Rain Dog @Leucrotta@awoo.space

Sitting in a currently very loud coffeeshop, trying to be a GOOD person and give the parents credit for trying to keep the kids in line without being REALLY jerky, and trying to think things like "wow, I would so not be up for parenthood, I really dodged a bullet there" rather than say "I hate kids and I hate parents and I hate EVERYBODY ESPECIALLY ME."

BIG BIG BIG CAT!
BIG BIG BIG CAT!
WEARING A PINK RIBBON ON IT!
WHEN I GO OUT IT'S ALWAYS BESIDE ME
EVERYBODY LIKES ITS FUNNY FACE!

INSTRUMENTAL!

Yesterday at a train museum, I overheard two of the model railroad club members talking.

See, younger modeler works for Safeway. Older modeler worked in a grocery store as a high schooler in the early 60s, starting at under $2/hour - four years later he was making a much larger salary and paid his way through college with it. Consequently he needs to stop and remember inflation happened whenever he heard about supermarket clerks making - his example was $10/hour.

okay so Jurassic Park has always had Pachycephalosaurs, the Park's been abandoned for a bit and life finds a way, so yeah, I'm really hoping Fallen Kingdom has Stygim...

OH MY GOD IT DOES OMG I WANT TO SEE THE MOVIE RIGHT NOW http://jurassicpark.wikia.com/wiki/Stygimoloch

Some nerdy mcnerd #drawings I roughed earlier this week and tightened up today. Tame fantasy nudity and violence.

If you want to make cartoons about humans with animal bodies you’ll need a directaur, a team of animataurs, some voice actaurs, and it doesn’t hurt if you have a stirring orchestaural soundtrack.

* Fire and Ice, any Beastmaster sequel. We're scraping the bottom here. This is "starved for escapism" or "morbidly curious" territory.

argh, I somehow forgot to rate Dragonheart (middle-low on the scale), Dark Crystal or the Rankin-Bass Hobbit (fairly high up there) and Labyrinth (about exact middle). And I'm sure I'm forgetting more examples!

* The Peter Jackson Hobbit films. There's some good stuff there, but largely they're just kinda eh. They're definitely Things You Watch Because They're The Most Palatable Thing On TV in the Motel.

* Krull, Beastmaster, Wizards, Master of the Flying Guillotine, Conan the Destroyer, Heavy Metal. These aren't good movies at all, but there's a certain joy to how bad they are that keeps you coming back.

* the remaining two Peter Jackson LotR films; good, but they don't blow me away like the first one.

* good movies with fantasy elements but which have a fairly different genre to them - like Aliens, The African Queen, Flushed Away, The Secret of NIMH, Hellboy, the Indiana Jones films.

* Excalibur, Van Helsing, Underworld, Hellboy II. These aren't great movies or completely D&Dish, but they have fun bits - actively brilliant in places.

* The Book of the Dead. This isn't technically a fantasy film but it has so many cool elements.

* Conan the Barbarian, The Thirteenth Warrior, Alexander Nevsky, Henry V, what I've seen of the Kung Fu Panda series; these all have really appealing D&Dish elements; raids, dungeon crawls, underground prisons, brutish guards, huge battles, evil armies. And, by and large they're fairly good quality as movies go.

* The Fellowship of the Ring is pretty much my favorite for providing a more urgent, compelling pacing and more appealing characterization than the book - throw in awesome visuals.

* there's a batch of wuxia and jidaigeki which I'd consider really good, and even if the trappings aren't quasi-Tolkien-quasi-Europe D&D, they're definitely D&D thematically (f'rex Sanjuro, Throne of Blood, Iron Monkey, House of Flying Daggers).

Omg this Simonson issue of Thor. Not only does The Odinson fight Jormangundr but the opening blurb ends with “would you know more?” I’m nerding out SO HARD about this.

okay I think my nerdiest opinion about #13thWarrior is that this would have been a WAY cooler movie if they'd had the bardiche show up earlier than the climactic battle.

"A man might be thought wealthy if someone were to draw a story of his deeds" oh you mean LIKE CARVING FUTHARK INTO WHATEVER STONE MIGHT BE HANDY here's an awesome lion statue this work for ya fam?

#13thWarrior #ThisStillBugsMe

AHMED: Do we have anything remotely resembling a plan?
HERGIR: We'll kill all of them!
AHMED: Great. Uh, Edgtho, make a tracking roll?
EDGTHO: uh... um. Okay so I get a +11 to track. Does a 12 do it?
DM *rubs forehead* : A child could follow this. They have no fear of you.

#13thWarrior

Urge to quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail rising for this one particular village scene. MRAOW! WREAAOW! oh there you are on about freedom again. #13thWarrior

and this is why #13thWarrior is one of the greatest roleplaying game movies ever made. The PCs share a pretty solid plan to form a defensive circle in the middle of the mead-hall and as soon as they start rolling initiative it's just completely uncoordinated chaos.

I gotta say the "oh we don't have a written language" is way up there with "we don't understand patronymics" and "hey we can forge plate armor!" as annoying anachronisms in #13thWarrior. (I can kind of, SORT of, buy the gladiator helmet.) But it's not the most annoying one.

He calls for the bones! She's an oracle! Lessee here HAGALAZ NAUTHIZ THURISAZ yep everything's just awesome.

#13thWarrior

"... through the lands of the Uighurs (dude, you so didn't go to China), the Khazars (hi ancestors!) and the Bulgars (hi more ancestors!) into the land of murderous bandits called Tatars (probably Pechenegs at that time) who attack caravans slaughtering everyone."

oh yay, they're rescued by Swedes! HI EVEN MORE ANCESTORS!

#13thWarrior