Endings and Beginnings

At the risk of this turning into more of a geek blog than a “my time in Japan” blog, I feel like talking about a few things from this weekend. Saying good-bye to one old friend, and saying hello to…..another old friend.

First up: Scud the Disposable Assassin #24. The final issue.
When I first starting reading indie comics around ‘95 or so, it was because I was just too burnt out to deal with superheroes anymore. The plots were hashed and rehashed to death, characters were often little more than stereotypes, and the industry in general was stuck in a rut of hype and greed (i.e. the Death of Superman). Along with Dave Sim’s monumental Cerebus and Jeff Smith’s delightful Bone, the hyperactive tale of a robot assassin, programmed to die but determined to live, was one of my favorites. Funny, funky and strangely thought-provoking, Rob Schrab’s tale of a mechanical everyman was very profound to me.

When Scud ended on a cliffhanger in ‘98, with Sussudio hacked to bits by an angel, God imprisoned and helpless, and an apocalyptic choice hanging over our hero’s head, I admit I was a little distraught. The story had gotten very dark in the last few issues, and now, just as it seemed there wasn’t going to be any happy ending, all hope for any kind of resolution at all was gone? Bummer.

Cut to earlier this year when I found out Rob had decided to finish things off properly. And I have to admit, he did just that. Old friends and new, we’ve seen how their story ends. Mister Spidergod, tyrant extraordinaire, has become a terrified old man who just wants to be left alone. System and Voodoo Ben are back in hell where they belong. Mess and Drywall are finally reunited with their mother. The angels get their just desserts, and God is set free once again. Jeff is finally dead, and in a strange bit of symmetry, her heart brings Sussudio back from the grave.

And best of all, in one of the greatest comic book finales I can remember, the crack in Scud’s trademark broken heart symbol is painted over, finally making him whole. A bit sappy perhaps, but frankly, I’d rather have a happy ending for Scud; nothing else would really fit the tone of cheerful ultra-violence that made me love the comic almost half my lifetime ago.

So, it’s time to say goodbye to ol’ Heartbreaker Series #1373. Thank you Rob, for taking the time to give your boy a good send-off.

(For those who are interested, in the final issue there is also a excellent interview between Rob and Doug TenNapel. Doug quizzes Rob on what it was like to write Scud, and he doesn’t pull any punches with the questions either. Great stuff.)

And now, for the hello. This one is much shorter:

I have seen the Cinematic trailer, and the Gameplay trailer. I have seen that you did not MMO’ify the great RPG (WoW? no thank you), and I am literally ebullient with glee. I have just two things to say, Blizzard:

1. Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou
2. What took you so freakin’ long?

Review: Alestorm – Captain Morgan’s Revenge

I’m going to try to put up a few reviews of some music over the next year, as a way of practicing my writing, as well as telling people who probably don’t care about my passion for metal. So buckle up me hearties, ‘ere we go.

Alestorm is a band I stumbled on by accident one day while surfing Amazon. Metal isn’t that popular down in Northern Virgina, at least not like back home in Canada, so most of my purchases tend to be online. Anyway, when I first saw the title Alestorm: Captain Morgan’s Revenge, I immediately thought, “It’s Metal? It’s PIRATES? Why don’t I own this already?”. My fascination with piracy in the Age of Sail, both the romantic and the reality, is a matter of public record. As such, this was really an impulse purchase; most gimmick bands often turn out to be terrible. But that was not the case here.

Alestorm describes themselves as “Scottish pirate metal”, and while their genre name may seem overly specific, it is no less apt. Don’t be fooled though; despite the name, this is pure power metal, albeit with a definite Scottish flavor and songs focused almost exclusively on pirate life. The vocalist has an excellent voice, loud and powerful with just enough of the metal growl to keep things interesting, without becoming incomprehensible or painful to listen to. Lyrics are well written and appropriate to the style. Guitars are technically proficient and definitely ahead of the curve. They even managed to sneak a few non-traditional (i.e. not metal) instruments in here. I can recall hearing harpsichords, bagpipes and accordions at some points. These guys know their stuff, and they show it off with flair but without pretension.

A handful of songs stand out in my mind. The opening Over the Seas is quite good, and the title track Captain Morgan’s Revenge is just outstanding, recalling to mind classic tales of buccaneers like Barrett’s Privateers. The final song on the album, Flower of Scotland, breaks with the album’s theme, but is easily one of their best performances. I’m a bit of a sucker for metal versions of classic songs, like Apocalyptica’s version of Hall of the Mountain King, or Iced Earth’s stirring Star-Spangled Banner. The remaining songs all run the gamut from decent to good, with nothing that really sounds like filler.

A quite respectable debut, all things considered. The only downside is that they may have unintentionally set the bar a little high; any sophomore effort will be expected to top this otherwise excellent album, and that’s a hurdle which many bands fail to clear. All in all, if you enjoy metal, and have even a passing interest in pirates (and honestly, who with a Y chromosome doesn’t?), you should give Captain Morgan’s Revenge a listen. Personally, I’m looking forward to plunderin’ these lads’ next album, yar.

Many years have passed now
Yet the curse still lives on ,
And now we rot in a black prison cell
Waiting for our true calling in hell!

Preparations underway

I received the contract from the Asago Board of Education today, so it’s more or less totally official now. I’ll be flying up to Ottawa on the 24th of July, picking up my documents on the 25th and flying to Japan on the 26th. In the meantime, I’m busy with work and the logistics of moving to another country for a year.

One month hardly seems like enough time to pack up and move to the other side of the world. I’m actually more prepared than I thought I would be by this point, but that’s not stopping me from panicking. If I step back and consider it rationally, I know everything will easily be wrapped up by then.

But try telling that to the part of my brain which is currently running around in circles and shrieking in terror. That guy needs to mellow out.

Fourth Edition, first thoughts

Okay, while this is primarily a blog about my experiences in Japan, I do feel the need to geek out once in a while. So bear with me, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about you can probably just ignore this post.

So, Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. Just finished playing my first actual session; I am not going to count the D&D Experience a few months back, since that lasted less than a half-hour and consisted of two fights, one of which we never finished. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I have to say, I like it. At least, as much as I liked 3.X, or any other edition.

System wise, I like that everyone now has a variety of powers to choose from, and that nobody seems to be more or less effective in any given combat, beyond the vagaries of chance. Gone are the days when the 1st level wizard fires off a single spell, and is then useless for the rest of the day. And from the looks of it, also gone is the fighter’s tendency to become redundant at the higher levels; when the wizards and clerics can make people’s heads explode just by looking at them, who needs a guy with a sword? Everyone is (almost) always contributing, with each class being maximized in certain situations.

Combat seemed a little slow, but I think that had more to do with the fact that we had 6 PC’s, plus more monsters to provide a challenge to 6 PC’s, PLUS the fact that we were still feeling out the combat system. There was also an amazing amount of 1’s and 20’s rolled, most amusingly by the warlord rolling a 20 on a power that couldn’t benefit from it. Skill usage didn’t really come up much, and we had no skill challenges so I can’t really comment on that. The only significant skill use was Intimidate, with the warlock cowing some kobolds into not massacring my rogue after a brave charge into the heart of the enemies’ formation ended in massive blood loss and loss of consciousness. There were some failed Perception checks as well, and let’s just say that as in 3rd Edition, make sure at least one person has it as high as possible.

Playing a rogue was interesting. While we never ran into any traps and my only attempt to sneak up on something ended with us stumbling into the middle of an enemy position, I can see a lot of potential there. The rogue has access to powers that attack a variety of defenses, so you can be effective against any type of creature. Also, the combos can be interesting; at one point I used a power that allowed my rogue to move the enemy he struck so that it was now flanked, making it possible for the ranger to attack the poor bugger AND setting it up for Sneak Attacks from the both the ranger and rogue. The downside is that without your Sneak Attack class feature, you seem to do noticeably less damage than the other classes, so it requires some tactical thinking that you might not grasp at first.

There are some funny little inconsistencies, like the fact that you know “minions” are “minions”, and that you can apparently identify what a magic item is without actually knowing it is magical. But at first glance everything seems much tighter than it was in previous editions. We’ll see how it goes with part two in a few weeks.

All in all, it’s still D&D. The system is different, but there are still monsters, PC’s, traps, map grids, character sheets, copious dice rolling, and an excuse to alternately insult and applaud your friends. We’ll have to see how the system compares in the long run, but the game remains the same.

First post!

Okay, never blogged before, this is just my first post to make sure this is working.  Still getting ready for my trip, so nothing interesting for a while.