Paints and Pets

So my Mighty Armies Wild Elves have been sitting on my shelf for a while waiting to get painted. This weekend I moved one step closer to actually getting them painted by buying some primer, matte varnish, paints, and paint brushes.

In pet news, P.J. brought home his new pet guinea pig today and he was just as excited as I've ever seen him. I suggested the name Tostig, but he went with the name Bob. :-) We've got Bob setup in his cage in the living room with some timothy hay, water, and bedding.

Love Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising? Then avoid the movie.

Okay, the movie The Seeker is a film version of Susan Cooper's wonderful book The Dark is Rising. I was excited when I heard that there was a film coming out. However, after some research on the internet, I realize that what was filmed was a crass American film with little relation to the complexity and wonderfully subtle weaving of myth that was present in the books. Here's a list of what they changed for the film that will make you cry:

http://community.livejournal.com/authorblog/5880.html

1983 Lives Again

My monthly gaming session took on 1983's Red Box Dungeons and Dragons. The group made it to the second battle before losing members of the party to kobold arrow fire. A second attempt resulted in all but one member of the party dead. Third time was the charm with the group using the pregenerated characters from the rulebook. This time, the party successfully made it into the castle rather than failing before even getting inside. A few battles later, the party had been killed again. Four players died a total of nine times. The 1 hit point thief Lilly actually never died, living to run away each time. All in all, a fun nostalgic trip back to dungeon crawls with low hit points. Wizards of the Coast has made the Red Box edition (as well as the other old editions) available as Adobe PDF books for around $4.95 at sites like RPG Now.

Sidetracked

So, most of August I was diligently working on researching Carolingian warfare for my Runequest SRD based gaming book. However, with the school year starting I've been a little busy with the kids sports schedules, increased work business, and my new gadgets. Over the weekend I picked up Bachrach's Early Carolingian Warfare book from Interlibrary loan through Ohio State. I'll have to finish the last 40 pages of Halsall's Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West 450-900 and get started on the new one.

80's and early 90's rap

So far, I'm finding myself utilizing the Old School Rap digital music channel a lot. It's too bad that there isn't a radio station that plays these songs. I mean, I can find old country, classic rock, and 50s-60's music. The only downside is that sometimes the channel is classic disco. Seriously, who wants that channel?