The Minnesota State Fair - There's always someone uglier

Hit the fair last night. Here's me food list:

Teryaki Ostrich on a Stick - rubbery, looked like hamburger, and tasted bad. Yuck.
Cotton Candy
French Fries
Mini Donuts
Dippin Dots
Hush Puppies
Frozen Grapes
Corn Dog
Fun Dip

Played Skee Ball, and road the Ferris Wheel with two wheels on a larger wheel. Good times. Oh, and I signed up to win an iPod from the Republicans, scored a free blinky thing from the post office for noticing that the trend in their quiz was that the answer is ALWAYS the biggest number, and met Mark Wheaton (sort of).

GC from Indy

Well, no posts from the Con. No time for love Doctor Jones! Honestly, about the only thing Nick's laptop was used for was confirming event locations and updating Nick's D&D minis collection (nerd). It's been a week now, so the early days are hazy, but I'll try for a quick run down of events. Some of them might be summaries, so the real humor will show up on someone else's blog....

Thursday - Thursday housed the first in a long series of seminars with writers that said things like, "Don't make up your own world completely," and "Only make as much language as you need." That's not what I went to the seminars for, so most of them were a waste of time... The basic Green Stuff sculpting class I took was good for getting a sense of tools I'd need, but really didn't do much in the way of basics. However, True Dungeon made up for both of those let downs... It rocked, except for half of the party being turned to stone halfway through the event. *sigh* Oh well. John made it through alive at least. Thursday, all I scored from the vendor hall was an adventure from Paizo. Thursday was also the night of the Oompa Loompa, and me ralphing my dinner because I was laughing so hard.

Friday - Friday held another seminar that wasted my time, but followed that up with a fun and rousing game of Godlike. What did I learn from Godlike? I know the rules exceptionally well. Well enough I could end most encounters by myself in two to three rounds. Less if my squad mates listened. I should have been the Lt. I followed Godlike up with (or maybe precluded it, can't remember) a class on costuming that Wendy had signed up to take. I'm not sure why the class cost $7.50. It included a xeroxed booklet with a few tips, and there was no actual hands-on stuff. Scratch that, I know why. The instructor had wanted a two hour class, in which we would have made a top for belly dancing or a cloak, but we only had one hour. Friday was too busy for me to hit the dealer hall. We had rad sushi on Friday, though. I took a nap that evening and slept through the seminar I really wanted to take on RPG and education. Oh well.

Saturday - The last day for John and I as I wanted to hit the road early. Saturday was saw a seminar that didn't completely suck as well as a class on sculpting that helped out way more than the basic class and gave me tons of visions of cool dragon sculpts. Midnight Zombie Show was also Saturday, but I skipped. Matt when in my stead, and he and Nick had a blast. Hell, Nick even won a board game for good roleplaying... I scored fat loot on Saturday; playtesting and purchasing Condotierre from FFG (card game about rennaisance Italy), and picking up some dice and hentai for Wendy and I. Oh, and I bought Shadorwun's newest book, Augmentation.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the City of Brass boxed set, and I went cheap and didn't buy many of the RPGs that were on my list, because I can get them all locally. Sure, buying at GC means vendors go back. Unfortunately, I wanted to get to my mom's for lunch, otherwise we might have went back Sunday for some bargain shopping.

Oh well. The Con was fun, and I successfully pitched a setting to a publisher. Time to start working on that.....

Oh yeah, and WotC announced 4th edition.

Gen Con and reviews

Well, since it's been a month plus since I posted last, the reviews will be a jumbled collection of things I can sort of remember. Driving Lessons has Rupert whatshisname (Ron Weasely), and that boy can act. He starts working for a crazy old lady at the bidding of his ridiculously publicly Christian mom. Antics progress from there. I liked the movie a lot.

Kung Fu Hustle also rocked, but don't expect much in the way of serious here. Also, don't expect a whole lot of the big band dance lines I remember seeing in the trailers. Either way, the movies a good slap stick parody of a legendary figures kung fu flick. Good times.

Who Killed the Electric Car? This movie isn't too bad, but the beginning is a little too propogandist for me. Sure, it's a documentary, but it's not an objective look at the issue. I always think that documentaries should do one of two things. Present both sides of an issue in a non-biased fashion so the audience can make up their own minds, OR present a mostly one sided view of an issue along with suggestions on how things can or could have turned out differently. This one did neither. It mosly pointed the finger at the auto industry, a few political figures, and American consumerism (oh, and don't forget Big Oil), and briefly outlined why hydrogen cells will fail. Even so, I liked the flick and it's good enough to get the ole brain gears going.

On the gaming front, we picked up a Nintendo Wii. The game list is now Wii Sports, Wii Play, WarioWare, and Red Steel. We get the most use out of Wii Sports. I'm looking forward to getting Zelda:Twilight Princess and Mario Strikers (the soccer one, not sure if that's the right game). Also in the gaming field, Guitar Hero Rocks the 80's came out. I'm a little saddened at the music selection and the dummed down version of the game, but I'll still play it when the need arises. I've heard rumors of Guitar Hero III on the horizon.

The biggest news of all, though, is Gen Con! August 15th we roll down to Indy for some serious fun. I think the gaming will be minimal this year, so we'll see how much fun it is compared to last year. I have a Godlike game and the Midnight Zombie Show. The rest is seminars and classes. Two classes on minis sculpting, which should be interesting. We scored a hotel two blocks from the convention center this year, and judging from the construction downtown, I'm glad we did. Whoa.

Hopefully I can post from the Con, and even more importantly, post more than once a month in the future. Summers winding down, so I may be spending more time in front of El Computador anyway.

Independant

The fam came and went. Readers, I hope your Fourth was as fun as mine. Hopefully, the familiy visit went as well as they say it did, and they'll come back sometime.

Breif recaps

- As mentioned, the family was here for four days. We hit the Science Museum of Minnesota, shopped, played Phase 10 and Wii, and ate at Fuji Ya, Everest on Grand, Khan's, and the Uptowner. Good times. My little bro (almost 6'6") is starting his own D&D campaign. I'm so proud.

- Work on the Gen Con mega adventure continues. I think I figured out the setting for my second artifact. Now I just need to stat it out, get Nick's character stats and post the sign up sheet online. I think maybe I'll do the latter first, as that'll give me more incentive to get shit written up... Also, continuing to meet with Nick every Sunday might help. Gen Con's only a month away!

- Picked up Expanded Psionics Handbook. Strangely enough, the book helped me narrow what I wanted the Borderlands to be in Iorthim. That's strange because I'm thinking Wild West. How did I get that from psionics, which play such a minimal role anywhere in the setting anyway?

- The Savage Tide continues. In our last game, the group shopped, then headed out to find Vanthus Vanderboren. The shopping was almost a full session itself, but it did a lot to secure the party as friends, boost some interesting dynamics, and bring out some personal story for a few of the characters. Pulled Kord more heavily into Bill's life, exerted a little more independance and pomp from Satanos, fortified Kima's feeling of loss for Oreana and accentuated her strangely placed girlyness, and put Nyfel on the fringes of the group where he belongs. Everyone's having fun, and looking forward to Wednesday nights. Whoot.

- I need a Wii.

2nd day

Caught Daywatch this weekend with Nick. Good fuckin flick. Nick was a little displeased with a deus ex machina twist at the end, and I'll admit that given just the two flicks it does seem that's the case. Not having read the books yet, I'm reserving the displeasure until I know for sure if the twist actually has something to do with the final part of the trilogy or not.

Other than that, there isn't much to complain about if you take the story for what it is in the setting it builds. I definitely have to read the trilogy to see what's missing. Either way, toss the DVD on your Netflix for TOMORROW and then catch the movie while you still can. Unless you've seen Nightwatch, then get your ass to the theater.

Oh, and if you've seen Ice Pirates, tell me whether you think the "sex" scene with Anton/Olga/Sveta is inspired by the "sex" scene in Ice Pirates...

Vente

Nick and I are planning on running an Epic level adventure at Gen Con. If enough people sign up, we'll have two teams chasing an artifact, racing each other for a wish. So far, my team is thus:

Incarnate Golem Monk 17. With a 100 ft move and Spring Attack, this bad boy controls the field. His Tumble of 23ish means he's going where he wants to go. Nearly 250 hit points, an AC of 40, and a flurry of blows for six attacks (half of which are at +33 to hit) all combine to mean he's there to stay when he's decided to.

Dwarf Rogue 10/Dwarven Defender 10. A Bluff of 23 means this guy applies his 5d6 sneak attack A LOT. With an attack similar to the monk, minus the flurry of blows, he hits a lot, too. Viatka, his keen dwarven waraxe of frosty chaotic outsider bane +5 just adds to the fun. Spending most of his cash on AC pumped his up to 46. Which is good, cause he's got less hit points than the monk.

Aasimar Sorcerer 4/Cleric 5/Mystic Theurge 10. I've barely even though about this guy, but he'll be able to cast over 90 spells PER DAY. That's hardcore.

Human Wizard 16/Archmage 4. Slowly working on this guy. Spell-like ability dispel magic 4/day combined with Mastery of Counterspelling means that at least four times a day he's sending a spell targeting him right back at the caster... Master of Shaping makes his area effects even more potent. Hell, I might just make the dude an Evoker rather than a wizard. Oh, did I mention he can automatically quicken any of his spells up to 3rd level?

All I can say is, "It's not fair. These are bad ass characters, and I don't get to play any of them." :(

Tres

Phil got a PS3. His woman felt bad for him and let him get one because they just had a baby. Not sure how that works, but there you go. Score for him. Got to play it a little last night.

True to form, the graphics are pretty damn impressive. He has a motocross type game and Need for Speed:Carbon, and has downloaded a ton of demos. Didn't play NfS. The motocross game was a blast, but it was disappointing in that multi-player was online only. Phil had bought a 2nd controller so we could do some racing, then come to find out, nope. Did a little bit on the Grand Turismo demo, but other than graphics, I didn't see much difference between that game and the one I have for the first Playstation.

Played the demo for Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Holy shit is that game bad ass. If the PS3 makes down into my "spend on a console" range, say $200-$300, I might get one just for that game. It was frickin' sweet. I don't normally like demos, either.

We also played Super Rub a Dub, which is a rubber ducky kids game that just uses the tilt axis of the controllers. Fun as hell when you're drinking. Those games are great.