Well, the snow and such was fun, wasn't it?

Actually, I had a rather sobering moment... I was headed out to a friend's place to run Doctor Who: Adventures in Space and Time; it had only been snowing for about a half-hour, maybe an hour, and at first it wasn't sticking at all. I checked the traffic and it looked good in the direction I was heading. So I headed out, but by the time I got in my car it was sticking a bit, and it was slippery powdery snow. I was careful, headed out to the expressway, and as I got on the expressway, I got very frustrated: why were all these people in front of me driving slowly? The snow wasn't that bad. Stupid snow-scared drivers, rassafrassafrassa.... and then I come around the bend and see horrid, black, acrid smoke coming up from the other side of the highway.

And I saw this: http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/aw6ix/good_luck_trying_to_get_into_baltimore/

(click on the pic)

Car totally engulfed in flames. Facing north on a southbound highway lane. Cops holding back traffic; fire engine was trying to push its way through the mob of collected traffic.

Couldn't tell if anyone had been able to get out or not. My guess is person was driving too fast, and, as that curve on that side of the highway is mighty curvy (I've driven it many times), I imagine the car must have lost control, whapped into the median wall hard enough to rupture the fuel line.

So then suddenly I wasn't irked at all by slow driving, and given a rather nasty reminder as to why I shouldn't be.

Crazy thing is, didn't see anything about it on the news. Not even a mention in traffic reports. Journalists must have all been snowed in.

Much later that day, I nearly got "plowed" by a plow truck. Was driving friends home--from one house to another just about a half mile away. It was late at night, dark, the side street we were driving on still quite slippery. And then I see I'm being tailgated. I can feel my car slipping and sliding a little, nothing out of my control, but I'm thinking, crap, if I end up hitting my brakes or if I end up skidding, this guy is going to ram right into me. And mind--he is tailgating me [as I am approaching a stop sign not 20 feet away]. (Not that I would want it to happen, but there's a great head for someone to live with: "At 10:30 pm last night, a pickup truck with a snowplow attached struck a skidding Toyota Echo at a stop sign, killing the driver and the two blind people she was taking home.") The turn I had to make was not long after the stop sign, and as I signal and pull over to make the turn, the truck speeds up and passes me, with enough force and close enough to the side of my car that my car actually slides over a couple inches as I make the turn. What the fuck is wrong with people?

Saw the finale of Dollhouse(EDIT: I have been corrected: there is still an epilogue to be had in "Epitaph Two." The episode being discussed here is "The Hollow Men." How dare they reference the awesome of T.S. Eliot in such a poorly written script anyway?) In brief, while it definitely had many entertaining moments, it seemed slapped together, and I think my personal fanon will have the series end at episode 11, despite and even perhaps because of its cliffhanger.

( More SPOILERIFIC thoughts under the cut )

In the end, I will say that I'm glad I watched the series, and it definitely had a lot of sweet episodes in the middle. It was challenging, and there were some cool ideas in there about the nature of human memory and the human soul. But it had limited potential, and the finale particularly did it a disservice. I'm glad it got its two seasons, but am equally glad it's done.

Ganked from allah_sulu but I've reverted to the simpler version than try to imitate his shinyness (even though I'm sure I could try if I worked harder with his Massive Tool). I am altering the wording slightly to clarify things a little more (I hope) however.

TV Meme
1. Bold the shows you watch/used to watch on a regular basis and tried to see the completion of most seasons.
2. Italicize the shows you've seen at least one episode of/watched but only on occasion.
3. Underline the shows you own on DVD (at least one season).
4. Post your answers.

( List under cut )

If I were I responsible blogger, I should have reported to you by now things like how my Christmas and New Year's was and what a lovely time I had, and so on, but why discuss boring things like that when we can instead discuss Doctor Who?

I saw most of the End of Time except for one tiny bit that didn't show up on Youtube. And it wasn't bad. Mind, I long ago gave up on RTD's ability to write a finale, so I went in expecting to be two hours or so of nonsensical hateful fanwanky stuff that wouldn't appear in the worst crack of crackfics. So my expectations were a bit low. While it was a bit nonsensical and fanwanky, it was also somehow a bit of fun, I found, and I liked the bits with the "Lord President" and the Master and Wilf. I especially liked the Master's "sacrifice" which was lovely and terribly in character. I don't know why, but I also liked the cactus people, even though they were entirely superfluous to the plot and looked like Dolph's demon form from Angel: the Series.

And below the cut we shall discuss my theory on who "The Woman" was, because everyone has to have one:

( My Theory on the Woman )

Also, I love the new logo. It is retro-shiny awesome.

In other news, I got the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG boxset yesterday. This is a player's guide and gamemaster's guide for playing RPGs in the Whoniverse, and it also comes with 6d6, very glossy shiny character sheets (including Ten and every major companion/ally of the Doctor in the new series, but also including templates and blanks), equipment cards, and tokens for "story points" which are a key part of the game's mechanics.

I haven't dug deeply into the rules yet, but at a glance it looks like the Buffy RPG mechanics meets d6 Star Wars -- d6 based, with lots of character traits and disadvantages to round out the feel for your character. You can use "story points" to help influence die rolls at key moments, and generally, the less powerful you are in traits and skills, the more story points you have ("It's serendipity, Doctor!"). Overall it seems rules-light, which is fine, although it leaves a lot of things like character advancement and anything not explicitly explained as entirely in the hands of the GM. Which can be great if you have a nice, cooperative GM, and horrible if your GM is a control freak or thinks that his story is more important than your fun or your own goals for your character.

Still it looks like an interesting system, and I look forward to running a one-shot or two maybe. Since it comes with a pre-written adventure and pre-written character sheets, it looks like it'd be easy to get started quickly for a brief campaign.

Gotten from darksumomo

1. Your main fandom of the year?
Eh... I'll go with Dollhouse since the other fanny things I was into this year actually came out a few years ago. Even though the middle bit of season 2 was a bit off, with far too much Ballard, and despite the fact that piece of wood named Summer Glau that they keep chucking in front of cameras for some reason showed up in it.

But I think that's why it's been a big thing on my mind and I've had fun chatting with my friends about it. It's as much fun to hate as it is to love, and I really feel both ways about it.

2. Your favorite film watched this year?
Being the utterly strange human being that I am, I'm torn between Julie and Julia and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. I think if they could have worked the Baroness/Scarlett catfight into J&J, that would have been perfect.

3. Your favorite book read this year?
Déja Dead by Kathy Reichs (this came out in the 90s, but I have a lot of her work to catch up on before I get to her release this year, 206 Bones)

4. Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?
"Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. Yes, it's a few years old, but that's what I was listening to. I got her newer album but it sucked.

5. Your favorite TV show of the year?
Despite what I said in answer 1, I'll go with Bones here. Now I've covered the two currently-on-TV shows I watched this year.

( More questions answered under the cut )

I had a busier year than I thought!

Dear Santa... Dear Santa, This year I've been busy! In October I committed genocide... Sorry about that, catskinner01 (-5000 points). In January I ruled Iran as a cruel and heartless dictator (-700 points). In September I donated bone marrow to malluna in a life-saving procedure (300 points). In November I bought porn for gwiii (10 points). Last Friday I gave jennawaterford a kidney (1000 points). Overall, I've been naughty (-4390 points). For Christmas I deserve a moldy sandwich! Sincerely, deathquaker

Write your letter to Santa! Enter your LJ username:

If I can piece this together, I must have committed genocide IN Iran in order to take over as dictator, then felt bad about it, so donated some organs. Buying porn for GWIII just happened somewhere between the genocide and the organs, as it often does.

BTW, I totally cheated and reloaded this several times, but largely because it kept pulling people from my f-list who were like news places I subscribe to, or were my own RPG alts ("You bought alabamapicard porn." Yes, that's often the excuse I use.) There's only about four or five of those, but they kept coming up.

So, the Escapist and Destructoid, amongst others, are quoting Bioware co-founder Greg Zeschuk as saying,

"The fall of the JRPG in large part is due to a lack of evolution, a lack of progression. They kept delivering the same thing over and over. They make the dressing better, they look prettier, but it's still the same experience."

( I don't disagree, Mr. Zeschuk, but let's look at a certain Canadian company's RPGs by comparison: )

Now, mind you, I LOVE Bioware's games. I wouldn't be able to mock them for this if I wasn't familiar with their games in the first place, but they are the last people to criticize anyone for overusing the same tropes, themes, storytelling, and interface.

And the thing is, people love JRPGs for the same reasons--it might be the same thing over and over again, dressed prettier, but obviously, there's something people like about it. Assuming your brand of repetition is better than someone else's brand of repetition isn't really going to get you anywhere.

And I would be amazed if Bioware ever came up with something like the depth and diversity of gameplay along with epic wartime storytelling that, say, Konami's Suikoden series has. And for all the wonderful things Bioware has done, I sincerely doubt they could pull that kind of game off successfully. It's also a shame, because I'd love to see a Suikoden-like game where party-style combat was fun, and encounter rates were reasonable (the fun combat in Suikoden for me are all the tactical army combats).

( Bioware's elaboration on what they do better: )

It's not that I think JRPGs are better than Bioware's RPGs--I would rather sit down and play Baldur's Gate than Dragon Quest any day of the week. But that's because I like the particular style of combat and gameplay better--I enjoy the stories and writing in either subgenre equally (and when I don't like them, it's often for similar reasons).

Simply, the particular claims Zeschuk made are laughably hypocritical.

Bioware, you can do better. So quit talking and start living up to your own expectations, eh?

I watched the first season of Battlestar Galactica (the one from 2004-ish) and then have been watching with commentary. Really, really impressed with it. It started off I wasn't getting into it, and then all of a sudden I was very much caring about the characters. The commentaries get a little annoying with a bit of backpatting on the behalf of the creators, but then they did do a nice job, and they are right about one thing--seems the best way to write a space opera is to try not to avoid writing a space opera. Because in a way, by trying to avoid certain TV sci-fi tropes, they've made one of the most "operatic" space epics I've ever seen. I can only hope seasons two through five keep up.

But I know I've watched too much silly sci-fi when I watched Gaius and Six very seriously debate philosophy and theology, and my thought was, "But of course there's a Silicon Heaven. Otherwise, where would all the calculators go?"

Which probably needs to be made into some kind of LOLmeme/motivational poster if it hasn't already. I'll work on it if I can find screencaps.

In other news, I finally got around to watching Torchwood: Children of the Earth. And overall, it was generally phenomenal. All of the regulars and major guest characters had important and interesting things to do, the villains of all kinds were very well written, dialogue was great, and the dancing about of moral ambiguity was fantastic. I know I'm stealing a idea/comment probably from someone from Behind the Sofa, but it's the first time Torchwood to me was consistently mature, rather reflecting than an adolescent conception of what is "naughty" and "adult only."

Also, Lois Habiba needs her own show.

The only thing I didn't like was the very end, which I will spoilerize despite the fact that I'm sure everyone who has wanted to has seen it by now. ( DQ discusses the spoilery ending )

The series is 46 years old and looks younger every day. What a long strange trip it's been!

Running Gun Studios, the makers of the Halo machinima "Spriggs" have produced a new, more serious, "Twilight Zone-esque" Fallout 3 machinima called "Tales of the Grey." The different "Tales" will illustrate life in retrofuturistic post-nuclear Baltimore.

The first episode is finally out and is about a fellow who discovers the dark secret of the Vault system he lives in.

AND I'm in it, talking in a high pitched, slightly off "hon" accent (the character is in episode 1 part b).

If you're not familiar with the Fallout series, but you want to take a gander--what you need to know is the world takes place about 150 years or so in the future, after a devastating nuclear war. Most people survived by taking shelter in massive underground Vaults, designed to house and feed humanity for decades to come. But many of the Vaults were used as experimental chambers as opposed to just protecting human beings, some of them mutating, cloning, or simply just torturing the individuals within. Others were more "normal," trying to just help humanity survive until it was safe for them to return to the surface.

In this world, technology evolved as imagined by 1950s futurologists, hence the retro look.

Episode 1, part 1 is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wufDfyfFhGg