Two Two-Faced coins acquired

I popped in to Giant Tiger again on the way home Monday and was able to pick up another Harvey Dent and two Two-Faces.   

These are from The Dark Knight movie.  Even though they both list accessories as scarred coin only the one with Two-Face is actually scarred.  The coin with Harvey Dent is a double-sided coin.

So now I have a pair of double-sided coins and a pair of scarred Two-Face coins.  I might repaint them as they look like plastic, but they have a great weight and both flip well.

Two-Faced coin

While out and about on the weekend, I picked up a Harvey Dent figure at Giant Tiger. They were blowing them out for $3. It had the Two-Face coin so I figured for that price I could live with a nice plastic one.

When I got it home and opened it I noticed two things:
First, that it was actually metal instead of plastic.
Secondly, the coin that came with the Harvey Dent figure was double-sided but not scarred.

So I need to pop back in on the way home and pick up at least another one and probably another pair on top of that.

The Hunger Games

We saw The Hunger Games. Shan had read the book but I haven’t yet. It was easy enough to pick up the plot and follow along. Jennifer Lawrence carries off the role of Katniss very well. She seems believable and likable enough. She seems to handle the bow believably.

Woody Harrelson pulls off the role of Hamish very well. He looks younger than he has recently and easily comes across as a bitter drunken survivor who gets sucked into believing in Katniss.

The Games itself are well handled. The CG is a bit odd in the environment – how do the creatures get created in a way that they can spring from the ground and still be able to interact? Aside from that, not much else seems odd or jarring. It really makes me think that they could easily do a Dream Park movie or series finally.

We didn’t take the kids with us. A lot of the violence was handled just off-camera but there were still a few scenes that might cause some of the younger ones some alarm.

We liked it. We look forward to the sequel and it will probably make me read the books. The arena costumes are simple enough for costuming and are even available online. It has also sparked a renewed interest in kids taking archery – which is always a good thing.

OGRE - Designer Edition - snubbed from Steve

Back in 1977 a young designer named Steve Jackson released a ‘minigame’ called OGRE through a company called Metagaming. It came in a zip-lock bag and dealt with a massive nuclear-powered tank attacking an army of tanks and soldiers. One side had infantry, tanks, GEVs, howitzers and the other side had one counter – the OGRE. It cost a mere $2.95.
Based on the strength of this game he created Steve Jackson Games and published many other games – including Car Wars, Illuminati, GURPS, and lately, Munchkin.
I got into OGRE with the 1982 SJG edition. I always liked it and have picked up many versions – including the computer game for my Apple IIc – which allowed you to play against the computer controlled Ogre.



Last year word came around about Steve wanted to do an Euro-style version of the game with bigger counters in a solid box for $100. I was definitely in for a version and signed up for info. Yesterday I got early word about a Kickstarter program where they were raising money to gauge interest in the new Designer Edition which would be released in November. They only sent this out to those who had signed up for Ogre info.
When I checked yesterday, they easily had reached their goal of $20,000. Today, they sent out the information to the masses in their Daily Illuminator email. When I checked this morning they were now at over $70,000. As I post this, they have currently reached over $95,000.

I would be in for this in a big way, but due to shipping and Kickstarter, they are only shipping these ones ordered through Kickstarter to addresses in the US. Unless I want to pledge almost $3000, in which case they will ship three copies anywhere in addition to some cool goodies. Sadly, unless I hit the lotto before May 11 I will not be able to get one.

I might still get in for some extra dice or pins just to show my support for the project, but this feels like a bit of a kick in the chest Steve for those of us across the border. I'm going to have to see if I can get it from one of the local games stores (because I still want one) but would have been all over this if I could have.

Darths & Droids - a New Hope

Those of you who have been following along with the Darths and Droids comic strip already know that they have moved on to the First film - A New Hope.

For those of you who haven’t been following, it is a good time to jump in.

John Carter

For his birthday, we took the boy to the movies and to dinner. We saw John Carter and then went to Montana’s where he got to wear the horns.

A lot of people seem down on John Carter but we enjoyed it. Even my daughter, who had been concerned it might be a bit scary, liked it. There has been some minor controversy about the title – it was Princess of Mars like the book but was changed to not confuse people (who hadn’t seen the trailer or know about the books) about it being another Disney Princess film.

Since it was based on a series of books that was written almost a century ago (Princess of Mars was published in 1917) you would think that it might be a bit dated, but it held up quite well. Since it had influenced a lot of later works, some parts seem familiar, but not too much that it seems like a copy. They even kept the framing sequence with the author and the matter transference into an avatar on the other planet. The green Martians look fine – maybe a bit long in the tusk but they get the six-limbed look down fine.

I haven’t managed to read the books yet so I don’t know how they describe the landscape but I would have expected the sand to be more red. I also don’t know how they handled the jumping in the books but it seemed on the verge of being a bit excessive in the movie.

All-in-all, it was a fun science-fiction film that fits in well with the modern ones. I hope it does well enough to make the sequels. I’m going to have to make an effort to read the originals.

The passing of an artist who drew dreams

On Mar 3 2012, at the age of 82, another icon slipped away from us. Ralph McQuarrie was a technical illustrator who worked on animating CBS’s coverage of the Apollo space program. He helped to make George Lucas’ vision of a space serial understandable to a lot of people who couldn’t follow what George wanted to do. His images form the backbone of the entire Star Wars saga, as well as many other movies from our youth – ET, Cocoon, Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park, as well as Battlestar Galactica.

I never had the chance to meet him but always felt an affinity towards him – having taking drafting and art. He set a high mark to strive for.
The world is a little more empty due to his passing. His impact while he was here touched so many of us in so many ways that you would have thought that his passing would have been a major news item.

http://www.ralphmcquarrie.com/