New Online Comics Added

Hello there!

I spend ages without posting and then I go and post a couple in less than an hour. And I know I should be doing the cooking instead of typing, but I am sure the kids will survive if dinner is a little bit late tonight...

Anyway, as I said, I have added a few more online comics, cos I happen to be following them and I find them quite nice and interesting (and funny too). XKCD has some strips that are quite incomprehensible if you know nothing of the subject matter, but on the whole they are quiet enjoyable. You can read them from the last strip onwards, but do not read them backwards, since some of the strips carry on from earlier ones.

The Dreamland Chronicles I discovered following links as you do. I found it is quite a well written story, and the artwork is exceptionally good. Since it is an ongoing story I am afraid that people new to it will have to start at the beginning and play catch-up.

And then there is The Phoenix Requiem. I just can't wait to see what it is that is causing all the trouble in this one and where Jonas fits in all this story...

Finally there is Flipside, which is a bit strange at times, and not for under age people (both mentally or physically) cos it has some rather explicit content. but it is quite enjoyable and keep you reading because, let's face it, you want to know what's going to happen next.

So there you have it, just follow these links or the ones on the side and enjoy.

Hopefully I will not take half a year before I drop in with another post (famous last words...)

Toppo - Game Review

OK, so I have decided to go a bit on a tangent and write a review of a few games I have been playing lately. The first of these games is the wonderful Toppo, which I picked up from the Price Drops! bin at Infinity Games UK. Excellent website for buying games, one of the three places I use of late to buy my games, the other two being Games Lore and BattleQuest Games.

The basics first: Toppo is a card game for 2 to 4 players. The deck consists of 150 cards. Each card has two properties: colour and shape. There are five colours and five shapes which can appear in any combination on the cards. The colours are red, yellow, white, green, and blue; the shapes are two wavy lines, a circle, a square, a capital "I" (or "H" depending on who you ask) and a plus sign. So far so good. Every player gets dealt a hand of 33 cards that form their own personal deck. The rest of the deck gets placed on the side and three cards get drawn from it and placed face up in the middle of the table. The aim of the game is to be the first player to have 9 or less cards in his drawing deck. Now the fun starts. On the count of three (or any other arrangement for determining start of play) the players will simultaneously draw three cards from their deck and put them face up in front of them. Now there are two things that can happen:

1. All three cards in front of a player match the cards on the table either in shape or colour. The player must put these three cards in the same order as they are on the table and then calls "Top". This stops play immediately forcing the other players to put the cards they had on the table at the bottom of their deck. The player then shows how his cards match those on the table in either shape or colour and places them on top of the face up cards. These are now the new cards to match.

Example: the cards on the table are a "green circle", a "blue square", and a "white squiggle" (also known as "two wavy lines") The player draws a "green circle", a "blue squiggle" and a "red square". The player swaps the place of the blue and red cards. Now he has a match of shape and colour (green circle-green circle), a match of shape (blue square-red square), and a match of shape again (white squiggle-blue squiggle). He calls "Top" and all players stop play. He places his three cards on top of the face up cards on the centre of the table.

2. The three cards in front of the player do not match the cards on the table, but he has an exact shape and colour match with the face up cards. He simply places his card(s) on top of the card it exactly matches, gathers the rest of his cards and continues game.

Example: The three cards on the top are a "green circle" a "red square" and a "blue squiggle." The player has drawn a "green circle" a "red squiggle" and a "yellow circle." Even though there is a clour match with the red card, it is not an exact match. The yellow circle matches the green circle in shape, but not colour. However, the green circle that was drawn is an exact macth and can therefore be placed on top of the face up card in the middle of the table. The other cards get picked up and placed at the bottom of the player's drawing deck.

Once a player has nine or less cards left in his drawing deck, he calls "Toppo", shows the other players the fact that he has nine or less cards left and therefore wins the round.

Of course, things are not all that simple. There are penalties to be had. If a player calls Top but does not have a match to the three cards in the middle or his cards are not in the right order, then the cards have to be scooped up and placed back in the player's deck together with five penalty cards drawn from the left over deck. The same applies to the player that calls Toppo but has more than nine cards in their hand.

So, what do I think of this game?

I believe it is a great filler for playing in between longer games. It is very simple and easy to explain and play. Even younger kids can play it (with a helping hand from a grown-up). There is no problem with colour blindness as there is a pattern covering the shapes as well as the colours.

Do I recommend buying it?

I would definitely say yes, unless you are the kind of player that wants to play "obliterate your enemy" games, in which case this is not the game for you.

Did I enjoy playing it?

This is the kind of game I suggest bringing out everytime I can. Specially after a long game has just been finished and people are looking for something light as an interlude.

Last Night on Earth - Boardgame

Well, we bought this game on the strength of it being a zombie game. We had played the Zombies! game before, but we found it very random. It was fun to play, but it took too long to play (specially with the expansions) and the rules needed tweaking to the point where you were playing using house rules.

And then Last Night on Earth came around. Published by Flying Frog Productions, this is their very first game, and I have to say it is very good. In this game some players play the villagers and others the zombies. There are several scenarios: mostly the villagers will be attempting to escape the village or stop the zombies in some way. The zombies have to stop the villagers from achieving their goal, for example, in one scenario they have to get into the Manor House, in a different one they have to make sure the heroes do not manage to Escape in the truck.

So far, all the scenarios we have played have been very closely matched. Usually there is a couple of turns left before one side or the other have managed to achieve their victory condition. There are cards for both Zombies and Villagers that can help or hinder either side. The zombies can lock the doors just as you are about to go rushing in or out of a building, the villagers can climb out of or in through windows instead of using the doors or prevent all zombies from crawling into buildings by barricading themselves in. Both sides can play cards to increase the number of dice they roll in the event of a fight (as this is the way to resolve zombie-villager encounters) or make sure that in an event of a tie the villager wins (as usually it is the zombie that wins ties), you can stop fights from happening or even throw a stick of dinamyte or a can of gasoline and a torch or lighter and blow up a few zombies (and a villager or two if you are unlucky).

There is now an expansion to the game about to come out: Growing Hunger, which I hope will introduce lots of new events and scenarios to the game. I know new villagers are being introduced, together with new kinds of weapons (I just can't wait to see the shears in action).

New Online Comic Link Added

Well, I recently discovered this little gem called Girl Genius. I have set the link to take you to page one, because otherwise you will be pretty lost since it is a ongoing comic instead of a series of strips. Here is the RSS feed you can subscribe to. It won the WCCA (Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards) for Outstanding Story Concept and Outstanding Science Fiction Comic in 2006. It is currently onto Volume 8 (they are also being released as .pdf and books). The comic started online in November 2002 but do not worry, it only took me a couple of days to get to the current one.

I found it had lots of humour and is very engaging, so why not try it?

Oscars 2008 (derailing into Tim Burton's projects)

Well, the Oscars have been and gone, and Sweeney Todd got one Oscar for Best Achievement in Art Direction. Unfortunately, it lost against Elizabeth: The Golden Age for Best Achievement in Costume Design, but let's face it, those costumes on Elizabeth were gorgeous and they had really worked hard to achieve the whole look of the queen and the court. Johnny Depp lost to Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. Is it just me or are the titles for the prizes getting longer?

Tim Burton is already working in his next projects, and it being that I am a huge fan of his, I just can't wait until they are released. In the pipeline he has such titles as Frankenweenie, The Spook's Apprentice and Alice in Wonderland.

Frankenweenie and The Spook's Apprentice are hopefully being released in 2009, and his take on Alice in Wonderland is in the pipeline for 2010. Frankenweenie is a stop motion animation, which we hope is going to be as good as Nightmare Before Christmas, and it is based in his 1984 short of the same title. The Spook's Apprentice is about a boy who has to learn how to exorcise ghosts, contain witches, and bind boggarts in the 1700's. And we all know, more or less, what Alice in Wonderland is about, although Burton will probably stay away from the shugary take Disney did of the story and stay with its original story as per Lewis Carroll's original.

Book review - Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett

Recently I wrote a review of the book Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett to be included on the second issue of the Non Theist Nexus ezine. You can follow this link to read the review, or simply go to the Nexus website to browse through all the other very interesting articles that have been published there. I can highly recommend the one about the Gospel of Judas.

Sweeney Todd - Review

Well, I went on Saturday to the cinema to watch the film. Going back next Saturday for another viewing, provided the cinema is still showing it.

For those of you who are not familiar with the story: this story is about a villain appearing in various English language works starting in the mid-19th century as a barber and an early example of a serial killer. Wikipedia has an article on the subject. Fifteen years after having been transported to Australia for a crime he did not commit, Todd comes back to London to find his dreams of rebuilding his family life in ruins. Consumed by hatred for the man who wronged him, he goes back into business and plots his revenge. He teams up with Mrs Lowett, the owner of the pie shop downstairs as a means to get rid of the corpses (it being that the price of meat is so high and alternatives are getting harder to come by). I will not go into much more detail if you have never heard of the story, because that might spoil the film when you get round to seeing it.

Yes, it was an excellent film, the songs are so much part of the story that you stop noticing they have launched back into song again. Johnny Depp does an excellent work as Sweeney; Helena Bonham-Carter is a wonderful Mrs Lowett and Alan Rickman does a wonderful Judge Turpin. The support cast is also wonderful, with Sacha Baron Cohen playing a wonderful rival to Mr T in Signor Adolfo Pirellli, and Timothy Spall as Judge Turpin's lackey Beadle Bamford.

Now, the film has shed quite a lot of stuff from the original play by Stephen Sondheim the film was based on, and has also added a few bits here and there. There will be some puritans out there that will be up in arms about this. To them one thing must be said: Mr Sondheim himself approves of the film, Tim Burton (on his interview on Film 2008 with Jonathan Ross, 26/01/08 BBC Two) comments on how the approval of the film by Sondheim was crucial, and he got that. Beyond that he is not worried about the die hard Sondheim fans nitpicking the film. You can find this interview on YouTube, however, whoever put it up there somehow managed to get the video out of sync with the voices, so it makes for difficult viewing.

Do not be mistaken, this is a bloody film, it might be a musical but it is a dark musical. The cinematography is beautiful, the colours are wonderful, it is beautifully shot. And the ending is just perfect.

I can only say that I feel for the people who will have the film dubbed, because they will miss out on all the hard work the actors put into their roles. They will not hear their real singing voices and will not be able to immerse themselves in the film. They will miss on the acting, because they will not be able to hear the inflection and characterization the actors gave their parts in the original film. To all you who will be subjected to this I say: try and get hold of the original film with its original soundtrack and enjoy.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

The Golden Globe awards have been and gone. This is supposed to be a forerunner of the Oscars. Not that you can set much scope by who wins the Oscars since it has been more about politics than cinema in the past few years, but you never know.

Anyway, Sweeney Todd won on the category of Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, and the wonderful Johnny Depp won Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy.



Now here is to the hope that they will also appreciate such a great film adaptation when it comes to the Oscars and Tim Burton and Johnny Depp get the recognition they deserve. And also for the gorgeous Helena Bonham Carter, who was also nominated for the Golden Globe, that woman knows how to wear a corset...

Flights from London Gatwick to Granada (Spain)

Last November, Monarch Airlines decided that flying from London Gatwick to Granada was not as profitable as they would have hoped. They had been reducing the number of flights to and from that destination through the year, but in November they decided to call it a day and cancelled all flights to and from Granada in Spain.

It was a big disappointment, because they insist that their flights were not attracting as much custom as the ones to Malaga, but everytime I flew with their company their planes were full to the brim, so something here does not quite add up.

I understand Ryanair flies to Granada from Stansted airport, but we all know what Ryanair are like: only 15 kilos of baggage can go in the cargo hold of the plane; they will take your child's pushchair free of charge, but their car seat/booster seat, travel cot, etc, you have to pay for them to take (at a fiver a shot, does not seem much, but it adds up). They force you to have your just under two-year-old child sitting on your lap, even if their birthday falls within your short holiday abroad, so you cannot book a seat for your under two both ways (these guys obviously have never have had to share a seat with a young child in a small plane, there just isn't enough room for both of you without kicking in the seat in front) These are the people that threatened the government with legal action for forcing them to put all their passengers' baggage in the cargo hold instead of allowing them to carry it onto the plane because they "lost" money, even though I've heard that they had charged these customers for the privilege of being forced by emergency measures to put all their stuff in the cargo hold of the plane.

Now I have found a webpage with a petition to request the company to reconsider and reinstate this route. I fear that what they really need is to set up a publicity campaign together with Granada's Council in order to promote the route. I mean, there is sun, there is sea, there is a ski resort, and all within half an hour to an hour's drive from the city of Granada itself. More and more people are growing tired of the holidays in Malaga/Marbella/Fuengirola/Torremolinos, and are now looking at other alternatives. Granada has beautiful mountains, a wonderful ski resort, beaches...

So please, follow this link and sign the petition. Let's try together to have a proper airline flying to Granada.

New link

Well, that took some time to get a new entry, didn't it?

Well then, forget about this one, because he has gone and changed the contents of the blog. I will have to write an update to the new contents of this link, but just so that you know, this page no longer has anything religion connected.

Anyway, I just got this link and had to post it because I find reading this site most interesting and eye opening. No, you do not have to agree with everything the writer of these articles says, but you have to admit that they are well written.

Even if you do not agree with these articles, I have found they do incite thinking and understading. We should not take everything that we are told as true, therein lies our main mistake. We should not follow as sheep but think for ourselves, and it is articles like these that make us stop and think and question our beliefs, our stance on life and everything that we are supposed to follow because somebody interpreted it that way instead of delving deeper and trying to find the possible mistakes, the mistranslations, the errors, the mere changes made to accommodate the prevalent train of thought and politics of the time when they were written or translated. This always puts me in mind of a joke I heard a long time ago:

There is this abbey dedicated to the copying and illuminating of sacred books. One of the scribes has a damaged "original" copy and requests of the abbot that he goes and looks for the original book in the library so that he may make a new copy to replace the damaged one they are using. The abbot comes out of the library a little while later cluthing a manuscript in his hand and crying. All the monks surround him very concerned wondering what is wrong. The abbot points at the scroll: "It says celebrate, celebrate not celibate..."

In the beginning

Well, here it is. This blog was mainly created to share with the rest of you guys my love for webcomics. If you follow the links on the side you will be directed to some of the greatest I have ever seen. Most of them only make sense if you have ever been a role player or a GM/DM.

Order of the Stick is a wonderful ongoing work by Rich Burlew. The adventures of this group of adventurers is onto its 521st strip, and it is still going strong. If you really enjoy this I would recommend buying the books, which include strips never seen on the online comic. There are also two more books, both prequels, giving us an insight into both sides of the story: Xykon and Red Cloak's background as well as that of the members of the Order of the Stick.

DM of the Rings is a finished webcomic well worth the read. Done by Shamus Young it is spot on what many of my fellow players and I have done when presented with certain situations.

Darths and Droids is an ongoing project which attempts to span all six Star Wars films. So far our "heroes" have just taken off from Naboo with the queen on board...

Both these comics work on the premise that the group of players have just been presented with a world to play in (Lord of the Rings or Star Wars) but the books and films were never made. As Shamus Young himself says on the first of his DM of the Rings comics:

Imagine a gaggle of modern hack-n-slash roleplayers who had somehow never been exposed to the original Tolkien mythos, and then imagine taking those players and trying to introduce them to Tolkien via a D&D campaign.

The same applies for Darths and Droids, in the words of its creator:

The whole thing is the invented campaign of the GameMaster, and the players don't know anything about the story or the setting in which it happens, until it arises in the course of the game

Chainmail Bikini is what came after DM of the Rings from Shamus Young. It is a collaboration with Shawn Gaston. I find in this comic so many paralels with stuff that we have done as a role playing group that it hurts...

The Unspeakable Vault of Doom is out there for all you Lovecraft lovers. If you have never is heard of Lovecraft, it's time you went out there and find a book shop and bought some of his works. All of Lovecraft's writings are not about the Cthulhu mythos, he also wrote poetry and essays. Just follow the link on the side for his stories. The same website contains lots of interesting informaton about this author, his poetry and his essays.

Of course, all this stuff aside, I might one day feel inclined to post some other stuff just because I feel like it. But, for now, just follow the links and enjoy. If you know of any other good webcomics send me a link and I'll see if I find them interesting enough to add them to my collection.