Analog-Theater 2.0

No Mountain Dew is not actually making a d20 game, but the two things I was planning on talking about were Mountain Dew and a d20 game.

I’m sure by now, those of you who drink Mountain Dew have noticed the three new flavors: Supernova, Voltage, and Revolution. For those of you who don’t drink Mountain Dew, they have three new flavors. Of these three, they will only keep one. And you can go to www.dewmocracy.com to vote for which flavor you want them to keep. I personally recommend Supernova, but I noticed that Voltage is currently in the lead.

As for the d20 section of today’s post. You might have noticed that I have posting almost as seldom as Robert, that’s because I’ve been a little busy creating a sci-fi d20 game. I actually started working on the idea with my friend Eric a few years ago. I’ve worked on it a little every now and then. Recently, however, I have started working a lot more on this game. I have a bunch of new ideas that I’ve been putting in it. I have almost completed the alpha version which I will playtest with a group of friends. After that, I will make revisions based on the groups suggestions and release the beta version which I will upload to this site. I am also working on some adventure modules which will include various monsters that I will later compile into a monster manual.

I also found a new website that I need to start reading regularly for more news. I was directed to two articles that I thought I should share. The first was about a recent episode of Jeopardy which included a category about anime in the second round. The second was about a man who was found dead in his apartment in Japan after the recent earthquake and was buried under piles of manga.

First, I would like to congratulate my friend Liesa on her recent wedding.  She got married yesterday to some guy.  I think she might have told me his name once, but I don’t remember.  Good luck you two.

Second, I noticed a mistake in my previous post.  They have released a trailer for the new X-files film.  It is about someone who goes missing and a psychic who says he can find her.  I’m not really sure of more than that.  Also, I need to take Alice out of the list because I’m pretty certain that it was just a rumor, no matter how much I want to believe it.

And in other news, they found a very interesting crop circle in England, near Barbury Castle.  It is supposed to show the first ten digits of pi.  Check it out here.

I went and saw the Incredible Hulk last night and I was not disappointed, at least not entirely, which is rare when we talk about Marvel movies.  However, it was not on the same caliber as Iron Man.  So far I am starting to become hopeful about this whole Avengers Project that Marvel is making.  Iron Man was good and the Hulk was not bad. 

The Hulk starred Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, Liv Tyler and Elizabeth Ross, William Hurt as General Ross, and Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky.  Lou Ferrigno made a cameo as a security guard and of course Jim Lee was in one scene.  Edward Norton’s performance was about average for him.  His character seemed a lot like David Banner from the TV series, which was okay since they appeared to using that story instead of the comic books.  Liv Tyler, on the other hand, was not so good.  She was not believable in her role.   It just seemed so fake.  Now Tim Roth’s performance was incredible.  He should be the new A list action hero.  You could see the transformation as he become more obsessed with fighting the Hulk.

The movie starts with flashbacks of Bruce Banner and Elizabeth Ross working on an experiment with gamma radiation, very remincent of the TV series.  There is no guy joy riding in a bomb testing site.  Then Bruce becomes the Hulk and destoys the lab, hurts Betty, and escapes.  Then it skips forward to present day and Bruce Banner is hiding in Brazil.  Between studying judo, meditative breathing, and working in a soda bottling plant he is trying to find a cure for himself.  General Ross finds out that he is down there and sends a team including a British elite soldier, Emil Blonsky to bring him back.  As you can predict, that causes a giant CGI monster to appear and tear things up.   Blonsky then decides to become the Abomination in order to stop the Hulk.

The CGI Hulk looks a lot better then the one in the other Hulk movie, but you can still tell that’s it CGI.  The CGI Abomination wasn’t too bad either.  Overall, I give this movie a B- (not bad, but not great either).

In the Theaters now:
Iron Man starring Robert Downey, jr as Tony Stark in another Marvel Comic series turning into a big screen blockbuster/disappointment.

The Chronicles of Narnai: Prince Caspian starring William Moseley and Ben Barnes.

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull with Harrison Ford trying to pull off being an action hero.

M. Night Shyamalan’s new film The Happening.

Coming Soon:
June 27th, 2008 Angelina Jolie tries to be a comic book character in Wanted.  Also starring James MacAvoy and Morgan Freeman.  The movie is loosely based on a comic book miniseries by the same name.

July 11th, 2008 is the release date for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.

July 18th, 2008 is the slated release date for The Dark Knight staring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger.

July 25, 2008: X-Files: I want to Believe.  No one knows what its going to be about, but it will have Mulder and Scully and they might kiss.

Sometime in July, 2008 Alice will be released, based on American McGee’s macabe video game.  Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as Alice and Jean Marsh as the Queen of Hearts.

August 1st, 2008: It’s not over, but that goodness Brendon Frasier is here to save us from the mummy again in the Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

Dragonball returns to torture the world on August 15th.  This will be the live action version of the painful anime.  You have been warned.

Criminals beware, on September 12th Frank Castle is back in Punisher: War Zone.

November 7th, 2008 Daniel Craig returns as James Bond in Bond 22.

On November 21st, 2008 Harry Potter returns to the big screen in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

April 3, 2009: Benicio Del Toro is the Wolfman in the remake of the Wolfman.  Also starring Anthony Hostkins, Hugo Weaving, and Emily blunt.

May 1st, 2009: X-men Origins: Wolverine starring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in a prequel to the X-men movies.

The future begins on May 22, 2009 with Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins starring Christian Bale as John Connor, Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, and Sam Worthington in the newest installment of the Terminator franchise.  No Arnold in this one.

July 17, 2009: Land of the Lost starring Will Ferrell, Danny Mcbride, Anna Friel, and Jorma Taccone.

April 30, 2010: Iron Man 2.  With Thor making a cameo.

June 4, 2010: Thor

May 6, 2011: Captain America: The First Avenger which will be set entirely in World War 2.

2011: the long awaited Avengers film

I just realized how true the title of this post is. I took a week off work and ended up staying home. I had a list of things that I wanted to do and I only found time to do half of them. Mostly because I reactivated my Tabula Rasa account and found a new clan there. I did make time to do some laundry, but vacuuming my room is still at the top of my To Do list, as is post something every day of my vacation. I know, I’m a slacker. I guess I have to make up for the lack of posts.

I spent a good bit of my time playing Tabula Rasa. I reactivated my account so that I could see all of the updates they have done. The game is even better than it was before. I created a new character and started at the beginning so that I could see the improvements done in the early areas. They implemented a prestige system. As you kill creatures, defend control points, and accomplish missions you earn prestige points which you can then turn in for special upgrades or even to reallocate your skill points. I meet a couple people on the game and we created a clan, if you want to join us we are on the US East server and the clan is called Infinity. Including myself we have four members right now.

Another time waster this past week was reading. I have become increasingly more interested in the Malazan series. I am trying to finish book 4 right now. This far into the series alot of things are finally making sense and I have come to care about some of the characters. Also, there are mysteries that have not been answered and that is creating some suspense.

I did get some writing accomplished. I did a revision on one of the stories that I’ve been working on and I wrote a few pages of another. I am still working on getting them both ready to start posting on the site. Once I get a little more done, I’ll start posting chapters for you, our readers, to enjoy.

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition came out last week. I took a look at the Player’s Handbook and the Monster Manual and was not terribly impressed. Some of the stuff looked better and some didn’t. They simplified the skill system, which is a plus. However, they increased the frequency that characters gain stat points and feats (for those unfamiliar with the game, both are things that you gain over time to make your character better) which appears to make the characters overly powerful, along with new special abilities for each class. Also, I’m not entirely sure about it, but it appears that you can’t multiclass anymore. I will look over the rules some more, but so far I am not yet convinced to convert to the new system. I think that I’ll wait for 4.5 to come out.

They have discovered the unicorns do exist, and they live in Italy. Actually it was just a deer, but it only had a single horn. You can read the article and even see the picture here.

Oh, I almost forgot. Since I was in my room for almost the entire week, I watched some tv, too. We decided not to get cable, so I either watch tv on the internet or I watch dvds. Lost has ended for the season and I’ve caught up on Doctor Who, so I went through my roommates dvds to find something to watch (I’ve seen all of mine a hundred times each or at least that’s how it feels, thought I did do a Christian Bale Marathon last Wednesday(Batman Begins, Equilibrium, and the Prestigue)). I found several discs of Revolutionary Girl Utena. At first the boxes made the show look all girly and it said it was by the makers of Sailor Moon (which in my opinion is not much better than Dragon Ball Z), but after reading the description I thought I would give it a try. I watched the movie first and didn’t know what to think. It was very surrealistic and didn’t make any sense. Then I found out that I was supposed to watch the series first and then the movie would make sense. So I watched the first seven episodes and I actually liked it. The series is about this middle school girl named Utena who likes to dress like a boy because she is trying to be a prince. She wants to be a prince because when she was younger she meet a prince (I can only assume that they mean someone like a prince charming) and she was so impressed that she wanted to be like him. He even gave her a ring with a rose signet that he said would lead her to him in the future. Now she is at this school and finds out that all the members of the high school student council have identical rings and the rings mark you as duelists who are fighting for Anthy, the Rose Bride, who is one of Utena’s class mates. The one who is engaged to her in the end will gain “the power of miracles”. Utena ends up winning the first duel and becomes engaged to Anthy. There is a very comical love triangle and some of the episodes are over the top with their antics, like when Namani thinks that someone is trying to kill her and a horse gets loose in the hallway of the school and then a boxing kangaroo gets loose outside. I think this series is a must see for any serious anime fans.

I found something in the news the other day that I thought was worth posting. It was a story about this guy in Denver named Jeff Peckman. He showed a select group of journalists a video that supposedly contained an alien looking in through a window that was eight feet above the ground. The video was said to have been made by Stan Romanek, July 17, 2003, in Nebraska. According to an interview, scientists have been examining the film for the last four and a half years to prove that it was not a hoax. Due to some legalities, Jeff and Stan cannot release the footage. Apparently they are in negotiations to create a documentary. However, Larry King did have a brief clip on his show and I found several supposed leaks of the film online. Please note, I cannot guarantee the authenticity of anything in these links.

The Fox News broadcast

The Larry King interview

One of the supposed leaks

Apparently, Jeff Peckman is trying to create Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission to prepare for visits from aliens. According to certain conspiracy theories, he’s a little late. MJ-12 was supposed to have been created in 1947 and there are stories that they have already done an exchange program with an alien race where several humans were sent to their world and several aliens came to live on Earth. However, I do not have any proof that MJ-12 exists, it is just a theory.

Edit: I forgot to mention my own personal feelings on this subject. I do believe that aliens exist and that they have visited Earth. However, without being able to see the video tape and seeing dozens of other videos of aliens peeking in windows, I think that it is just too easy to fake. It’s my personal opinion that this is just a well orchestrated publicity stunt.