| Watchmen MC |
[Mar. 4th, 2009|05:03 pm] |
I just finished watching episode 12, the final episode, of Watchmen Motion Comics. Damn. Good. Fun.
The Watchmen was probably my favorite comic series of all time, followed by Alan Moore's 'Swamp Thing' and 'Miracle Man' series. (OK, so I am an Alan Moore fanboy. I admit it. Shaddup aboudit already.) I am guardedly excited about the Watchmen movie due out in a couple of days, but man! Why make a movie? The motion comic version got the job done as well as I think it can be done. It is somwhere between a comic book, a movie, and an audiobook. The graphics are animated directly from the comic book art, and preserve the original vision perfectly. The music is atmospheric and the voice actor does a great job. Would I have liked to have different actors playing the parts? Sure, particularly for the women. In the final analysis, though, the voice actor pulled it off more than adequately.
The graphics were particularly fun. I would love to know more about how they did it. Static graphic novel frames were transformed into cinematic cuts, wipes, and fades. Bits of blowing street trash actually blew along the street. Characters moved around on the screen, if only in a sort of old TV Spiderman sort of way. It wasn't perfect, but it was still wicked cool.
If you want to see it for yourself, the episodes are available on iTunes for $2 apiece and the DVD will be available soon for $24. It is well worth every penny. |
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| One Year Later |
[Feb. 20th, 2009|09:48 am] |
It hardly seems real to us that one year ago the adoption of our wonderful son, Alex, was in grave jepordy. We are now a normal happy family with a healthy precocious little boy. This time last year, though, our adoption of Alex was still in process and the Guatemalan government, under pressure from the US State Department and UNICEF, was attempting to implement an ill-considered new intercountry adoption law. Although we managed to complete our adoption, aproximately 1000 of our fellow hopeful parents-to-be were not so lucky. Even more unlucky are the many children in Guatemala who are now being abandoned in garbage dumps to die or languish in severely overcrowded and under-funded orphanages - children that could otherwise have been as well loved and cared for as our Alex.
For more information, please read this statement issued by the Joint Council for International Children's Services - Guatemala: One Year Later
Then consider writing your congressmen and our new Secretary of State (or similar office holders in your country) to voice your opinion.
Thanks! |
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| One Man and His Dice |
[Oct. 24th, 2008|10:39 am] |
I am very late in posting kudos here for Darran Sims, the man behind the One Man and His Dice podcast. Darran has been doing what I had assumed was the impossible - posting audio recordings (and some accompanying graphics) from several Glorantha oriented gaming conventions, namely Continuum 2008 and Tentacles Fumble 2008. For a guy whose budget doesn't allow travelling thousands of miles for a gaming convention, this really has been a godsend. Thanks Darran!!!
The most recent podcast is a presentation on the Glorantha magic system for the yet to be released new version of HeroQuest. It included some very cool stuff! I agree with most of the changes, but think the heroforming/feat rules may need some extra guidance to avoid problems. Basically, devotees can act out the myths of their god for magical power. As long as they do what the god did in the myth they maintain the power. Once they are forced to act outside of that role they loose the extra power and can't perform that myth again for a while. I think this rocks on toast.
The problem comes when the players invent their own myths. Players who lack imagination might not think of myths that have enough variety to be useful - like the myth of "Orlanth fights the Zorak Zoran worshipping trolls while balanced on an outcropping of metamorphic rock during a snowstorm." Other players might try to game the system by inventing myths like "Orlanth Does it All". Yes, I realize that the narrator has a large role to play in preventing this from happening, but I am lazy and would prefer that most of that guidance come from the rules rather than me.
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| Gloranthan Goldmine |
[Jun. 18th, 2008|11:50 am] |
After waiting and waiting and waiting for my regular game store to get anything gloranthan in stock I finally started looking around for a new store. I landed at Lost Goblin Games, a neat little store in north Raleigh. Most of the floor space at Lost Goblin appears to be devoted to playing games instead of selling them, which I thought was interesting. So... I took a peak at their meager offerings and lo and behold - a gloranthan goldmine! I had several of the books on display already, but I managed to pick up Dragonnewts (a RuneQuest sourcebook), and the Players Guide to Glorantha (a RuneQuest rules suppliment). While there I picked up the new edition of Traveller too.
I then returned to my regular game store to pick up my comics subscription and what do I find? Blood of Orlanth (a RuneQuest adventure)! In one day, I picked up three of the four gloranthan RuneQuest books that I had been missing. Now all I need to do is get Elfs (another sourcebook) and I will be caught up.
Until Dara Happa Stirs (another RuneQuest adventure) comes out, that is. Dara Happa Stirs is listed on Lost Goblin's "New This Week" page, so I suppose another trip to north Raleigh is in order.
Note that all of this gloranthan goodness is for RuneQuest, which is not my favorite way to play in Glorantha. I prefer HeroQuest, and the publisher is saying that new books for HQ are right around the corner. I just hope my wallet can take take the punishment! |
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| Yes, I am still alive! |
[May. 22nd, 2008|09:45 am] |
Hey folks,
This is just a note to say that dispite my lack of posts lately I am, in fact, still among the living. I have just been very busy lately with my new son, Eddy Alexander (Alex)! We are all doing fine here in Camelot, but everyone is exausted as we try to adjust to life with a baby and Alex tries to adjust to life with us.
On that matter, since Alex is adopted we are co-sleeping with him to help ease his adjustment into our family. This seems to be working fine, but one or the other of us has to be in bed with him whenever he sleeps. Now, babies sleep alot and this is getting to be a real pain in the keister. Have you ever tried to go to bed at 7pm?
So, any of you out there have any experience with co-sleeping? |
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| Playing with food |
[Jan. 29th, 2008|08:04 pm] |
As our current adoption adoption stress reaches stratospheric levels once again (due to goings on in Guatemala), we are using every stress reliever that we can find. Yes, some alcohol has been consumed, though not much since my wife and I are not big drinkers. Lots of television has been watched, to the point where we resolved to only watch TV all evening once a week now. I role-play, which is fun. I keep trying to go see a movie, but haven't found one that my wife can get excited about. I still carry an increasingly desperate hope that I can convince her to see Sweeney Todd with me.
Anyway, that still leaves much stress left trying to burn its way out of my stomach. Being gluttons, we choose food. Kathy is making cheese now, which is really cool. And delicious! She had some left over whey from the cheese making, and I used it to make a pretty damn good soup.
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| Holiday Report 2007 |
[Dec. 29th, 2007|06:39 pm] |
This has been a fun, but busy, holiday season for the McDonald-Paull household! We got off to a slow start as I recovered from a year of job-stress and Kathy fought off a series of migraines. We did manage to drag ourselves to our favorite Thai restaurant (Sawasdee) on the solstice and ate an absolutely wonderful meal.
Once we finally got rolling time had grown short. Every year we give our close relatives an enormous package of cookies and assorted other goodies. All home-made. In the two days remaining to us before Christmas, we baked Ginger Spice cookies, Hazelnut Chips, Mexican Wedding cookies, Sugar Cut-outs, Orange Chocolate Shortbread cookies, Holiday biscotti, Citrus biscotti, Chocolate Anise biscotti, spiced almonds and spiced walnuts.
On Christmas eve we packaged the baked goods up nice and pretty and drove them to my parents house where they were eagerly received. Then my parents took us out to eat - but what is open on Christmas eve? When in doubt... Thai, Thai again! The Thai place in Aberdeen, NC, isn't nearly as good as Sawasdee but heck, we weren't complaining. The next day we had a big home-cooked meal with the relatives and managed to visit with my brother and his wife for about two hours before we had to return home.
Once home we visited with Kathy's mother, who was in town for a couple of days. It was a nice visit, which we concluded by taking her to see the IMAX 3D version of the Polar Express. We all had fun watching the cool 3D effects and then she had to take off for the airport.
As for Christmas loot? We got three different cook-books so I guess our food obsession has become well known. Kathy gave me a book on craft beers, which is pretty cool. I gave her one on cheese making, which she is eager to try out. The only thing missing this year was role-playing stuff. Since I didn't receive a single game supplement, I guess Santa will just have to make a late delivery sometime soon. ;)
~KP |
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| PA! PA! |
[Dec. 29th, 2007|02:11 pm] |
Now that the new adoption law has passed (with yet to be defined "grandfather" provision) it seems that the US embassy is working hard to clear out all the existing cases - including ours. Our potential child now has a provisional visa to enter the USA. More details are available at our family blog:
http://mcdonaldpaullfamily.blogspot.com/
~KP |
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| If you listen to fools... |
[Dec. 8th, 2007|12:01 pm] |
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My family is trying to adopt a child from Guatemala, so the opinions expressed here are no doubt biased. Judge for yourself.
The legislature in Guatemala has once again set a date (Dec 11) for voting on the most recent version of a new adoption law. Because this is the holiday season it is very much uncertain if they can achieve a quorum, so this may be yet another false alarm. The 'on again, off again' process of passing a new adoption law has unfolded throughout this autumn and has been very stressful for everyone with a stake in the Guatemalan adoption process. The opponents of adoption in Guatemala, and there are many, seem to have the following objections: |
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| The long, long, long, long day |
[Nov. 18th, 2007|08:51 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Work! | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  exhausted | ] |
So. Right now I am sitting at a table in the infrastructure team's area at work, waiting for the time to come when I must send out my latest in a series of "Sorry, the servers are not up yet." messages to our clients. I am a bit punchy, as I arrived at work around 4:45am this morning and it is now almost 9pm - and there is no end in sight. That is 16 hours and counting. Or two work days, if you like. On a Sunday.
It started as a relatively straight forward, if not simple, upgrade. Soon we encountered our first problem, and then another, and then another. Absolutely nothing went as expected. There was no single source for all of our problems either. I am here as an observer, mostly. I am an "Organizational Resilience Analyst", which you might know better as disaster recovery or business continuity, but resilience is apparently a more trendy buzz word these days. This makes me the communications hub for this event, which is even less fun than it sounds.
Oh, well. At least I am making some CRAZY comp-time. |
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| Game ideas |
[Nov. 16th, 2007|12:43 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | games | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
DrivethruRPG has been giving away PDF game suppliments all week, some that interest me and many that do not. The items that I found the most useful or interesting were:
HeroQuest Heroes Book (You downloaded it too, right? Right!) - this is a brief synopsis of the HeroQuest rules system and includes a lot of great advice for how to run a game.
Mongoose RuneQuest Core Rules - Just to satisfy my curiosity.
Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot - A delightfully wacky little RPG that I think deserves to be played sometime soon.
See Page XX - A collection of RPG articles by Robin Laws, author of the Feng Shui and HeroQuest RPGs.
That last item is a real gem. I have just gone through about a quarter of the magazine and it has already given me lots to think about. For my thoughts and observations follow the cut...
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 8th, 2007|12:55 pm] |
So... Not long after we accepted our adoption referral the government of Guatemala tentatively passed a law that threatens to trash our adoption plans. Ugh! The stress has been waaaaay off the scale this last week in my little household. Seriously, the last two years have been among the hardest in my adult life but this last week took the prize.
This new law, the Ortega bill, totally changes the way adoptions will be handled in Guatemala, which is a good thing if they do it the right way. Sadly, they are off to a bad start. The Ortega bill has no "grandfather clause" for in-process cases. If things don't change, then there is a good chance that all in-process adoptions will not just be delayed while the kinks are worked out of the new system - there is a good chance they will be canceled altogether. Besides taking Eddy Alexander out of our future, this would probably mean a difficult life for our little guy as he will be dumped into whatever institutional facility that poverty-stricken Guatemala throws together in the next couple of months. The current adoption system has all the infants living with foster families or in private orphanages. The new law makes that arrangement all but illegal, and will establish state-run orphanages instead.
Kathy and I haven't been taking all this lying down, though! We fired off emails to our congressmen and we plan to write letters and make phone calls this week.
Senator Burr - An aid called me back before the end of the day, saying they were aware of the situation and that the Senator is looking into it. He may become the first republican that I vote for - I was that impressed.
Senator Dole - No response
Representative Etheridge - No response Things are already looking a bit better. The Joint Council on International Childrens Services has established the Guatemala 5000 Initiative, to promote adding a "grandfather clause" to the Ortega bill. A "grandfather" amendment has already been proposed in the Guatemalan legislature and is being supported by the US State Department, the Hague Permanent Bureau and, to some degree, UNICEF.
Wish us luck! (and write your congressman, if you are a Yank) |
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| The Next Generation! |
[Sep. 14th, 2007|02:18 pm] |
Kathy and I are proud to announce that we have accepted the referral to adopt Eddy Alexander!
Much to our relief our international adoption pediatrician felt that our young man was of average risk for medical problems. That was all that had been holding us back, so we contacted the adoption agency today to accept the referral. Whew! Now begins the looooong wait. We expect the process to take about 8 months, if all factors remain constant - which of course they won't.
We are now looking at baby names. At the moment we are planning to keep "Alexander" and replace the first name with one of our choosing.
Anyway, this is a pretty good day for our little (but growing) family.
~Kevin McD |
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| Nothing's ever easy |
[Sep. 12th, 2007|09:36 am] |
Now that we have our adoption paperwork submitted, the adoption agency wanted to meet with us to discuss the referral process and how the adoption proceedings will generally unfold. When we arrived for our appointment yesterday we received unexpected news - a new baby had just entered the system moments before we arrived. Did we want him? We were stunned. We tried to pay attention to the rest of the meeting, but it wasn't easy. The agency gave us his paperwork and we drove home, trying not to get too attached too soon. We were already starting to see synchronicity in the details of the referral. "Do you realize that today is one year to the day that we found out our IVF attempt had failed?" and "His middle name is a common name in my family!" It wasn't a frame of mind conducive to critical thinking.
As we read the paperwork for the fifteenth time we noticed something that was a bit of a concern regarding his medical report. One of the statistics looked like it might be on the edge of what is considered normal. When we got home we checked up on the web and our concerns deepened. He was indeed dangerously close to a line beyond which permanent (if relatively minor) disability is a real possibility. We are now planning to show his records, such as they are, to a pediatrician who specializes in international adoptions. We have also requested that the doctor in Guatemala take his measurements again, just in case there was a mistake (which apparently does happen).
We are now in a wait and see mode. It is much like finding out that you are pregnant but that it is a high risk pregnancy. Will it go the distance, or will it be yet another in a series of disappointments? We keep reminding ourselves that if this one doesn't work out, there are always more kids out there who need homes. It will just require a little more time.
Stress? I eat stress for breakfast. It tastes a bit like chicken.
~Kevin McD |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 7th, 2007|01:23 pm] |
Today we received approval from Citizenship and Immigration Services to bring an orphan into the country! That is the last major paperwork hurdle that we need to pass before being matched with a child - which could happen any time now. My wife and I are overjoyed at this development and are anxiously awaiting a call from the adoption agency.
~Kevin McD |
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| The paperwork is in! |
[Aug. 29th, 2007|10:09 am] |
Well mostly. We are still waiting for our approval from Citizenship and Immigration Services, which looks like it should happen in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, we turned the rest of the paperwork in to our adoption agency, Mandala Adoption Services, yesterday. While there, the kind folks at Mandala told us that we could have a referral in as little as two weeks! That means I may see the face of my child to be (in a photo) very soon. Sadly, the adoption process will take approximately eight months until it is finally approved and we can pick the child up.
Mandala said that the reason we can get a referral so quickly is that there are more babies that need homes than people who want to adopt from Guatemala. These days everyone seems to be going to Vietnam, which seems to be the more stable option right now. These things change all the time, though. Picking an adoption country is much like picking a lane in a traffic jam. The one you pick always seems to be the one that slows down.
~Kevin McD |
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| Space Invader |
[Aug. 23rd, 2007|11:09 am] |
I had a close encounter of the weird kind last night. I was sitting in BoJangles, my favorite source of greasy fried chicken, minding my own business sipping tea and reading an article in Champions of the Reaching Moon. This guy I've never seen before saunters up and plops himself down in the chair across the table from me. He says "hi" and "Are you enjoying your meal?". For one naive second I thought he might work for the restaurant, but no. He smiled at me for a second, and then looked off to his right at nothing in particular. I stared at him for a moment, and then decided that if he was going to ignore me then I would just ignore him. I continued reading the article, The Sapphire Ring I think. Occasionally he would look at me and smile, then look away again. I finished reading the article, put the book away, and started to leave. At long last came the expected plea - "could you give me two dollars?" I told him that I don't carry cash (which is true), picked up my stuff, and left. While I did this he started picking through my leftover chicken looking for something to eat. Sadly (for him) I rarely leave enough for a mouse.
This isn't the first time that this sort of thing has happened to me there. It must be some sort of magnet for the mentally disturbed - which may be why I like the place so much. I have never had this sort of thing happen at any other restaurant.
~Kevin McD |
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| My book is out! Again... Sort of... |
[Aug. 17th, 2007|09:40 am] |
I contributed three pieces to the Moon Design role-playing book Champions of the Reaching Moon. A few "beta" copies were released at a convention a few months back, but I wasn't there so I didn't get a copy. Now the book has been released as a PDF at Drivethu RPG. A print version is expected to follow in about a month, but I will believe it when I see it. I am not trying to be negative here, that's just how things are in this business I guess.
As for the book itself... I really like it! It is a real privilege to have my work published alongside that of so many creative people.
~Kevin McD |
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| The Deathly Hallows |
[Aug. 10th, 2007|01:51 pm] |
So, I have finally (thanks Amazon! Not.) finished the latest and last Harry Potter book. I liked it quite a bit, and the ending even had me smiling as I thought "Of course! I should have known!" I really like it when I discover that the clues for a mystery really were all there. I even liked the epilogue, which some people thought was schmaltzy.
~Kevin McD |
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