Skating Polly, Tiger At The Drugstore

Fakin’ it just doesn’t feel like home...

From the new album Chaos County Line.

The Ray Harryhausen Awards 2023

The Ray Harryhausen Awards 2023 with Jason And The Argonauts on the big screen afterwards. Hell yes. Though seeing the trailer for the winning feature Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio up there too made it being exclusive to streaming seem even more of a waste.

Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny

Indiana Jones And The Better Examination Of Some Of The Same Themes As The Bloody Awful Last One, And The CG De-Aging Was A Bit Distracting In The Prologue, Still Not As Good As Last Crusade Or Raiders Itself Obviously But Mostly Worked Overall

Which considering it’s been fifteen years since the last Indiana Jones film (three weeks after Iron Man so not quite the entire run of the MCU) and thirty-four years since the last half decent one, I’ll take it.

Spoiler post scheduled for next week.

Secret Invasion 1.02

Marvel’s Secret Invasion

1.02: Promises

Nick Fury falls out with people.

Juliet Stevenson in a two minute cameo?

We have a Skrull Prime Minister? Good for us.

Your new Clark and Lois

David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan to lead Superman: Legacy.

Well, they look the parts.

Band Adventures

Today is my birthday - I’d like adventures for bands!

This seems like a sensible RPG birthday request, as I’m currently running two games and they’re both about bands.

I don’t want to do “you’re playing a gig when Unrelated Adventure Hook happens” too often.

Both are not very famous modern sort of rock band in urban fantasy settings, but don’t feel limited to that.

Thank you!

Birthday!

Birthday!

So far 49 feels much like 48, i.e. a bit too warm.

Haul - Superman: The Animated Series, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season one, The Batman, Thor: Love And Thunder and a ticket to Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny.

The Making Of Fighting Fantasy

Damien McFerran at Time Extension talks to Steve Jackon and Sir Ian Livingstone and current line writers Rhianna Pratchett and Charlie Higson about how it started, unsung hero Penguin editor Geraldine Cooke, expanding the line, basically ever reader cheating while reading,

Free RPG Day 2023

Once again, looking forward to Free RPG Day PDFs.

Though the PDF of the V5 promotional adventure is... on sale. Well, huh.

Marches and demonstrations

Back from Pride Edinburgh 2023, with sore feet. Marches are still preferable to demonstrations, preferring the movement (and usually drumming) to listening to speeches.

(Ever done a peaceful protest in a game?)

Star Trek: Prodigy

Star Trek: Prodigy has been cancelled with season two largely done and will be removed from Paramount+ soon because tax breaks and cheapness. Boo.

One year I would like to get to Glastonbury.

Glastinbury 2023 day one, CHVRCHES and a surprise Foo Fighters set.

Day two: Lana Del Rey in the smoking section

Day three: Elton John

The Score

My copy of The Score is on the way. Updates when ready to put the plan in operation.

Secret Invasion 1.01

Marvel’s Secret Invasion

1.01: Resurrection

Having played the Skrulls against type in Captain Marvel, Secret Invasion has to bring in a new (and still sympathetic... in intent) faction to have shapeshifting villains threatening to take over the world.

It pulls two of the most obvious tricks in the setup in episode one, which gets them out of the way nicely.

Russia. Because it has so many derelict nuclear power stations, but still, Russia.

The credits are a nice use of machine learning animation, but still machine learning animation.

Olivia Colman being Olivia Colman-y while still sinister.

Midsummer

Midsummer. Not start. Mid!

My first V5 PC

Having first created her in 2021 and created a coterie around her in 2022, perhaps unsurprisingly my first Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition character is a very slight restatting of Paris, the Toreador club night promoter.

The setting is Anarch-held Los Angeles. I have already looked up real-world Goth club nights. Communion or Purgatory...

A great website for a LARP that never was

Southampton Vampire By Night never happened, and lead developer Mark White has been talking about why not. The main thing I saw in advance was the preview website, which was a great little search adventure introducing deep background, but he now regrets making it a mini-game without an out-of-character front page.

Jason And The Argonauts

Ray Harryhausen’s Jason And The Argonauts premiered sixty years ago today.

I was honoured to shake Mr. Harryhausen’s hand when he visited the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and sorry I only got to the Titan Of Cinema exhibition once due to crowd restrictions.

A better photo than I got.

See also my Harryhausen-specific WFRP 1 Skeleton statblock.

Juneteenth

Mark the day.

V5 Last Dance 2.02

Tonight in Vampire: The Masquerade - Last Dance, Erich said “Sabbat” and there was a rumble of thunder outside.