate the worn heroes as they battled amongst themselves. The Green Lantern finally fell under the final strain of effort he used to obliterated the devastating Gladiator, leaving only the mighty Shazam to deal with the nefarious scheming of Loki. As the power of two gods pounded at each other pushing themselves past fatigue into horrendous strain, Shazam finally broke the power of Loki, dispelling him from this dimension! Alone on a desolated battlefield, surveying the destruction their immortal battle had wrought, Shazam collapsed, succumbing to the grievous wounds he had earned in the bloody skirmish. There are no winners. Only heroes.

The Pantheon of the Gods was a HeroClix scenario that we've run a couple of times for absolute kicks. There is no play balance, since the figures are all over the board in terms of power, abilities, and shear scale (we also allow Robert's excellently crafted custom figures). This particular game turned into a major epic as the four of us duked it out into an effective four way tie that ended with a double KO.

Joe quoted it well: "All and all, that was probably one of the best HeroClix matches I've ever played guys, simply awesome"

I can only hope we have many more matches like this one!

Quick Quotes

Originally posted: Jul 6, 2006 on MySpace

Me: The only way to enter a relationship as absolute equals would be if you were to marry yourself. And... um ... ew?
Maria: yes...EW does sum it up. Besides it'd be rather hard to call in domestic abuse.
Me: Me - "Hello? 911? I'm beating myself."
911 - "Um... ew?"
Maria: HAHAHA

Bryan: The girl in Superman Returns was an alright actress, she just didn't look the part. The voice actress from the show was a perfect Lois Lane: a ball buster! And then there's Teri Hatcher, who was just a man.

Joe: Yeah, but she was pretty hot for a guy! I've got no problems with that.

Superman is a DICK!

Originally posted: Jun 30, 2006 on MySpace

Well, as SuperDickery.com has illustrated, the Man of Steel is freakin' dick to everyone, and the closer he is to someone he's being a dick to, the more he seems to enjoy it. So, going to see Superman Returns on Wednesday we couldn't help but keep noticing the little telling moments where, given the choice between doing nothing and seeming rude or abusing his powers and being a dick, he always erred on the side of dicketry. I mean, look at the guy! His buddy "The Flash" comes up to say 'hi' and...

What a dick. Anyway, Superman Returns. Yeah, good movie. I was particularly pleased with how they eased it right back in with the original two Christopher Reeve Superman movies. From their use of the old footage of Marlon Brando as Jor-El to the streeking 70's style in which they did the credits to even the mimicing of Reeve's Clark Kent mannerisms, Returns fits right into the Superman movie continuity as if there had been no break at all. This is also evident in Kevin Spacey's Lex Luthor portrayal wich is almost exactly like Gene Hackman's version, but here, alas, I had hoped Luthor's ingenuity and intelligence would be played up as much as his cold determination and cruelty. I will also admit my dissappointment in the super action scenes. They were awesome, don't get me wrong, but after the thing with the plane, every time Superman did something amazing it just kind of seemed like the same scene over and over again...

I'm pretty sure this comes from him not having an opponent anywhere near his power level in this movie. We saw him handling emergencies he was well above and all his super powered act were against innanimate objects. I was probably ruined when I saw screenshots of the video game where it looked like he was fighting a giant robot. It could be that I got my hopes up for something that would be able to smack him around a little bit. I really just wanted to see Superman haul off and slug something with current day special effects behind him. All there were, however, were natural phenomenon and human opposition. Though, I like to imagine that when the camera cut away from that guy who tried to shoot him in the face Supes turned around and 'slapped that guy skinny', Panther-Style:

So, it was a good movie, I guess I just had my hopes too high on the 'super hero' side. Maybe by the next one we'll bring in somebody like Brainiac or Darkseid to mess with (I'm pretty sure Bizarro, much like Venom, is going to require at least one more sequel before we're willing to accept the comic logic). On the dramatic side, this story was a real winner. Asking how Superman, the aforementioned dick, can deal with coming back after a five year absence to find the woman he loves is engaged to someone else and already has a child is a challenge that super strength and invulnerability weren't meant to handle. Again, the use of Marlon Brando's old role as Jor-El really helps to paint an image of solitude for Supes.

Well, lets hear it for the summer of sequel blockbusters! Next up: Pirates!

Whoa! O_o

Originally Posted: Jun 26, 2006

Just stopping by to share some amusing tidbits from the weekend. I also think I'm going to write up another summary of entertainment at the end of the month to quick recap movies and games. For now, enjoy:

Street Fighter Vs Mario! (Watch it, its short!)

And as a bonus: T3-Katamari!

Quality vs Technology

Originally posted: Jun 14, 2006 on MySpace

I've wanted to share this for a while, though I'm sure most of you have read it. This was a post by Gabe on Penny-Arcade back on May 15th regarding what he saw with the new Indiana Jones game at E3:

"Instead of animating Indy they essentially taught him how to behave and react to his surroundings. They said this was better because it means youll never see the same canned animation over and over. What it means is that I see different stupid looking animations all the time though. Im not sure thats an improvement. Ill take God of Wars beautifully animated special moves over Indy looking like some kind of retarded marionette any day."

This is something I feel very strongly about, regardless of its ramifications on my life as a game artist. I like my games like I like my cg movies and animated features: with style. This is the same problem I have with motion capture animation. I'd rather see over the top, far beyond believable animation than animation that looks like somebody having trouble walking in a rubber suit. I HATE it when they try to recreate reality and all I can think the entire time I'm supposed to be enjoying myself is how wrong it looks, and how much money they wasted! I WANT to see fictional creations and things that are impossible (or nearly) to duplicate in reality. That's what I paid for. Plus, the closer and closer CG or even hand drawn animation comes to reality, the more exponentially expensive it ends up getting, and the more expensive the end product. Notice which 360 games are $60 or higher?

Case in point: Can anyone out there honestly say that Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was better than The Incredibles?

So where exactly am I?

Originally posted: Jun 13, 2006 on MySpace

Sometimes its hard to figure out where I stand...

I mentioned before about breaking up with Megan, but now I think I need to extrapolate if, for nothing else, just to try and get my position straight. The break up was no surprise, in fact it was an almost exact mirror of a conversation we had had over Thanksgiving when she had just returned from Iraq. The short version went something like:
- We've been 'going out' for almost 2 years but had only ever spent a total of maybe 3 or 4 weeks worth of time together during them.
- When we're together, things are fine, but the longer we're apart, the less interested she is.
- We (I in particular) can't afford to fly across the country to visit as often as either of us would like.

While this makes a very difficult relationship, we decided to keep at it a while longer now that she was back in the country and see how well we could make it now that we'd be able to visit, talk, and IM more often than when she was stationed overseas. It worked pretty well: we got a couple good weekends in, we're both T-Mobile subscribers, so we can talk to each other for free, and now that she was only 2 hours ahead of me instead of 9, I could talk and chat with her at reasonable hours for both of us.

However, fast forward about six months and we're still on the same boat. I'm always at the computer at work or at home, but her interest in signing onto a messenger program fades. Our phone calls dwindle day by day as we don't always have enough to talk about to warrant more than a few minutes of dialogue (neither of us can fully disclose what we do at work, nor is the other more than passingly interested in the first place). Its even more difficult that our hobbies don't exactly overlap when she's trying to tell me about Brokeback Mountain and I'm trying to explain Kingdom Hearts. Then, of course, I don't know about her finances (though I suspect they're getting tight as she just bought a house), but my own debt is starting to go back into the negatives as I'm still scrambling to pay off the past few months worth of trips and tickets. So, yeah, when she was sick and miserable and irritable the other weekend, I'm not surprised it was finally time to have this conversation again.

Now the thing is, though we've officially broken up, we're now back to talking and IMing more often than we had been in the couple months previous. This could be the result of our recent visit, so once again her she's thinking of me more often before her interest fades after more time apart. It may be a similar circumstance to my situation living with Maria where our relationship had ended some time before we officially called it off, so when we finally did put it to bed we could be that much closer and more open as friends. Or maybe Megan is having second thoughts when actually faced with the prospect of losing me and is making an extra effort. I have a lot of trouble guessing what the case may be, particularly when I'm guilty of similar ambivalence. I understand that we're a hard pressed match, but I'm not exactly anxious to let her go, either. Then again, is my heart really in it for the long hard road she and I are inevitably going to have to face to stay together? Together we fit, and rather well, I might say, but apart, our lives seem wholly incompatible.

This is most definitely a 'follow my heart' situation, but what do I do when my heart is looking at me like, "wtf?" I guess I just wanted to think things through. If you read this far, I appriciate your interest in my love life! Wish I had some cooler stuff to share. We'll see about that next week. I think I'm finally tired enough to head back to bed. G'night.

The answer is "No."

Originally Posted: May 29, 2006 on MySpace

Alright, then, the abridged version of the birthday weekend. Everything cool was marred with some disappointment:

- Got a HeroClix Dark Phoenix and promptly tried her out in a game where I got my ass handed to me.

- Talked to Megan when she arrived in Portland but found she wouldn't be coming down to Eugene until the next day.

- Got an awesome amount of work done almost in time for the unofficial deadline when the J-tool goes crap-tastic on me, loses half my work, and generates a visual bug that makes work take twice as long to work around. This results in being later than we should have been to X-Men III so if anyone else was there, I sure didn't see them.

- Saw X-Men III, but sat next to a couple of underage drinkers who were flirting with each other louder and louder as the movie progressed.

- Thought the day was a bit disappointing and spent about an hour writing out what I thought was a fair analysis of the whole thing and questioning if I could still be happy about the good things that day. Computer/Banner-Ad error causes me to lose both the blog AND the back-up file I copy/paste to, specifically in case computer/banner errors cause me to lose blog.

- Found out I was griping prematurely as I drive to Portland the next day to meet Megan and her family for breakfast only to be in time to take her to the emergency room for a rash that's only been getting worse for the past couple days. Manage to subsist the rest of the day on a tiny slice of pizza and a bit of Starbucks carrot cake until 10:30pm dinner, where I buy everyone pizza.

- I get to spend pretty much the rest of the weekend with Megan, but she still has this strange allergic reaction that leaves her itchy and irritable. Physical contact almost completely out of the question during my first visit with her in almost 2 months.

- We finally break up because its becoming hard to maintain a passionate long distance relationship (and I choose not to mention that I couldn't afford it as it was, anyway).

So, at the end of my birthday/holiday weekend, I have to look back at how amusing it was to ask if it was a good birthday.