A Lost Jem from the Past....

I was floundering around through some of the more creative writings in my computer files and came across this one.  It's the beginning of an article i was writing for a free press paper that a fellow mad genius ran.  It never got published due to the fact that the paper went under.  Go figure.  But, I decided to post the introduction of the article I never finished since I actually think it doesn't suck as much as what I usually post here.  Enjoy....

The Layman’s Guide to Role Playing Games.

Get ready for the adventure of a lifetime in the span of a misspent Saturday night!

So, you say that you’re getting tired of going out every Saturday night and drinking, partying, schmoozing with the opposite sex and cramming too much craziness into the evening.  Well, I got an idea that will certainly put the old’ kibosh on that!  How about an evening of getting together with a bunch of friends, sitting together at a big table in someone’s basement and breaking out the pencils, paper and 20 sided dice, for a good old session of Role Playing Game (or RPG for those not “in the know”)?

Many of you fine readers may be scratching your head, asking yourselves, “Just how is playing a nerd’s game going to benefit me?”

Well, let me ask you, isn’t there the slightest fragment of your imagination that has a yearning to be stroked?  (Insert self gratification joke here ________________.)  I believe that there’s some form of child-like exuberance locked up in everyone of us that needs to break out from time to time.  Somewhere, out in the city, there’s a stock broker wondering if the Dow Jones is going to pick up, if his portfolio could improve and if his Paladin will be able to thwart the evil sorcerer, Dothlock with his +7 Sword of Eternal Holiness.  Trust me.  There’s a little of the fantastical welling up inside of you whether you know it or not.

So allow me to give you a quick synopsis of the world of Role Playing Games.

The whole idea of RPG’s are to be able to still play games like Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, Nurse Sasha and the Bad Patient and other imaginative games without running around with toy guns, plastic bows and arrows or latex and wet-naps. 

Instead, you and other players are seated at a table with your character sheet in front of you, pencil in hand and dice at the ready.  One of the players will be the Game Master (or GM), also know as a Dungeon Master (DM), a Storyteller, a Marshal, a Head Honcho or whatever the particular RPG your playing refers to them as.  Just don’t refer to them as “the jerk-knocker who killed off my Halfling mage”.  That doesn’t go over too well in most conversations.

The GM is the one who describes what is going on in whatever imaginary world you are playing in.  When the GM prompts you to obtain a certain goal, you will role a particular sided dice (in most games it’s a 20 sided dice, pending the rules and system of that game) and the dice will tell you if you succeed or failed in your attempt.  There’s much more to it than what I’ve described, but I’m writing an article, here!  Not authoring a core rule book fer crissakes!!

Well there you go.  Have a nice day!

Zangz.

Zangz's: The Grumpy Old Man

I have to admit that I'm feeling quite the old curmudgeon as of late. I've had this on my mind for a spell now and at the threat of sounding just like the oldsters I saw in my youth as middle aged grumps, I'll post it here for the 1.5 people that read this blog.

I was a child of the '70's. Our parents didn't have to strap us down in car seats until we were 12 years old. We would tool around the neighborhood on our big wheels, unsupervised at all hours of the day and usually into the evenings. We rode on bicycles without big white, goofy looking helmets. Our TV shows were Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood and Saturday morning cartoons. Neither of which were crappy anime or half hour commercials for toy lines.

Despite all of that, I look back at my generation and think we had it damn good. Despite being teased unmercifully by the bullies of my grade school, I look back at my childhood and remember how much of it I enjoyed.

Now here comes the "kids today" part that will age me greatly.

I'm finding that the generations that are teens and young adults now are, quite simply, a bunch of A-Holes.

There's a Machiavellian and quite shallow nature about them which makes me worry for the future. It's as though they are already getting into the corporate American groove of greed and apathy.

Not only are these kids being pampered and spoiled, their attitudes are becoming more and more expectant and entitled.

These kids are not being brought up with TV shows like Scooby-Doo or The Superfriends where the message of fighting evil and helping your fellow man were present. They're being brain washed by horrible reality show stars that make acting drunk and obnoxious will thrust you to fame and fortune.. Hey kids, you'll be rewarded for rotten behavior. Just watch Snookie!

Kids haven't been going outside to play with action figures for years. Instead they go online and play some multiplayer combat game where they toss out racial slurs and homophobic insults at each other and people they never met. This behavior isn't a rarity, it's the norm.

These bent and broken values seem prevalent in the young adults of today as well. I live in a part of town where there are scads of "twenty something's". They are young, privileged people who find it perfectly acceptable to be rude or at least stand offish as much as possible. They are far quicker to become belligerent when met with conflict than try and work things out.

I'm really hoping I'm just being an old out of touch grump and there truly is hope for the coming generations. I've been an uncle for over a year now and I delight in it as much as I can. Right now my niece, Lil' G, is in a constant state of wonderment and exploration of her environment and surroundings. She is a long way from being exposed to a lot of the shallowness of youth. I'm hoping to god that she'll be smart enough to steer clear of it, not get caught up in it or be victimized by it.

There are a lot of wonderful teachers and parents out there that are trying to intercept the attitude problems at earlier ages. Cheers to them. Let's hope it's not too late.


In other news....

Happy Father's Day all of you Father's our there! My friend Roberto got a wonderful gift from his daughter yesterday. A build a zombie action figure where one can customize and create their own zombie action figure! How flippin' cool is that? I guess there are little hints of hope for the coming generations.

Also, I had the fun experience of playing a new, fun, very adult oriented card game called Cards Against Humanity. If you have a dark and twisted, dirty mind, this game is just for you. I think I enjoyed it even more than Munchkin.

That'll be it for this time. Until next time, GETTHEHELLOFFMYLAWNYOUDAMNKIDS!!!!

Zangz.

A spoilerific blog post of my anticipation of Skyfall

I have two warnings for this particular post.

#1.  As the title of the post infers, there may be some serious spoilers within this post.  If you don't want to know a darn thing about the next, highly anticipated James Bond movie, Skyfall, due in theaters in early November, then you may not want to venture any further after the link to the trailer.

#2.  If you choose to accept, I have two assignments for you to complete before I go on with my post.


So the first assignment starts below.  View the UK trailer for Skyfall as many times as your geeklovin' heart contends...

Now that you've watched it four or five times visit the link posted below (WARNING: Possible SPOILERS abound as the author of this post breaks down the trailer you just watched and guesses at major plot points of the film.  One plot point might be a biggin'!  If this event does happen in the film, it will blow our collective minds!  You have been warned!  Click at your own discretion)......

CommanderBond.net's Skyfall teaser trailer breakdown.

Now I will interject my own thoughts on the trailer you just viewed and article which you just read.  Not that my thoughts are worth a hill of beans.  I do this for my own amusement.  What the frell?!?!  

This portion is also spoiler loaded.  (Scroll down to read since Blogger will not allow me to black it out so you can highlight it to read. (????)  Sorry, blame Blogger.)

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Being a huge Bond fan, I was elated when I heard that Sony and MGM ended their legal issues and went head first into preproduction of the delayed 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall.  As usual, I promised myself that I didn't want to know a damned thing about the story or plot of the film before I saw it on the big screen this November.

Well, that fell through as I subscribed to the official James Bond YouTube channel and Facebooked them as well.  I can't help myself.  They've just concluded principal photography for the film and news is starting to leak out.

At first viewing of the trailer when it was released on the masses a few weeks ago, I thought it was a real classy, slick, artistic view of things to come.  But, it didn't really reveal too much of what the hell was going in the film.  Or so I ignorantly thought.

When I came across the above article, it revealed some pretty heavy revelations that could go down in this film.

Let's start with the title itself, "Skyfall".  There is a scene where Bond is taking a psychological, word association test.  When the term "Skyfall" comes up, Bond turns sullen and ends the test abruptly.  I originally thought the title was some sort of weapon that was gleaned from the old days of the Bond movies where there was some sort of satellite weapon aimed at the earth's surface by some terrorist organization that was holding the world at ransom.  After reading the article I believe Skyfall to possibly some sort of important reference to Bond's  deceased parents.

In the books and some of the movies, it is revealed that Bond's mom and dad, who died in a mysterious "mountain climbing accident"when Bond was a child, may have had some sort of dealings with the British secret service in the past.  Their deaths are mentioned in one or tow of the movies and their involvement with MI6 is mentioned somewhere in the literature.  It's all very brief, which gives the writers of the movie to get in there and dig deep and create a real background for his late parents.

In the article, there is a building that will play a major part in the film that is called "Skyfall Lodge".  Is this Bond's childhood home?  Is this why it hits such a nerve when it is mentioned to Bond?  I know the lodge will become a major set piece for a huge action sequence in the film.  Possibly the grand crescendo to the film itself.  What will take place there?  Will everybody get out alive?

That's the big question the linked article brings up.

This leads me to my next assumption of the movie.  I'm thinking that a huge character we Bond fans have all grown to know and love will be 86'd in this film.

Now if you've scrolled down to read, scroll down further to read this if think you can take it....  venture downward........

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From what I've read in the posted article, I sadly believe that Dame Judy Dench's "M" may be killed off in Skyfall.  If you have the article still up on-line in another tab or window, scroll down to the seventh teaser image where Ralph Fiennes is looking at Dench's M.  If you read the text below you may see where this is all going.  If Dench is out for the 4th Daniel Craig Bond film, old Voldermort could fit the bill of a decent conservative, stogy, "M" that could harken back to the older movies.  But it would lose a lot of heart that Dench brought to the character.

Now why in the hell would the producers of the Bond flicks be giving Judy Dench, the woman who single handedly rebooted the character of "M", the heave-ho?  I don't think it's entirely their decision.

I've heard a rumor that Dame Judy Dench has been dealing with some very serious eye conditions where her sight is slowly, but surely failing her.  She may be settling down from the acting world and thus leaving the James Bond films for good.  A horrible scenario, but it would fit the puzzle pieces together.

Now this is all conjecture and guesswork form myself based on the article, based on the trailer itself.  No one, outside of the people who worked on the film, will know the truth until November of this year.  We could all be terribly wrong and Dench would be in this thing for another number of years.  Either way, it's going to be one hell of a thrill ride this November!

Zangz.