Chatter Of The Squirrel

The Banquet, ??

Enjoyed this a LOT more than The Promise.

Zhang Ziyi. Zhou Xun. Shakespearean tragedy. Everybody dies. Enough said.

No sucky Japanese nor Korean actors in this one. Definitely a good sign.

A proper period movie with proper Chinese speaking proper Mandarin.

When I’m watching a Chinese period movie, the accent and the dialogue is the most important ingredient that takes me INTO the movie.

And that’s why The Promised sucked to high heaven. With a Korean co-lead and a Japanese co-lead with their ridiculous grating accent. That and the Superman theme too.

Back to the Banquet…

If you’ve never read Hamlet, the story goes something like:

Prince loves Zhang Ziyi, but daddy beats him to the punch and makes her his empress.

Depressed prince goes Emo takes up dancing.

Emperor dies. His brother takes the throne.

The brother wants to kill the prince and marry Zhang Ziyi.

Zhang Ziyi wants to kill her brother-in-law to have her prince.

Prince wants his uncle dead to avenge his father.

Zhou Xun is in there somewhere as an adviser’s daughter who’s in love with the prince.

Action ensues.

There’s a number of sword fighting scenes. But choreographed for style. Very dance-like. Nothing as good as Hero.

The selling point is the dialogue, and the lack of foreign actors. Enjoyed the movie.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight

Hmm… perhaps a bit late…

But here’s http://www.gamingreport.com/article.php?sid=21543, and the imdb.

A Dragonlance cartoon!

Though, incidentally, I’ve never read any of the Dragonlance novels. I jumped into the deep end of fantasy fiction, and never took the time to backstroke to the casual end. Might have read something from Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, but was underwhelmed.

The Black Spot #4

Who is a Press Ganger?
This is Norman, your local Press Ganger.

I’m the guy judging tournaments, and being roped in by gamestores to do demos for WARMACHINE and HORDES. [These games kick so much ass, they have to spelt in all CAPS].

“But what is the Black Spot, Captain?” - Jim from Treasure Island
I’m starting up this newsletter as a means to get word out to the small crew of Privateer Press fans out there. I’ll use the newsletter to keep everyone updated on the local WARMACHINE and HORDES scene. Especially notices for demos or tournaments happening locally. When new stuff comes in. What kind of new stuff to expect.

Tournament Reports
The last HORDES event had a 50% better showing than the first one.

Yeah, 3 people showed up. So we opted to postpone it to the coming Sunday instead.

Upcoming Tournaments
3/12/06 (Sunday) Wolf’s Game Shop
HORDES Box-set Rumble.

Come to WGS this Sunday, before 2pm.

We’ll have a HORDES boxset battle. Those of you who have bought your second or third Warlock already, feel free to sub them in. But those who have bought up Dire Troll Maulers, sorry, no dice!

We’re playing with the WarBeasts in the boxset only. No solos or infantries yet. I know some of you have furious beasties just raring to see battle, but let’s give the community some time to grow. Don’t bully those poor factions who haven’t got their Titan Cannoneers, or Seraphs, or Woldwardens yet.

Back to the tourney….
Entry fee is RM10.

You’ll win store credit, Best of Faction certificates. And the champ will also receive a voucher to redeem Gold bordered stat cards from Privateer Press.

x/12/06 (Saturday) Wolf’s Game Shop
750pt WARMACHINE Epic Battle

This event will be moved. I may want to get this to happen at the mini-con at Cineleisure.

Wolf is thinking of inviting the Singaporean players up again. It’ll be easier to tempt those guys to come with 750pt games. And we’ll need more players to make 750 more interesting anyway.

It’ll likely be Steamroller 2.1 format. And I’ll want to time the turns to 15min per turn. I’ll release the Steamroller rules on request soon.

Players I hope I can count on for this:
Saleem
Brian
Rahman
Khairul
Kuok? or will you be working?
And can somebody get hold of K.J. ?

15-17/12/06 Cineleisure
There’ll be a mini-con for the launch of Eragon.

Wolf’s Game Shop has already been invited and promised a lot of tables. There’ll be a mix of Privateer Press, Games Workshop, Rackham games there. And Dark Age? Even some WWF it seems. And a display case full of dragons.

We’ll have meeting soon to plan out event schedules.

One of the days for the 750 Epic Battle. Another day for a 350 Guts and Gears. And demos when I don’t have to play.

Help~~~~ too many models to get ready before I’m ready….

The Crow’s Nest
Arzmi, our unfaithful Cygnaran, will be leaving for New Zealand in less than a week. He’ll be available at Settler’s this Thursday, for everyone who wants to meet the dude one last time before he spends his next two years abroad… Possibly without his army transport case.

Also,

Our hobby received some media attention sometime last week. I’ll like to draw everyone’s attention to The Sun U! on 21st Nov 2006. Page 6. I’m reproducing the article here without permission. Well, they published our Eric’s Cygnar Hunter on the papers without permission either, so fair’s fair. The link will take you to a pic of the article as it appears in the papers.

Have done a bit of Googling. Lainie is a blogger, and you’ll find her blog linked below. She’s also a frequent contributor to kakiseni.com. So she is a fairly good writer. But unfortunately, when she was writing about our hobby, her research only scratched the most superficial aspects and completely missed out the underlying passion. So there was an unflattering slant.

Several people have suggested responding with arson. But let’s make sure that our responses are mature.

It’s not that big a deal that she called us geeks. Which we are. Listen to yourself talk sometimes. We have the taint. But it was still insensitive of her to write about Figmentia. That wasn’t her word, nor was it her definition. Don’t blame her for that. But it’s like, you can’t use the word “{insert racial slur}” unless you are {insert racial colour} yourself. If spoken by a person of the wrong colour, it’ll cause offense no matter the situation.

If you are calm and mature about this, do write to the editor of The Sun (can someone source me the email?) and let them know how you feel. Lainie also responds to her Blog, so you might be able to voice your objections there. But please watch what you write, and don’t make us out to be vicious little rabid hamsters with a burning match up its ass.

Scrutinizing Small Toys
A few months ago someone linked U! writer Lainie Yeoh to CoolMiniOrNot.com, a website where users vote on the overall quality of painted miniature models. Since then, she has been exploring this unchartered terrain of geekery.

{Full article not available on the blog.}

Phat Lootz
Some great news for hobbyists.
The P3 paints have finally launched last week.
You may have seen write-ups about these in the last few No Quarter mags, and there has been mostly good buzz going around on the forums and the PodThrall’s podcasts.

Wolf is not bringing these paints in yet. But I’m sure if we place a dozen orders with him, that will get him to change his mind.

The official retail price is US$18 for 6 pots. Each pot is 18ml, ie 50% more than GW paints (12ml). At the moment, the only source of GW paints is Games’ Circle, selling at RM15 per pot. GW prices have gone up, don’t ja know it. I think this is the best value for miniature paints.

In a few days, I plan to order in some of these paints from an online retailer. I’ll like to try them out. Particularly piqued by the Blighted Gold in the Cryx set. Maybe even let P.A.W.S. (Painters At Wolf’s Shop) try them out, and see if that convinces Wolf to bring in some of these paints.

The Bilge
For those who need a quick rundown of the models in WARMACHINE, without having to slog through the noise in the forums, you’ll need to read Battle College, http://www.battlecollege.com.

This goes for those who’ve just joined WARMACHINE, or have been out of it for a while. This may get you a little bit more up to speed. And even for those of us who never stopped playing, it’s still good to read. Our player scene isn’t diverse enough yet, there’s bound to be a few things we’ve not seen.

Epilogue
Please help get the Black Spot around. Let our community grow.

Back issues of The Black Spot will now be here.

30 Year Old Virgin

Yay….

Superman 2

Just rewatched the movie.

I think the last time I watched it was before puberty. Such a long time ago.

Cos I never remembered that Superman had pre-maritals with Lois Lane.

Small town upbringing, and the all-American eagle-scout…

Such a scandal.

Wonder why I never realised it before? At the time, I probably never understood the context of why Superman was sleeping naked with Lois.

I guess that explains the bastard in Superman Returns.

Except why wasn’t Lois pregnant in Superman III & IV…