If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, you might’ve heard about this whole “ground zero mosque” debacle in the US. The long and short of it is that some Muslims want to open a community centre in downtown Manhattan, some distance away from where the WTC once stood, and a lot of people have blown their tops over the whole thing.
I think Keith Olbermann sums up why this reaction is all a pile of horse shit quite succinctly, and I think you should watch it if you haven’t already.
Mos Def, Lenny Kravitz, Tim Robbins, Trombone Shorty, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band put together this song to benefit the Gulf Coast cleanup efforts.
Wrestling manager Captain Lou, Cyndi Lauper’s fake dad, and Mario in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, Lou Albano passed away today at the age of 76.
Aw, man. I think I’m going to have to get back to watching all of the Super Mario Bros Super Show that I have on DVD.
via Kotaku.
Oh man, that sucks. Definitely an icon of the 80s and I really liked him in later roles like in Keeping Mum and Donnie Darko.
Actor Patrick Swayze, best known for his roles in the films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, has died after battling pancreatic cancer.
The Houston-born performer, who studied dance before tackling a career on stage and screen, was 57 years old.
“Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,” said a statement released Monday evening in Los Angeles by his publicist, Annett Wolf. No other details were given.
via CBC
Ok, we’re getting down to the last couple days before the wedding and I need to ensure that everyone knows what they need to do and where they needs to be, and when. Since most were unable to come to the rehearsal last night, I will provide what info I can here.
So first, it looks like Deb and I will be able to save about a grand on wedding costs by decorating the hall ourselves the night before the wedding. So it looks like I probably won’t be able to make it for a barbeque Friday night, which really sucks. But I’m pretty sure we can all agree that saving a thousand dollars (possibly more) is a pretty strong motivator and should count as a good excuse.
Bry and I will be sleeping at home Friday night and will likely be up and about some time around 10am (although Bry probably much earlier), I’m going to aim to have a good night’s sleep and try to be as well-rested as I can. The wedding photographer will be coming by around 1pm, I think (maybe a bit later), to take photos of “The Boys getting ready”, apparently. So all Groomsmen should try to be at my place by around 12:30 so we can make sure we’re all dressed and ready to go. My address, for those who don’t know, is:
328, Westminster Ave N.
Montreal-Ouest
A quick Google maps search should bring that up no problem. From there we’ll kinda just hang out and do final preparations until around 2:30 when we head over to the Church. At the chruch you guys will be ushering the guests in and showing them to their seats in the pews. Deb’s parents and my Aunt Sue and her boyfriend are seated on the isle in the second row on the groom and bride’s sides respectively. The front row will be for the groomsmen and bridesmaids on the groom and bride’s sides, obviously.
Once the guests have been seated we all retreat into the minister’s room and kinda just relax there until we’re called out. Once we’re called out, we file out, me at the head and make our way across the isle and form a line going out from me to the right of the altar (to the right when facing the altar). Then When Deb comes down the isle and I stand next to her, the minister will tell you to sit and you guys (and the bridesmaids on the other side) can then go caterpillar like in-file into the first row of pews from the outside. That is to say, Bry and Alex, at the head of the group, will start to walk back past you guys to the right and around the end of the pews, then make their way towards the isle end of the first row, you guys just follow in the order you’re standing (we can work out order when we meet up before we go to the church). From then on, most of you are done your jobs and can just enjoy the wedding, Alex and Bry still have stuff to do, but they know what and should be fine. Once the wedding is over everyone just kinda makes their way out the front doors of the church.
The only other thing to note is that Deb wants to film ther wedding ceremony. We’ve got a great new digital camcorder and we need someone to do the recording of the wedding. Deb’s suggestion was Joe, and that works for me. I also would have suggested Carl, but being a groomsman, that would make for some weird camera angles and POV changes.
So anyway, any and all who read this and are coming to the wedding (groomsmen especially), reply and let me know if it’s clear enough or if you have any questions.
U.S. actor David Carradine was found dead, naked and hanging from a rope in the closet of his luxury Bangkok hotel room on Thursday, Thai police said. He was 72.
via Reuters
Hey guys, decided I’d make a post out fo this rather than flooding the chat some more. Well, after some poking around, the best overall price for buying any of the epoxies commonly used for miniature modifying is either www.greenputty.com or www.thewarstore.com. The only place that beats them is, of course, eBay. Now, greenputty.com sells their green stuff for $20, but has much lower shipping ($7.59 for an order of one roll of Green Stuff and a brick of Brown Stuff, which I’ve read is better for sharp details). The war store sells Green Stuff for $12.99 but has twice the shipping price ($15.00 flat rate to Canada). This might make it seem like a no-brainer to go with The War Store, but greenputty.com offers bulk bundles, for an extra $18, you triple your order of Green Stuff (or add ), so now, you’re looking at $38 for 3 bricks as opposed to $39 at the War Store, which seems negligible until you remember the lower shipping at greenputty.com. This comes out to a final total of $45.59 from greenputty vs $53.97 from the war store. Both places offer both the tape and rod varieties of Green Stuff at the same prices.
So really it’s a matter of what you want to get a lot, or a little. By the same token, If you really wanted to go nuts, greenputty.com offers a bulk bundle of 24 units of green stuff by adding $200 to the base of $20. So, to compare if you really needed a lot of green stuff, to say, build a bookshelf out of or something you would be looking at $227.59 from greenputty, or $346.76 from the war store. The savings!
And just for the fun of it, what does Games Workshop charge you for the same amounts of green stuff? Well, assuming you go the cheapest route and buy it in-person at the GW store. For one package of the stuff it comes out to only$13.80 after tax! But oh, wait, that’s for a third of the amount so it’s really $41.40 for the equivalent of one brick. Or, if we wanted 3 bricks worth, it would be $124.20. And lastly, how does GW compare to the massive bulk order of 24 bricks of green stuff? With a whopping $993.60 after tax, that’s how!
The moral of the story, don’t go with GW unless you really only need a little of the stuff and don’t ever intend to use it again.
Sad news. It seemed when I was growing up, at least in the 80s, Dom Deluise was in just about everything, so it’s sad to hear that he’s gone.
Dom Deluise passed yesterday. I remember watching him as a kid on both Cannonball Run I & II, and who could forget him in Spaceballs in the most disgusting costume ever.
Heres some outtakes from Cannonball Run I. One of my favorite parts of both of those movies. Especially when Dom can’t stop laughing.
via TIFR
Hey all, figured I’d post a progress update on how my army is coming along. Biggest bit of news, Deb’s birthday present to me was a trip to Le Valet on Saturday, whereupon she had me pick a bunch of stuff and bought it for me. Most notably a Seer Council boxed set for my Eldar army. This now means that I have 2 farseers and 3 warlocks at my disposal. She also got me several boxes of the new D&D miniatures, the pre-painted ones, we’re thinking of introducing Bry and his Cousin Jasmine to D&D and felt that using the minis, which are really inexpensive by miniatures standards, would be a good visual appeal to the whole process.
Anyway, that aside, and back to my eldar army. I also did a re-count of my figures and it turns out I had a fieldable squad of Warp Spiders all along! So, after updating my army list, my totals are:
Army Total w/o Wargear: 1576
Fieldable Army Total w/o Wargear: 1386
Current Battleforce, Wargear in: 1249
So that puts me at a current battleforce build of:
HQ
2 Farseers
3 Warlocks
Troops
4 Dire Avengers + 1 Exarch
10 Guardians
8 Ranger Pathfinders
Fast Attack
4 Warp Spiders + 1 Exarch
Heavy Support
1 War Walker
1 Heavy Weapon Platform
1 Wave Serpent Transport
So I’m quite pleased with my army list and now that I’ve got that taken care of, I’ve started on assembly the units for my battleforce that you guys go tme for my birthday, and even have some photos!
So, I spent a couple hours carefully picking through my battleforce box on Saturday night checking to see which units I had instructions for and which I didn’t and which would be the easiest to start with. So eventually I realized that I had no instructions for heavy weapons platform and its two accompanying guardians. The had pretty easily identifiable pices and since they had no instructions I figured if I could puzzle them out, there would be less guess-work later when I moved on to the guardians, which also had no instructions. So, first I put the weapons platform together and opted for the eldar missile launcher mount as it offers two missile choices and provides a blast weapon with a good range and strength. I got it together quite easily, and the turret portion turns nicely should I want it to move, and the hover base seats cleanly into the baseplate, so I was pleased. I then moved on to the two crew guardians for the platform, they had their legs, and chests as a single piece on the sprue, so I only need to glue on the back, arms, heads and any accesories, which I did. There was a loose Shuriken catapult for the guardian that couldn’t hold his, so I glued it fo his back, making it look kind of like an antenna, which sounds weird, but actually fit the styling of the eldar units surprisingly well. Please excuse my pictures, I took them with my cell phone.
Surveying the field
Assault at White Loaf
So, quite pleased with my assembled minis, but very tired, I went to bed. Then last night, Deb was tired and decided to turn in around 10:30, so I took the opportunity to assemble the rest of my guardians. Having done the other two succefully, I felt more confident to tackle the rest of the little buggers. Of course, the standard guardians, unlike the weapon crew ones, come in 10 pieces instead of 5. So, I very carefully cut the pieces for one guardian out fo the sprue, made sure they my cuts were clean and satisfactory, then began meticulously glueing them together in sequence. It went really slow, but went well. So I tried another, my morale boosted, quicker, but just as well-assembled. So here I was now fully sure of what I was doing, and what sorts of freedoms and lee-ways I had when assembling the figures and I began to carefully stream-line the process. By the time I had finished the first 4, I had determined a method to quickly, effectively, and easily assemble the last 4 guardians simultaneously, adding slight variations to poses and placements to make the squad look more dynamic and life-like. Take a look:
Hanging with the Heavies
So far I’m very pleased with my progress so far, next up is likely going to be the war-walker and then the dire avengers. The Wave Serpent I’m likely going to leave for last as I need to do it in two parts since I have to prime and paint the cockpit before I can fully glue the thing together. So, I’ll leave you with two more pics, one of my Seer Council units, and a very blurry one of my currently fieldable army.
It’s a sad day for gamers everywhere, as Dave Arneson, the co-creator of D&D and the first DM ever, has passed away from cancer. He was lesser known to a lot of gamers simply for no other reason than Gary stuck around longer at TSR. This is no less reason for him to be mourned, however. He was the first DM with his Blackmoor campaign setting (the first ever, even before Greyhawk), and paved the way for a few of the most fun parts of this hobby: creating worlds and great story telling. He will be missed.
There were originally some conflicting reports on whether he had truly died or not, so I was waiting for some decent confirmation before I said anything.
RIP Dave.
PS: This latest Order of the Stick comic is a brilliant homage.
Yesterday, in the skies over New York, birds believed to be linked to al-Qaeda attacked US Airways flight 1549. Thankfully, due to the actions of veteran pilot Chesley Sullenberger III, the plane completed a textbook emergency water landing in the Hudson River, after which all 155 souls on board were rescued.
According to US intelligence agencies, numerous radical Islamic websites posted a statement by Ayman al-Zawahiri claiming that the birds had been trained at a secret al-Qaeda run camp in Pakistan. Unnamed US intelligence sources have said that they believe that the operatives most likely arrived in the US in the fall and covertly assimilated themselves into the migratory patterns of North American birds.
The White House has yet to confirm the link between the birds and al-Qaeda, though it is believed that the FBI has taken several hundred birds into custody since the incident and is holding them at an undisclosed location.
Is it finally game over for Florida lawyer and violent video game opponent Jack Thompson? Judgment has been entered in the case that started last year and came to a head when Judge Dava Tunis recommended permanent disbarment for the bombastic, showboating law man. The court has approved the report and has ordered that JT is official disbarred as of 30 days from today.
Via Kotaku
Sometimes life imitates art, rather than the other way around, and the 2001 video game “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon” stands as a prime example. The game, although dated by contemporary standards, did one thing: It accurately predicted the eruption of hostilities between an expansionist Russia and Georgia.
From The Bulletin
“The BBC reports on a scientific community still holding to flat earth theories. From their article: ‘Are there any genuine flat-earthers left? Surely in our era of space exploration — where satellites take photos of our blue and clearly globular planet from space, and robots send back info about soil and water from Mars — no one can seriously still believe that the Earth is flat? Wrong. Flat earth theory is still around. On the internet and in small meeting rooms in Britain and the US, flat earth believers get together to challenge the ‘conspiracy’ that the Earth is round.’”
via Slashdot
If you get a chance, and the time (it’s an hour and fifteen minutes long), check out this video of Randy Pausch’s last lecture he did before he died. It’s not important whether you know who he was or what he did before watching.
Erick Wujcik, author of our beloved TMNT roleplaying game, along with alot of other books for the abysmal Palladium line of RPGs passed away earlier this month after a long bout with cancer. While I didn’t follow his work closely, I know that we all had great fun with the TMNT RPG, and it pretty much is the sole reason we discovered RPGs outside of D&D, so I think he deserves at least a little bit of our respect.
Besides, without him we wouldn’t have had anything as creative as a nitroglycerin-laden, artifically intelligent, murderous van run amok!
http://forums.palladium-megaverse.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=90372
Go to the Time site here and vote to make Stephen Colbert the #1 most influential person in the world. Can’t have some Korean pop star beat him out!
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
The weather was horrible but it didn’t stop the droves of people from attending the 8th Annual Independent Music Awards. The Canadian ballroom in the Royal York was packed as hundreds of performers and fans huddled together like cows to the slaughter. Everyone bright eyed and blissful with the promise of music to come.
Even I stood there in Awe as the first band took that stage, not ever hearing them or at least the song they opted to play; They where Amazing, with my Camera in hand I tried to edge closer and closer to get that perfect picture. Being denied access about halfway by a rude enforcer at the VIP area. That is, however, until Christy worked her magic and using her XM connections and social prowess snagged not 1 but 4 VIP passes and as many drink tickets her little hands could carry.
The night was very formulaic, award, award, DJ, band, rinse and repeat. And every bit of the night was just as entertaining as the bit that came before it. Awards were presented by the Bands, Miss Canada, Kyle Gass a veritable cornucopia of who’s who. We stood inches away from the Giant that was Majormakers lead vocalist. They won best website.
But the highlight of my night was Tokyo Police Club, they took the stage after the awards and they blew the lid off the Royal York . They played some music from their new album that will be released April 22nd as well as a full set from their current release. They had the crowd clapping as the steadied my belief in the genre. I hope the next time they are playing we have the opportunity to go see them.
After Tokyo Police Club the New Pornographers came on stage, I snapped a couple of pics but we didn’t stay for the entire set. We wanted to beat the masses to the coat check. Coats in hand it was just a matter of a quick subway ride home. Still pumped from the night I could barely sleep.
An Amazing end to an Amazing day.
Click the link below to see all the pics I shot from the show.
Joseph’s Flickr Page
*EDIT: I originally said Attack in Black blew the lid off. While they played they where not the highlight. It was Tokyo Police Club. They have a new album on the 22nd called Elephant Shell.
It’s with great sadness that I report today that Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons has passed away at the age of 69. Gary was the creator of the game, it’s premier personality and figurehead, as well as it’s ardent defender and one of it’s most colourful characters. I never got the chance to meet him, and have rarely played first edition AD&D, but I still have immense respect for the man that started it all.
I was never a great fan of his Lejendary Adventure stuff, which his company had sent to our meagre little gaming site (The Montreal RPG Hub), way back in the day. Despite that, however, I would read his posts on ENWorld‘s forums (there as Col_Pladoh) with great fascination. I rollicked at his brief-but-awesome guest appearance on Futurama. Quite simply, I respected and revered this man. It’s a terrible shame that he’s passed on.
The news was broken by this post on the Troll Lord Games’ forum. You can find more discussion on ENWorld. UPDATE: You can also read this (quite nice) article at CNN. UPDATE AGAIN: Wizards of the Coast has a dedication to Gary on their D&D page. ANOTHER UPDATE: There’s this documentary about D&D that was done awhile ago that’s pretty interesting to watch. At the end of it, however, they have a few interviews with Gary about inspiration and such. They’re very interesting. Check them out here and here.
This also gives GM’s day a whole new meaning.
RIP Gary.
Sunday, members of a group called ‘Anonymous’ gathered outside the central Phoenix Church of Scientology to protest.Wearing face masks, purple latex gloves and dressed all in black, members held signs in front of the church.
You know precisely of who they speak. They do things for the lulz.
ABC News (popup warning!) by way of Slashdot
In Norway there’s no tradition for fireworks arranged by the city. It’s too cold in January to gather downtown for the celebrations, so everyone just goes out into their gardens or a nearby open spot, launches their rockets and then heads back inside. The result is a view like this, with fireworks shooting up from absolutely everywhere at midnight on January 1.
via Gizmodo
We'll aim to have a session this week. 
