Someplace Special

Still busy - have another video. This one is of my home town, Pittsburgh, and my old neighborhood appears around the 15-17 second mark.



It is interesting in both what they counted as worth seeing and what they did not. Carnegie Museum gets a reference for Flashdance? When right across the street is a statue for Steven Foster? Phipps Conservatory and Beuhl Planetarium get the short shrift? We miss both Point Park fountain and the stadiums (and Clemente park)? And you give us Warhol's grave but not his museum?

Oh, and you drive right past the Galleria without noticing it, but that I can understand.

More later,

[Update]: The other thing to notice is that most people get around Pittsburgh by back roads and local routes. Everyone has their own way to get through town.

Retro-Who

RPGPundit, down in Uraguay, came up with a link to this:



And I will see him and raise him THIS



Busy now. More later,

Mashup - Video Gaga

So apparently they still make rock videos - who knew? (surely no one who watching MTV in these later, benighted days) And the latest chanteunatrix is named Lady Gaga, resplendent in her slick hooks, sexy lyrics and fetishwear like a Later Day Madonna (Madge, not Mary).

So what would raise all this to the attention of Grubb Street? Add Christopher Walken.



And how do you make it still MORE awesome? Add the Fatboy Slim "Weapons of Choice) video for good measure.



More later.

4

So WotC has announced the upcoming release of the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. And you probably knew about this way before the event, or if you didn't know, you could have predicted it, or if neither of those two you may be in the category that is thinking "Wow. They still make Dungeons & Dragons?"

Of the mechanics themselves there are bits and pieces being released for general consumption, but there are two items in the roll-out that caught my eye, one good, and one bad (from my Ancient-One-Like standpoint).

First off, the initial press release leads off with this line -

"Whether you storm a mad wizard’s tower every week or haven’t delved into a dungeon since you had a mullet and a mean pair of parachute pants, one thing is certain, millions of D&D® players worldwide have anticipated the coming of 4th Edition for many years."

Great, when the off-hand comment about what old gamers are like is ten years younger than you were when you started playing the game, you know you're old.

On the other hand, the roll-out itself was incredibly good. My old gaming group buddies, Bill Slavicsek and Chris Perkins spoke geekness to geeks, as shown in this video. In particular, the video with Chris as DM over the years (his hair shorter with every version) was amusing. AND the fact that play comes to a grinding halt as soon as grappling is mentioned is lifted directly out of our Thursday night game (and a bunch of other games as well.

Both Chris and Bill are generally shy people, and their ease at the presentation is a dead giveaway that they know what they are talking about. The presentation continues here, here, and here, and is worth checking out.

Now, were did I put my mullet?

More later.

Victorian Battlemechs

So I was going to write about something else, but this short film caught my eye. Its from Blur Studios, which does the cyber-football players you see on FOX NFL games.

As one of my co-workers put it best "I want to play the game that this video is not the Hi-Res graphic for". Me, I'll settle for building the world.

More later,

A Mighty Plug

Here is the link to the trailer to the Guild Wars expansion I have been working on.

I wrote the script and oversaw the voice recordings, but it is the images and editing that just makes it rock.

More later,

Barenaked Ladies

I apologise for posting something that some may not be able to read (It is a YouTube Video), but this made me smile, because:

A) Despite my advanced years, I found it to be a great tune.

and

B) Despite my advanced years, I recognized a lot of the YouTube acts featured on the video, like Dancing Matt and the Mentos guys.

More later,