Show me the most beautiful woman in the world...

I’ve stopped reading about games online as much as I have the last couple of years. In all honesty, my curiosity about other people’s philosophies and ups and downs of gaming has significantly decreased. When I started this blog to talk about my own gaming past and present, I was super excited and very inspired. But that has dulled down a good bit since I became busier with career stuff and with other good life things. Also, I had only just started gaming regularly again after years off when I started the blog, and it all seemed so fresh.

It feels sort of like a couple of year relationship that has lost a lot of it’s initial luster after the long honeymoon period. As Bill Maher has said in the past, “show me the most beautiful woman in the world, and I’ll show you a guy who is tired of screwing her.”

Grognardia, the best gaming blog out there, and my own inspiration to start this blog, is no longer daily reading for me. I pretty much stopped reading and subscribing to other game blogs over a year ago (the main reason I don’t have at least a couple hundred followers of my own blog is for this very reason. Not tooting my own horn, but many fairly uninteresting blogs have followers in the hundreds due to those particular bloggers signing up for every new blog that comes along and those bloggers returning the favor. Amount of followers is not a good indication of how many people are actually reading). I never really cared much about amount of followers. This blog has served mainly as a place to vent and a place to practice writing about things I like. For myself. If other people find interest in it, great.

I’ve quit going to Dragonsfoot and other forums almost cold turkey in the last few weeks. But it’s not only a lack of interest; I’ve found a lot of the smugness, arrogance, holier-than-thou attitudes, and just plain hostility of many gamers online to be very uninspiring, aggravating, and very tiring. It really reminds me too much of my childhood playing at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, surrounded by older, angry pricks who thought they were “doing it right” much like many douche bags on DF who go on with great pride about how “sandboxing” or creating “mega dungeons” is some kind of high art. As if.

Sure, I’ve posted my own negative things on this blog in the past, but it was out of true and honest venting, not any kind of “I’m a better gamer than you” approach, or an attempt at hateful schtick that seems to be kind of popular on a few blogs. I sometimes opened up with honest emotion, and was often a little too open. I’ve for sure had my fill of my own hubris in terms of gaming. I really don’t intend to do much gaming outside of my own full, great group of people I have the good fortune to sit at the game table with, now on an almost weekely basis (wow). So my own negative reactions to some awful experiences in the greater gaming world at large are probably not going to happen anymore. I just don’t have the time or will to go out there and game with others with a very regular group going, and a life that demands more time away from the world of pretending.


So my focus is now on actual gaming with my group. I have also started to spend more of my free internet time looking at things that interest me, and have been a part of my life since childhood, other than gaming. Comic books were a big part of my life growing up, and even though I only buy a comic now and again these days (usually cheapies at garage sales and such) I am still in love with the medium and get the same type of chills from thinking about them as I have from thinking about gaming.

I wanted to point out this fairly new blog I have discovered by Jim Shooter, late 70’s/early 80’s editor in chief at Marvel Comics. As a kid and a teen I had about as much interest in the personalities behind comics as I did about games. Sure, we D&D’ers all knew about Gary Gygax, and we Marvel geeks all knew much about Stan “The Man” Lee (who I had the pleasure to meet and talk to as a young teen at the 1977 San Diego comic con, now a big time con). But Jim Shooter was one of these enigmas. He was mentioned in comic industry magazines, and I remember there not being much in the way of positives about him. I knew nothing about him, but I didn’t like him. But in this blog Jim is telling old stories, and giving his own side of things from back then. It is not only fascinating, but obviously Mr. Shooter has been long aware of his name being sullied for decades, and in his own personal touch is setting the record straight. It is super fascinating in a way nothing in the world of gaming currently seems to be to me. I am pouring over Shooters older posts with a vast passion as I try to catch up. For old school, Silver Age comics fans it is fascinating reading and I highly recommend you check it out if you grew up with comics.

I’ll mention some personal tales of my own that relate to some of Mr. Shooters posts in the future, but I am not done with gaming posts entirely. My Knights of the Old Republic campaign is a blast, and I at least, if not to share, want to use this blog as a place to keep a sort of journal about it. So when I have some time I’ll post on that, and anything (especially non-game related) that pops up of interest. There will be gaming stuff here when I post from time to time(you can bank that the couple of power gamers in my group will continue to annoy me), but let me declare at this point, officially, that Temple of Demogorgon is now more about pop culture than just game culture. This is in many ways an alternate to just abandoning a blog almost three years old. If you are one of the few readers here, I hope you continue to check it out and share your comments, and even smack me down when I geek out too bad or get too hoity toity.

I hope you are having a great summer, and are successful in your endeavors, gaming and otherwise. As Stan The Man might say…

EXCELSIOR!!

Scarface vs. The Zombie Invasion!!!

Oye me, Chico, more Zombie Fun!!!

A little something to hold us zombie fans over till World War Z comes out. Hey Chico, get the Yayo!

Would you face Traffic Hell for a game session?

Even though my life has become much busier due to previously mentioned things happening at work, our gaming group has managed to become a once weekly affair. One week I’m doing Knights of the Old Republic, and the next week Ben does his AD&D campaign (the one where we don’t all have to run elves). I haven’t done gaming on a weekly basis since I was a teenager, so it’s kind of a trip. I think all this solid, quality gaming is partly to blame for my decline of online participation in the gamer community, but I’ll talk about that in a separate post.

I thought I would be taking a summer break from gaming, as Andy and the wife are renting out the back place to a young guy from Spain for the time being (who Andy is trying to get interested in gaming so he’ll host us out there, if I am not mistaken). But Dan-Dan the Power Game Man, with the big palace up in Northern Bel Air off Mulholland, has stepped up to host for the time being despite a brand new baby in the house (his, he thinks).

It has been rough going for me so far, because as anybody in So Cal knows, the 405 Freeway (the gateway from West LA to the Valley) is a tough drive in the late afternoon. And despite a couple of better alternatives, it is the way I have foolishly tried to go to get to Dan’s (the Mulholland offramp has been closed, meaning having to drive down to Van Nuys, get off, and go back up Sepulveda).

Next week they are closing the 405 between West LA and Ventura Blvd. They are demolishing the Mulholland overpass or something. What this unheard of act means is that traffic is going to be a living nightmare for those willing to take to local freeways during his apocalyptic event. Sure, there is Sepulveda, and the few winding roads that go up into Northern Santa Monica and the Bel Air area, but those are more likely than not going to be a car nightmare.

For somebody like me who doesn’t like to drive unless it's long road trips up uncrowded Interstates, it was a given there would be no game next week, at least at Dan’s. But how about you? Have you ever gone into what you knew would be horrid traffic to get to a game session (maybe you were DM and didn’t want to disappoint those who showed up)? Would you try to get to the Dan situation I described for a game? I mean, I’m loving gaming lately, but LA traffic is bad enough without something insane like a 405 closure. I’d show up so frazzled I’d end up getting drunk and having to crash on the couch with Dan’s dogs.

BILBO!

Behold, Bilbo Baggins (with his dwarvish "guests" in the background) in all his tea-chugging, bread and cheese horking glory!

Oh yeah, that's actor Martin Freeman (Love, Actually) as the would be burgler. Nice! This movie can't come soon enough for me.

This is Ghostly Aging

OK, the commercial is about how scary the King Kong ride is, but it is indeed the best depiction of what ghostly aging looks like. You're very young thief character goes from having his life in front of him to being ready for the old adventurer's home (hell) in seconds flat.

Players are more afraid of losing levels from undead, but you gotta admit that in it's own way, ghostly aging takes away a lot of your life. Almost all of it in this poor kid's case.

D&D and the Fuzz just don't mix

Hi-lar-ious clip from the Reno 911 cops getting called to a dispute at a Dungeons and Dragons session, featuring the ever awesome geek comedian Patton Oswalt. Note how his Boots of Escaping are no match for the policeman's bullet of ass-penetration.

How many Failsauce gamers have you played with who you would like to have seen this happen too? About a thousand, that's how many.

Avengers Assemble!

This promo poster art for next year's Avengers film is our first real indication of what the heroes involved will look like together. Interesting to note (to me anyway) how out of place the dude from Hurt Locker looks as a maskless Hawkeye the Archer. We have to keep in mind this is the Ultimates version of The Avengers (although that Hawkeye wore special glasses because they strangly had him be near sighted in that version).

Time will tell, but right now it seems unreal that I am actually going to get such a huge Marvel team-up in a live action film in my lifetime, and that it might actually not suck (it could be stupid, but it will be fun for sure). Now, where the hell is my Justice League film, true believers?