Kansas crept out of its’ deep thaw with the usual flip flop. Still, it is nice to be outside in ambient warm air.

I’m fixin’ to go home and tear apart the brick (many, many packs) of HorrorClix The Lab expansion figures I just bought. Much fun will be had.

In comics news:

I got issue 2 of the Dark Tower comic. If anything it is superior to issue 1. The art work is nothing short of fantastic. If you are a Stephen King fan you better be reading this, because it is capturing everything that was good about the Dark Tower series of books.

The Walking Dead continues on it’s gruesome and merry way. There are a few characters I am getting tired of and a few that re-affirm how kick ass that I think they are. Any long time reader will know which is which.

I picked up Fall of Cthulhu #0.

It is pretty damn amazing. Again fantastic art, evocative of theme. But another telling of Alhazred?

People need to realize Donald Tyson pretty much created a definative Alhazred and all others need to step off.

Still I am interested enough to add it to my pull list.

I picked up the Dark Pharoh expansion to Arkham Horror. It is over priced for what it is, essentially two new decks of cards. (At $20) It looks to add some fun to the game but the price seems a bit out of line.

Oh and I bought a bottle of fantastic thai hot sauce…but that is neither here nor there.

Well, my buddy got his HorrorClix Alien Queen. It was suitably gross and looks like it would cause complete havok in an HC game. We’ll have to give it a spin.

Speaking of giving a spin, I unpacked Arkham Horror and gave it a look over. It is a very solid and well put together game. Fantasy Flight really does have their board game vibe down. I hear the expansions calling my name. Mostly in the trilling proto-pipes of the shoggoths. One cool thing, the game can be played solo, down side the board is too damn big for my small table in my apartment.

*sigh*

I am slowly being swayed towards buying an XBox 360, mostly because Dead Rising is such a complete blast of a game. I’ve been playing it over at a friends and it is wildly addicting. Heap on the fact that I am a badass with a lead pipe or a baseball bat..I’ll probably pick one up, espescially if Call of Cthulhu, Dark Corners of the Earth is backwards compatable.

But when will I find time to play World of Warcraft? I don’t want to let my boy Mccracken stagnate over on the Nazgrel server…

So much to do…so much to do…

So pre-pictures of the HorrorClix Alien Queen have come out and I have to admit it looks nifty. With gross egg sac and all. In a fun little bit of innovation it is actually a two part figure. After the egg sac takes enough damage mama alien pops out on her own base with her own dial to run around and cause havok. Considering that the lab set has some suitable colonial marines type figures me and the game nerds have been talking about some space hulk and abandoned mining facility types of scenarios.

Game over man, game over!

On the Cthulhu front I’ve decided, after literally years of looking at and thinking about buying, dipping my toe in the world of the monograph. Some of the bound stuff I had read in pieces on the web (specifically the End Times stuff) and thought it was interesting enough to look for a more polished version of same. So I order some and am thinking of ordering more (Cthulhu Invictus has caught my eye). I’ll report back after I have a look at the stuff I’ve ordered.

In TV land:

The newest episode of the Dresden Files has given me a little hope for the series. It was a very, very loose adaptation of ‘Fool Moon’ but had a lot more of the feel of the books then the previous two episodes. Murphy actually showed some emotion, Bob had a fun scene while also showing that he is WAY more amoral then Harry and hot almost werewolf chicks. Victory all around.

LOST has been a bit underwhelming in its return. The Desmond episode was fun and had a nice twist ending but still something feels…off. I’m not sure what and I really hope the rest of the season picks up.

Jericho comes back this week, and CBS had a very nice season catch up clip show last week that did a good job of bring up all the plot points (and where there were a lot of them) of the first half of the season. Now 11 more new episodes in a row. I for one am really looking forward to it. What is going on with Hawkins?

Battlestar Galactica is still mired in soap opera land and seems to not know how to get out of it. I hope the trial of Baltar injects some more kick assery into this midseason slump.

All I know is that until Dexter comes back for its second season there will be a little empty place in my heart.

Comics.

I picked up the first issue of The Dark Tower and I have to say I am really happy with it. The art is fantastic and they are doing something I didn’t expect, telling the story of the gunslinger in chronological order. They begin in Gilead-that-was with the testing of the young Roland and the betrayal of his mother. It goes forward from there to Mejis and the big coffin hunters. I really look forward to seeing where this goes.

Well, I for one am eagerly looking forward to the ‘Lab’ expansion for WizKids HorrorClix game. For one thing it will be adding a lot of classic scifi horror tropes to the game; Greys, Men In Black, Mad Doctors, but also it will be adding More Zombies!

Zombie patients, irradiated, you name it and more zombies is always a good thing. I finlly understand now some of the addiction factor of the Clix games. I’ve gone out of my way on line to track down this or that figure I would need to complete an army. It has taken up a whole lot more of my time and interest then I thought it inititally would.

Plus the game aspect of HorrorClix is just flat out fun. Loopy strategies, improbable armies fighting one another (we had a three way battle last week of the Undead vs. Cthulhians vs. Aliens (ala the movie)..the Undead won suprisingly) and odd ball twists and turns via the use of cards make for a really entertaining game.

Good times, good times.

I was checking out this My Space style website and wrote up a profile for it. Here it is an enjoy.

—————–

My kung-fu is undeniable and I am an outlaw in Peru. Even though I am a private citizen I receive fan mail. I once single handedly fought off a ship load of pirates while wearing a dashing tuxedo. I was asked to lead a small European country that I had never been to, I had to turn them down because it would have taken time away from my lunar mission. I am beloved by children and the elderly. I am both radioactive and invisible to modern radar. I am made of an indestructible titanium alloy yet still have the delicious fragrance of baked bread. I am difficult to spot with the unaided eye. I have the hoary powers of the occult, while still being a master of countless scientific disciplines. I both walk the walk AND talk the talk. I have won countless world shuffleboard championships and have grown county fair winning radishes. The wikipedia entry about me is written in ancient Sumerian and is the topic of endless scholarly debate. I once rocked out so hard it destabilized the orbit of the ISS. On quiet mornings I re-invent forms of teleportation. People on the street ask for my autograph for no apparent reason. I receive critical acclaim yet remain a humble man of the people.

[  Mood: Amused ]
I love me some xkcd. Go read all of it, immediately.

link

Ok, Masters of Horror has been at best, a mixed bag. Some of the stories have been lame, some of the effects in various shows more so. I know, I know. But some of it has been great, when running on all cylinders it has been haunting.

As any good horror story should be; scary, werid, off-putting. I love the IDEA of Masters of Horror, take the best in the biz, let’em go. But the realization has, at times, been less that realized.

Dissapointing for sure, but unforgivable? Not hardly. When MoH works it really works, the trouble is these directors are working on cheap budgets on a brief filming timetable in Vancouver. There is only so much they can do there. They try, some succede, others…not so much. Still even their stabs at it are fun.

You have to look at MoH as a sort of EC comics in the visual medium. It is horror cotton candy, take it as such and enjoy it that way. I do.

Just don’t let the elephants stomp you on the way out of the tent.

[  Currently: Listening to Alice in Chains ]
Jericho depicts life in Kansas…kinda.

An idealized Kansas. Where people are decent or at least understanble to one other. The real Kansas, even small town Kansas not so much.

What Jericho doesn’t get is people here (in the ‘fly over states’ yeah we hate you frakkers to) are much like people everywhere. Same hates, dreams and desires.

It is obviously a story about Kansas told by non-Kansans. Ambitions, tales, desires aren’t sl different from everywhere else. If there is a Kansas ‘tude, we are more quiet about them. We go about the business of our lives and none the wiser.

Jericho doesn’t quite get it. It gets it in so far as people outside of Kansas, the midwest think about us. Small and noble and all folksy.

That would be nice. But bigger city and small town Kansas have all the same hates, fears, troubles and tribulations as the rest of the country. Kansas is stereotyped as nothing-ville, empty of emotion aside from mom and pop and apple pie. That ain’t so.

Don’t fly over us, we have children in the corn, we can stop feeding you.We have strange and unholy powers given to us from the plains.

We breathe dust and drink from rivers saturated from cattle raising. Do not mess with us, you will starve.

I’ve been gothing it on out lately, here is what I am listening to:

http://www.theshroud.com/

http://www.collide.net/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchblade_Symphony

Yup, chick goth bands. All 6’2" bald headed biker-looking of me, rocking it out to chick goth bands.

What the hell man, as The Cramps said, life is short and filled with stuff. It matches my mood recently, I’m not going to ask for forgiveness.

I’ve re-fired up Cthulhu Rose, from a different direction. You can see the start of it here:

http://cthulhurose.livejournal.com