Fictionlet

"Every day she thinks up new and inventive ways to heap abuse on me," Greg said. "We're like Stella and Astrophil, except that I'm Stella, and she's more like, I dunno, Misastro or something."

Alex blinked. "What the hell are you talking about?"

-The Gneech

<-- previous B&G
next B&G -->

Some Stuff, and Some Other Stuff, Plus Some Stuff

Some Stuff: Happy Birthday, graveyardgreg!

Some Other Stuff: lythandra and I saw National Treasure over the weekend. I liked it! It was nice to see an adventure movie where "smart" was the heroes' primary characteristic. Also, it only had one explosion, which is a refreshing change. Despite what people may think, it isn't actually a Da Vinci Code ripoff so much as a pretty standard "treasure hunt" type movie. (And unlike The Da Vinci Code, it doesn't purport to based on anything like reality.) It's not going to displace Raiders of the Lost Ark by any means, but it was a nice, solid adventure flick.

Also re-watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the first time since it came out; it fared a lot better on re-watching than it did the first time, just because I was over the shock of it being so completely wrong in spots. I tried to savor the parts that were right, instead of cringing at the shrunken heads, the cartoonish depictions of Ernie, Fred & George, and Peter Pettigrew, the pervasive presence of muggle clothes, the completely different Hogwarts, and the stupid "grim in the sky" bit that completely negates the whole premise of the book. So what was right, you may ask? Well ... um ... the Marauders' Map was just about perfect; Buckbeak was very nice; and of course Snape dressed up as Neville's Grandmother was a highlight. The basic problem was that Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets nailed the look and feel so perfectly, that any deviation from that is a step in the wrong direction, and they not only deviated, in some ways they did their best to throw away the other two.

Plus Some Stuff: Laurie and I have a rather large collection of VHS tapes made of TV broadcasts of Batman: The Animated Series during its original run. Now that the series is coming out on DVD, we don't need to keep the tapes any more ... but before we go and erase them, I'm offering them to anybody who might want 'em. They have commercials, occasional transmission glitches, and the like, but you can't beat the low, low price of "free." All I ask is that you cover the postage. Just drop me a note!

-The Gneech

Dear Santa:

I was a good boy this year, at least compared to last year. Who are you to judge? WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE??? If it was you, you'd have done exactly the same thing. EXACTLY THE SAME!

So if I get coal again, I'm going to know that you're just a self-righteous bastard who gets some kind of perverse delight in tormenting me.

I had my reasons. I'm a good boy.

I am.

I AM!!!

-The Gneech

Hey, Computer Game Industry Geeks!

Whatever happened to THIS?

It seems to have been released in the U.K., but not the U.S.? Anybody have a clue why?

-The Gneech

An Open Letter to Northern Virginia

Dear Stupid:

It is DE - CEM -BER. It is NOT AP - RIL. Please stop with the 60-degrees, heavy overcast, and drizzle. Make with the bright blue sky and just below freezing, with last night's snow fresh on the ground.

While you're at it, stop with the talking on the cellphone while you drive, too.

-The Gneech

Bonan the Contrarian

Well, I DLed a demo version of the Conan game for PC, but all it did was crash at me. :P I decided therefore to grab the X-Box version off of eBay, which cost me £9.99 including postage (or ~$19.50 US). We'll see if it's any good; in the meantime, I've got no outlet for my desire to crush my enemies, drive them before me, and hear the lamentations of their women.

Alas!

The closest thing I've got is various D&D computer games, which don't quite have that engaging feel. I don't want to sit back and watch my character chopping up monsters (a la Icewind Dale or Neverwinter Nights), I want to be mashing buttons and jumping all around the terrain (a la Tomb Raider).

I suppose I could carve foes up with my lightsaber in Jedi Knight ... but that's aliens and deckplates rather than swords and sorcery.

Woe, to be a picky gamer!

-The Gneech

PS: What I really want is for somebody to run this. Although I'd happily play a D&D barbarian too.