The Witch In The Tower

Finally, a new DnD session, but probably the last for this year with Christmas and all that coming next week. Oh well, it ended with a bang anyway. So it started were we left of, in a room with a chest filled to the brim with platina coins. Joyfully we thought our wishies had been granted, but alas, we mistook this as a favor from the gods, when in fact it was just a prank played on us. The chest and all that it comtain was cursed, they couldn't leave the room without physically hurting the ones that tried. So when we all tried to think out a strategy to dispell the curse our ribbin (sp?) found a letter in his pocket, somehow put there without him knowing by the dragonborn that found us before. We read the note and for some reason the dragonborn urged us to kill his master, the witch in the tower. So we did what every party does, we split up. My, (for some reason) half-elven cousin searched for information by the staff, the avenger went outside and was dispatched home by a eldarin wizard who took his plays in the party while I took the lead to scout out the tower together with out bard and the ribbin Vilo.

We sneaked past two guards while following the directions that was given to us on the note until we reached a locked door. The door vibrated with magical powers so our bard took forward his key and unlocked the door while dispelling the magical trap and behind the door was a staircase leading upwards. Sending the ribbin first and the bard and me after him we soon reached... another door. This time we had enough of this sneaking around thing so the bard knocked the door. An apprentice opened and wondered what we were doing. The bard then began making up so e story about being inspectors making sure everything was in order. Reluctantly he let us in to the chamber. The witch sat on a throne with two goblin guards and another female apprentice in the room. Fairly aggrevated by our presence the bard tried to stall for time while I and the ribbin scouted out the room, me taking in the details while the ribiin checked for magical traps and weapons. When the witch began to threaten us we quickly left and almost fell down the stairs.

Gathering our group together we found out that she didn't seem to be a nice person and many pursaded us that if we got a chans kill her since we will do nothing else than bring doom upon us. Not  much evidence to why our even a name, but still. Feels like the middle ages if you ask me. Anyway, we also tries to gather information from the lord himselves, but he side-stepped our questions and also began threathen us to leave her alone, and as punishment for our misuse of his name he took Vilo to repay our debt. What he did was finishing the potion he was working on to free Vilo's father and pointed him toward the noble responsible for his mothers death. So there he killed him after the noble struck first, but missed. Vilo questioned him and then left him bleeding to death in the nobles own house. He met up with his father and then left the town traveling home.

The rest of us got word from Vilos father that we must end the witches life so we sprung to action. We rushed up the stairs and our barbarian broke down the door. The battle began with our new wizard companian burning away the goblins, I took sight on the female apprentice and fired away. Of course my usual luck strikes and the dice never roll any good. The other concentrates on the other apprentice and then the witch strikes. She attacks the barbarian and then shapeshift to her. The barbarian reacts with attacking the dobbelganger, but it is a trap. The barbarian ends up hurtibg herself. To remedy this the bard begins mocking the apprentices and force them to attack their master. The battle continues in our favor with the witch switching appearance multiple times, but since we are aware we make sure we only attack the copy. She is bloodied and near death when it's my turn. Using my daily power sure shoot I give her the coue de grace. As my arrow sink into her heart I can feel a strange power filling me, a door in the back swings open and... hear end this session. Now we have to wait until next year to see what lies beyond the door.

Lost In Translation

Alright, so I checked up on some of the writings mistakes that the old translation had for Lord of the Rings and... well they mostly sucked. Ok, so I prefer the names for nostalgia, but I can't really shake it that they sound better if you compare it side by side. While the new translation is correct it just doesn't feel alive when it comes to the names. My case is probably not helped that Ohlmarks couldn't even decide what names to use over the course of three books. Then again, I think I haven't read the swedish translation since 2000, having been given an english lord of the rings for Christmas or birthday that I read ever since. The only instances I still frequently hear the swedish names is when I'm listening to the swedish radio dramatization of the books from 1995 who hides away many problems with the translation, but keeps the names. Except of course the new translation that just felt boring and unimaginative, or apparently simple when I read  the discussions between the translations which was intended in the original. Ohlmarks on the other hand felt the need to make it more special, or pompous and grand. A bit more like an epic. It have it's merits, a pity he was to stuborn to address the more idiotic translation misses (like when it suddenly becomes Merry who kills the Witch-King instead of Eowyn).

So... will I be spared now from the wrath of tolkien fanatics? No... well, yes, since their is no one reading this. What was that? Someone knocking the door? Oh dear!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Movie times again and it was time for the Hobbit. BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR! Fast action, awesome music and amazing sets. Great actors and a decent script. Although it is almost 3 hours long it keep you entertained and make you crave for more. Well worth a watch or even more. The story itself as a movie builds up the character decently and subtley differentiate the dwarves, although I can't say which name fits to which dwarf names, more their character traits. As a non-Tolkien fan It should be a good movie... for a Tolkien fan on the other hand (and here be spoilers):

Gonna be frank, most changes from the book I can justify in some way. For example, take the troll scene. In the book Thorin and co has just parted ways with Gandalf, short on food and with bad weather they are a bit grumpy, they see a ligth and send Bilbo to investigate. He finds three trolls preparing muttons. Bilbo see their wallet and deceide to steal it to prove his worth, but when he grabs it it talks and he is captured. After some blubering the trolls realice there is dwarves nearby and put one by one in a sack when they try to check on Bilbo. Except Thorin who fights them for awhile. Then Gandalf comes back and save them by mimiking their voices. In the film on the other hand Gandalf takes a walk to cool himself down from the obnoxious dwarves, the trolls steal their ponies, Bilbo tries to free them, get caught, dwarves try to save him, they fail and are almost cooked before Bilbo stalls for time until Gandalf shows up and breals a rock so that the sun turns them into stone. The changes establish Bilbo as a fast thinker, the dwarves a little bit more competent than in the book (how can you not suspect something wrong by sending one by one and none come back?) and probably shortened the capturing scene and one of the more fairy tale elements that feels to much "unreal" is gone.

Then we have the dwarven back-story. First a bit of nit-picking, discontinuity in the first minutes with the escape from Erebor, Thorin and Balin should have escaped together while Thror and Thrain took the secret door which gave the dwarves the idea to use it (if I remember correctly, haven't read that book in years). Anyway, it establish Thorin a bit more, but then we have the Azog story. Azog is the one that killed his grandfather the king when he and his servant went to Moria, the survent was released with the head of the king with the word Azog imprinted on his forhead, giving Azog the name Defiler (which cames out of nowhere in the film). This enrages the dwarves clans so they unite to avenge this shame and they march on Moria and fights a war driving the goblins and orcs back. During this fight Thorin gets the name oakenshield since he protects himself with an oaken bransh or staff (don't know which since it might differ in the translation between english and swedish) and Azog is slain by Dain Ironfoot as he hunt him down into Moria, but deceide to leave when he feels the prescense of the balrog. Not so much in the movie with Thorin maiming Azog and establish him as primary villain. In the movies defence it makes for a better antagonist than Smaug who they brilliantly teases the movie goers with from beginning to end only showing his shadow on the ground and in the smoke from the ruins he created until the very end.

The biggest change is probably the appearance of the White Council and the Dol Guldur subplot filling up the story which is more of a traveling guide across Middle Earth.  Anyway, the last thing to comment upon is the swedish subtitles writers who did an excellent job by sticking to the old translation where Rivendell is Vattnadal intead of Riftedal, and Baggins is Bagger instead of Secker (although for some reason Bag End became Säckers ände instead of Baggershus). Well, it was the right choice as a consistency toward the original movies. And I like Ohlmarks translation better, both for its nostalgia and also for a more lively text (although that might get me killed by real tolkien fans).

Sea of Poltical Madness

I don't know what's happening with the views on this blog. Really, mostly there is just 1-2 people "reading" it, at good times 10 or something around here. Now, then a month or so back and there was a huge spike in about 100 (if I remember correctly) views and then the same 1-2 views in a day until today, when another spikes occur with 50 or something like that views. Is someone binge reading these post? What makes ramblings from an incoherent person that can't keep to one single subject seem so interesting that 50 people (or just one person reading 50 posts) decide to stay? I must do something right, a pity I don't know what that is.

Anyway, since there will be no DnD this weekend either I might just use this time to discuss the current scandal in Swedish politics, SD-gate. Yes, that's what they call it. Watergate ruined all political scandals forever. At least it isn't as bad a name like "nannygate" back in 2006. So what is SD-gate? It's the scandal shaking the newst parliamentary party in Sweden, the Sweden Democrats when one of the major newspaper got it's hand on a video concerning the behavior of 3 of their parliamentarians (with 2 of them being quite high-ranking) shouting racial and sexistic slurs culminating in them picking up iron bars to use against some drunk 2 years ago. If that wasn't enough, when confronted about this they denied the chargers until Expressen posted the video. So as consequence they have at the moment lost their economical and judicial spoke persons and today they kicked out their youth party leader (who, compared to the rest of the parlimentary bransch of the party, is seen as rather radical) from their parlimentary staff when he published a debate article urging the party to rethink their line with one of the parlimentarians. This, of course, shall be seen in the light  that the youth radicals and more ideological bransch are fighting against the progressive/compromising leaders who try to avoid the tarnish of full on racist and nazism outburts within the party. Also, it is a consequence from an earlier statement by the party leader keeping a zero tolerance against inappropriate behavior.

Question is the following, how will this affect the public opinion and the election of 2014? Before the scandal SD was on the verge of becoming the thrid largest party and crawling toward 10 %. Will this stop that? Maybe, it might at least stop them from growing anymore and might push them back from the current (if even correctly) 8 % they have in the polls toward stabilizing around 6 %. So it might have damaged them for 2014, but then again it's 2 years till then, a lot can happen and peoples memory are short. So it doesn't matter, the trends shows that if the underlying problem that this party are nurishing from aren't addressed, they will continue to grow and become a main player, maybe not 2014 after the scandal, but they will probably be a threat for the other parties again in 2018. What is more damaging on the other hand are the internal fight between the radicals and the party leaders in the parliament. It looks like the same that happened in the social democrats are happening here. When one of the two sides take over or tries to stage a coup heads will roll. It also happened with the Christian Democrats. If the radicals feel left out they might leave the party for some more extreme one and that could very well push SD down the 4 % line and let them be kicked out of the parliament. Or they might even win ground and make thenselves impossible for the common man to even think about casting a vote for them. And finally, let not forget, how did the newspaper get their hand on the video? Someone inside the party that felt that their leaders were to weak, someone wanted to climb higher on the ladder by pushing away some competition or someone that felt cheated out in something or another? That's at least the internal strife angle, but it could also be that someone hacked in or stole a computer with the film and released it to the press. The interesting one (for me at least) would be the former. Putting it together with the internal strife speculation and we might yet see another party running toward a political suicide.

American Presidential Election 2012

First of all, I didn't follow the presidential election that close this years more than I got from the news because... I frankly didn't care that much for it. it was just an event "over there". Or it could be due to be not much interesting politics being discused that could hook me. Or it was due to every debate and even the election itself was 4 AM in the morning. ON A FREAKING TUESDAY! (Or more correctly on a wednesday). I'm not made for all-nighters.

So the outcome then? Obama won, but Congress stills in the hand of the republicans while the Senate keeps a small democratic majority. What are my opinions about this? Well, I have not much to say. Mostly leaning toward the Democrats I'm satisfied, wasn't that impressed to be honest, which you might guess. Republicans hardly any alternative due to the social issues, economic issues I might prefer in certain extent, this time nothing like that.

The saddest thing is that I actually miss being there when it happens. The enthusiasm, the joy, the emotions. And that it was over at midnight and could wake up like normal. Really, the best way to experience this would be gathering some friends, get snacks, food and drinks for an all nighter... but then the problem is that it's on the night between tuesday and wednesday. It's a freaking workday for godness sake. Think about us political scientist, put it on a friday or saturday (ignoring that we in Sweden has our election days on sundays). It would be deeply appreciated on this side of the pond. You have 4 years to fix this so are we clear?

Pot Of Gold

So I got rid of the auto-correction, thank god! Makes it so much easier to use. Of course anything good needs to be balanced out with something bad so of course my earbuds has to go. How long have I had these? Almost a year so they hold on much better than the others I've had before which usually lasted for 6 months so maybe they were living on borrowed time.

Anyway, it's this time of the week where I summerize the latest DnD session. So after having rested up yet again after last times encounter with goblins and spiders we continued the mission into the catacombs. We entered another corridor and found two handaxes hanging on the wall.  A bit weary after the trap before everyone is on their toes... and still we all end up on a trap-door in the middle of the corridor. Lucky for us the trap-door only can be opened by the hand-axes so we peak in and find a stair down into the darkness. So we close it and continues down the corridor stumbling upon a door with a lion emblem. So our psionic elf goes forward and tries the knob... getting his hand pierced by spikes. Next up goes the bard and open the door which shows us... nothing. It's pitch dark and all we here is metall being draged on the floor. Feeling that there is something nasty inside the bard just sneaks in with the rest of us following as fast as possible. We can sense that there is something big in the room, but we just stay near the wall until we reach a door which the bard opens up and enter with a couple of seconds thinking about blocking the door, locking the rest of the party with this... thing.

Of course this doesn't happen so we all enter the room blocking the door almost missing the dying soldier in the room who reads through some scrolls. After some failed first aid from my side he is saved by our sword-mage rabbit. As thanks we are given instructions to a treasure and a key, plus that I picked up a couple of robes which we thought would satisfy Lord Neverember in his quest to restart the Order of the Nine.  Now the problem was getting out, until we found a secret passageway behind a bookshelf which lead us to a graveyard which we emerged from. Quick visit to the Lord giving him two of the robes and then sitting in the tavern... all of us except the bard who charmed himself into the castle believing he knew where the treasure were. He found it, but he couldn't understand the clue so he was pretty much forced to find us ask for our help. So after a stealth mission into the castle we enter the room and locks it behind us and then sloweky opens the treasure chest. Containing platinum pieces, lots of platinum pieces. Another chest had scrolls written in draconian (what dragon associated speaks) that no one of us could read when there was a knock onthe door.

The rabbit goes forward and opens the door and lo and behold, a dragonborn that is lost in the castle who the rabbit more or less tells to buzz of since we are in the middle of a private meeting. Anyway, that was pretty much this session since our last plan was just to get the money out of the castle without anyone knowing about it. So next time is shopping spree time, sadly who knows when that is since next sunday is father's day, and then our DM is going to the US and then it's more or less christmas. Wonder what I shall write about in the meantime?

Interview With A Computer

Was at an interview yesterday and it went so and so. Nothing like "oh, I definetley got the job", more like that they got to see me and hopefully will think of me if a more suitable job comes along. Then afterwards it was education time with the muncipallity. Time to learn absolut the latest in technology: an iPad crash-course. So that's what I've been doing for the last day. It's a bit better than the computer since it's faster and more reliable. The downside is that it has some auto-correction that is making it hard to write this (yes, this is written on the iPad). Why do I have to be top of the game? Because all the others think I'm some kind of technical wizard since, well, I'm young and didn't have much trouble configuering the iPad when we got them. The curse of succes (HAH)!

Anything Can Happen On Halloween

To understand the title of this post take a couple of minutes of your time and watch this clip:

Catchy is it not? The reason for this clip and title? Well, as the lyrics go, anything can happen on Halloween, even me getting a job interview. Yes, it's moving alright. Maybe this eternal (well, one and a half year) nightmare will finally end. To stand up once again, free of the shackles of poverty and uselessness I can once again continue the journey of self-discovery and self-sufficiency. If I don't blow it or other unknown circumstances works against me. You can always hope as that is the last thing that is said to leave the human spirit. Anyway, Happy Halloween everyone and scary Nightmares to you all bwahahahaha!.

Aniara - The Great Escape (2)

So our continuous adventure into outer space wasn't as action-packed as the last one, but it worked out fine.  Sector 8 was peaceful enough and joined us without much trouble, I got a promotion to Senator-General and then a year passed. Binding together 5 floors with our we had a solid ground to stand on for a society, and then sector 12 began an anarchistic revolution. I don't know how they got the idea, but somehow they saw me as a tyrant. Me? The Senator-General? What utter nonsense! Not only that, but we had two runners from sector 9 that we hadn't smoked out yet. One even attacked the italian chick (Jane I think her name was) who quickly kicked him in the groin after he stabbed two of my guards, then Jane kicked him to the ground and sat on him until backup arrived and he was executed right on the spot.

Meanwhile Dr Grübber was preoccupied going through the dental records of the 1000 people in Sector 9 to find the missing runner... who turned out to be his head-nurse. Back to Jane, she entered  Sector 12 and found it being overrun by anarchistic mexican gang-members, The East side Locos. And after some questioning she made my guard shoot the closest gang-member with a spray-can. Without authorization. The PR-department will have a rough time cleaning this mess up. So after the report I put the place in lockdown at the moment so it doesn't spread while I gather a small team of soldiers, Jane and the head-nurse to negotiate with the leaders of Sector 12.

Talking with the very friendly anarchists I tried to at least make sure there is no hostilities between the area I control and theirs. So I make them a deal they can't refuse, they can keep their Sector, but they stay there and agrees to trade with us and we will not interfere with them and provide access to necessities such as electricity and such. And as compensation they get to kill the head-nurse, an eye for an eye if you get my drift. The security team then cleaned up the mess and dumped the body over the balcony. No one kills three of my guys and gets away with it.

While this is going on Jake Smith is trying to reroute the controls, but the systems are bust and the cords are fried. So we seriously doubt that that we can control this chunk of metal. On other fronts weapon research have hit some breakthroughs, I got my Molotov Cocktail, but not the flame-throwers (and this was due to a lack of communication on my side with the DM). So the main characters have dinner in the lunch room when suddenly the alarm goes of. Sector 4269 is in distress and apparently the Thing is loose. Bump goes the air-ducts above us and I really want my flame-throwers. After some discussion about the fire security I'm able to get the research team to reverse-engineer our fire extinguisher to flame-throwers (I thought on that earlier, but forget to mention it, therefor missing out on a whole year of pyromanic awesomeness). The floors goes into lockdown and out of the vent falls... the Captain, who survived the meteor crash and lived in the vent for a whole year living on rats. Medic test are set up to test the personal for any infestation (you know the blood and fire test). The Sky-Marshal goes missing and all player characters are tested negative (non-infected). All in all one person is found out and burned to a crisp by our newly developed flame-throwers. The blood sample left is taken to our newly constructed blood-scanner that Smith threw together (insanely good roll) that starts scanning of the whole ship to determine the spread of the infection.

Turns out 200 floors are beyond saving so with some hacking skills and passwords from the Captain, Smith disengage those floors out to space, saving the rest of us as we have it more manageable the few infected in our sectors. And this is were it mostly ends, open-ended interpretation. Do we find a planet? Are we able to control the ship? Our are we doomed to wander aimlessly around in space until all systems fails and everyone dies. It was more or less up to us what we wanted to happen after this point. All I know is that I became the highest ranking officer in charge with the Sky-Marshal gone and the Captain out of commission more or less since the experience with the Thing had broken his sanity. So full  title should be Captain Sky-Marshal Senator-General Zachary Foxx. Then next objective was to locate the Fort Knox of the ship and put all its content in my hands. If we survive I'm the richest guy on the colony, or if we wanders until we die, I will die as the richest man on the ship. Win-Win either way and flames to the face upon those who disagree.

Aniara - The Great Escape

What a weekend. First a reunion of the political science people (plus other people who are always fun to meet) After abstaining alcohol for over a year I first of all almost couldn't remember what I usually get to drink. And then I believe I almost drank to much cause I'm not used to that much alcohol anymore, I spent around 1-2 hours just trying to keep awake when we were out at the club. The night ends with four of us on a kitchen floor eating macaronis, chips and so on, one of us sleeping on the floor and the other two sending messages to other people. And I'm still awake and sobering up... WIN! Of course the next morning didn't feel that well since... well, hangover. Body aching all over, small headache, abrasion on my heels, but it was well worth it. Been a long time since I had that sort of fun. 

Next thing up was the DnD group, our Sci-Fi adventure in outer space. It was AWESOME! All begins somewhere around the 3:e millennia, the earth is dying and humanity have started colonized the Jupiter moon Titan and terraforming Mars as a last escape plan. In an apartment in the former Canadian territories of the United States, former military commander, now turned bounty-hunter Zachary Foxx (and yes, the name is taken from this show) is sitting in a chair, pointing his pump-action shotgun toward the door, smoking a cigarette. A knock is heard on the door and the military Sky-Marshal enters with a couple of soldiers offering a ticket to Sahara and 4 million credits for the job as security commander. Foxx's eyes gleams with greed as he hears the proposals and take the ticket and begins to prepare for the flight to Cairo in four hours.

Somewhere else a lottery is being held to pick 8000 people to fill the 18 000 people that are to be rescued from the earth (the other 10 000 people paid for their place on the ship). Three of the lucky few are computer technician expert Jack Smith from the UK, medical doctor Frances Grübber from the recreated Prussia and... gym-owner italian chick who's name escapes me. They all travel to Cairo and onward to the Saharan desert to witness earth final hope, the spaceship Aniara. All four of us are living in Sector 7G (yes, that's a Simpsons reference) for four days without trouble, then disaster strikes. A meteor hits the cockpit completely destroying it sending us of course without any means to steer it back. The impact knocks Jack to the floor, but he quickly links his computer bracelet directly to the ships AI Mima to get live status reports. Grübber begins to check for damaged people and set up a temporary hospital together with the italian chick. I join with the technician protecting him for the moment. Grübber and the chick meets up with the Sky-Marshal which me and Smith meets up with to organize rescue relief and stave of chaos. Smith hooks up at Mima's computer central in Sector 7 while I found the rest of the security guards in this sector.

While this was going on, we lost contact with sector 8 while sector 9 was put in isolation due to a chef and cooking personal going berserk and killing of the rest of the people in that sector (there being 1000 people in each sector with the cooking staff being around 100). Sector 6 was still open and we began coordinating the people and our resources. The deck below us we lost contact with and the same is probably true about those above us. Anyway, I positions groups of guards at the exits toward the hostile areas (a minimum of 2 guards in each group, preferably 3 or more) as well as patrols in the sectors to show them that there is an authority that will uphold order. Then the power is cut and where is the power source you might ask, well in sector 9 of course. Want to know something else, apparently the technician has figured out how to reroute the ships control so that we can steer it back on course, but the most optimal place is in... you guessed it, Sector 9. What a coincidence huh?

So we have to take back Sector 9 from the insane cooking personal (who by the way killed of the others in that sector with rat-poison and meat-cutters). So I assemble a strike team of 20 people (mostly hunters and other military trained people since I need my better trained men keeping the civilians safe), a couple of maintenance robots as well as Jack Smith to start up the power source and reconfigure the controls. So we head toward the ventilations, who somehow has been forced open from the Sector 9 side. Haven't time to think more about that we stealthily sneak in and localize the insane people in the dining hall and the kitchen. Without any heavy weaponry (the best we have is my shotgun and some hunting rifles while the ordinary security guards are wielding glock's) we take the gas tanks from the maintenance robots welding equipment and use as grenades, throwing it in from the vent and doors in the dining hall. A blast later and the room is silent when we walk in. 52 dead bodies we find, but I don't know how this happened, but when this went on people from the kitchen sneaked up on us and abducted 3 of my men. They even took the guy with the sonar equipment who was supposed to warn us if something like that was going on. We localize the kitchen, but are unsure how to proceed until Smith gets an idea. We find a garage (it is a huge ship), take one of the vehicles and empties the rest on fuel, putting the canisters on the transport. Then he builds a small detonator, places it in a puddle of petroleum and then start the machine up and runs for our lives when the car crashes into the kitchen at the same time as Mima closes the blast-doors in this sector to diminish the explosion (since the kitchen also contains gas-canisters for the ovens and such). A huge explosion occurs and the bastards are all dead.

Unfortunately for us the optimal place to reroute the ships control was caught in the explosion, but at least we were in control of the main power source that Smith started up. When that happened the doors to Sector 8 opened up. Now, this wasn't that good since we had no idea what the hell was going on in there since all the cameras in that sector had turned dark. All we could hear on the other hand is that the people there had turned their hope to the computer AI referring it to God, forming a cult around it and their chanting was now closing in around the doors and... this is when the session ended. Awesome is it not? A pity it will have to wait till sunday for its conclusion and then it's over. At least I have time to think out contingency plans and necessary steps to act preemptory in case of other crisis scenarios. Hopefully we only need plan A or B to contain the current primary threat of the cultist, cause otherwise it will be messy. And all this before the first week on the job. At least I was able to talk the Sky-Marshal into a raise since this wasn't in the job description.

Along Comes A Spider

Another sunday have passed and that means yet another session of DnD. Last time we had entered the Vault of the Nine to restore it to its former glory. There we found ghost and ghouls of the Nine protecting a chamber were we set up camp. As we started our path was blocked by a metal door with a magic lock upon it. While the magic user tried to figure out a way to unlock it I went to the ghost and asked them about the door. Apparently it was sealed by some cloaked man and then I asked if the ghost could help us open it. I don't know what happened, but the ghost that went forward evaporated out of existence when touching the lock. That was a bit unnecessary. I don't know if that somehow made the spell void since the next thing that happened was that the barbarian, avenger and swordmage pushed the door open. And that even after the swordmage already taken 2 damage from messing with the lock earlier.

Before us was a corridor which had a turn, but at the end hanged an axe surrounded by 2 candles. The barbarian was in the lead so she lead the way. Lucky for her the traps she set of all missed her. Being the awesome ranger I am, I disarmed a trap by firing at a crossbow in the roof and then masterfully jump up and grab my arrow  Recycling. Of course we suspected that the axe was booby trapped so we sent the swordmage forward to grab it and then teleport away instantaneously something seemed suspicious. That was never needed since he managed to avoid the traps and retrieve the axe. The magic wielders deduced that it was cursed and gave it to the barbarian... which would be a bad mistake in the end, but it was from her clan so we had not much to say about that. We continued and entered a new room with an arm in some rubbles. Suspicious we tried to determine if it was dangerous, cause you should never trust an arm. The thing is that the barbarian recognized the hand and decided to put the axe in it. The arm grasped it and suddenly sounds from the other corridor was heard. The sound something with many legs coming near. We all jumped behind a table and prepared to fight the oncoming enemies. 

Out comes 2 goblins, 3 spiders and a hobgoblin. Since we have the element of surprise we strike merciless. Our rabbit swordmage jumps forward and attack with some fire sword magic that strikes the goblins and 2 of the spiders all the while avoiding the axe-wielding undead arm right beside him. The goblins turn invisible while our avenger runs forward and lays his attack upon one of the spiders beside the rabbit. Our bard cast a protective spell upon us and mocks the hobgoblin to take damage. I continue up the attack by firing two arrows at the hobgoblin, one hitting and the other missing. The barbarian runs up beside the avenger and smash the spider even more. Then our fearless psionic magician cast an anchor supposed to trap the two spiders and goblins the rabbit struck before, but unfortunately he get caught in the blast of magic and is trapped as well still having the arm swinging the cursed axe around him and bringing his health down.

The monster begin the next round to counterattack with one of the spiders jumping right in front of me striking with its fangs. Lucky for me it misses (thanks to the protective spell the bard put up). From here on out it turned into a war of attrition when the spiders jumped all over the place trying to bit as many as many as possible while infecting us with poison which our bard tried to counter with healing those who got struck. At times it looked bleak as the bard, myself and my cousin the psionic was poisoned, the avengers knocked to the ground and the barbarian and swordmage turned to stone by a mist emitted from the cursed axe as it struck the rabbit. One of the goblins almost escaped as well due to the psionic convincing it to leave... the way it came for. The final act our rabbit swordmage did before turning to stone was to strike the goblin down. After some intense fighting we stood victorious, but shaken as we tried to regroup and heal those who had turned to stone. While the others did that I searched the pockets of the hobgoblin finding 30 pieces of gold that we shared equally among us as well as a document warning the creatures about us traveling down the tunnels signed with the mark of a spider with a skull. The drow knew we were coming so what awaits us further in could be more dangerous than anything we encountered before (which for me is just a gelatin monster and these spiders and goblins). Realizing we are hardly capable to stand in another fight we retreated back to our earlier camp protected by the ghosts to rest up and then venture further in at our next session. Anyway, we also leveled up so now we are level 3.

Also, next session with this game will not be until 3 weeks from now since the bard has other business and we don't stand much chance without him so it will be some sci-fi two-shots game during the intermission. So it's character building time again.

The Story of Vorsilder Wolfhunter (part 2)

Where were we? A yes the political debate, a real interesting battle between the ideological differences against the governmental organization and... what? You don't want to hear about that? Alright fine, let the story continue.

So when they arrive they meet Tyrell the Swift, an half-elven bard fencer. Together they join forces as the Silverhawks (and yes, that is a reference to this show) and they all have hawk feathers in there wardrobe. Vorsilder has two in the hair, Stargazer two in his quarterstaff and Tyrell has several sewed to his arms (he is the dramatic one). This leaves the main character with symbols of hawk, wolf, puma and bear which is a reference to this show. Anyway, they act likes mercenaries for roughly 60 years until they are tasked by some lord to investigate disappearances in some area and they uncover a secret Drow Cult that are preparing a sacrificial offering to Lolth. Tyrell gets captured and prepared for the altar. Vorsilder and Stargazer prepares a rescue and succeeds to saves him and the rest of the prisoners destroying the cultist in the process. They get out, but unfortunately Tyrell have damaged his leg and are forced to leave the Silverhawks in order to find healing. 

The Silverhawks disband with Vorsilder and Stargazer traveling to Baldur's Gate. There they meet Vorsilders cousin for the first time and then travels onward to the north and Neverwinter. They have just time to arrive and spend some days in the city when the cataclysm strikes. Casting the city into disorder and ruin our heroes mount rescue attempts to save as many civilians as possible. They get separated and disaster strikes as Vorsilder almost fells down the rift that opens up in the city, having buildings falling over him, almost crushing him to death. He is saved in the nick of time by an eladrin paladin named Cygnus Swanfeather (and yes, Cygnus is latin for swan so it is Swan Swanfeather). Vorsilder falls into a coma and sees the light at the end of the tunnel, seeing it as a sign for Corellon pushing him to believing in the god at a higher level. A strange twist since the devoted Cygnus loses his belief in the god due to the destruction of neverwinter and suffering of the people. Vorsilder wakes up at the church of Corellon, reborn as the finally have come to terms with the death of his brother and curse of Cybele. Stargazer finds him, but decide to travels back to the Dalelands to meet with Tyrell once again.

After recuperating Vorsilder sets out again, traveling the north in hunt for enemies of Corellon, drows and orcs. That goes for around 30 years (somehow 30 years intervals were very easy to go by) when Vorsilder for some reason (I haven't been that detailed) ends up in Silverymoon. There he meets up with the Elminster and joins as a bodyguard together with a Knight in Silver (that is what I least think the second person was). Then it's onward to Neverwinter where our adventure began. 

The Story of Vorsilder Wolfhunter (part 1)

Since one of the players is sick (the one that house the sessions as well) there will be no game today which at least makes it easier for me since I now don't have to miss the most important event of this year... the political debate between the eight party leaders of the swedish parliament. What? It's really interesting to see them debate with all their budgets out... OK, maybe mostly for the political scientists. So what should I write about for this week? Maybe I should describe my character for the DnD-game, Vorsilder Wolfhunter. Yes,the name could probably be better, but that's what it is. If we look at Vorsilder, the name is a cross between Draco (latin for dragon with the c and a thrown away) and Silver and looks a lot like Isildur. When did I invent that name? Somewhere around 4-5 years ago for a character that was supposed to be a silver dragon (get it? Silver Draco? Yeah, I've never been good with fictional names). Wolfhunter then? A spur of the moment random name when the other players wanted some extra backstory info about my character. It actually works pretty well even though it's pretty cliché. Why? Well, if I got it right,my character is supposed to be from Baldur's Gate, where there is a forest in the vicinity with werewolves. Talk about random family development by accident.

So who is this Vorsilder? He's a 150 year old elven archer ranger trained since birth to hunt and avoid danger in the woods. His first hunt at 20 (yeah, maybe to young according to elven biology, but that's what you get without proper research) ends with him hunting down a puma/panther on foot. Forward 10 years and his little brother is maimed by a bear on his first hunt when Vorsilder was in the city leaving his brother alone. Vengeance is sought as Vorsilder hunts down the bear across the land for 1-2 months, ending in a Predator-like trap scene in a forest following it up with an elf with a dagger on bear fight. Of course the bear is slain (imagine an epic melee combat scene between the 6´ 11´´ or 2 m 10 cm tall elf and a huge bear which end with the elf stabbing the bear in the heart with his dagger) and he drags the body back and turns it into his hide armor. Recycling when it's at its best. 

Still, although blood has been spilled the blame haven't left so he set out on a trip, traveling south to the Forest of Mir meeting a dryad named Cybele and an elven druid by the name Shane Stargazer. The next 26 years is just Vorsilder guarding Cybele while Stargazer is traveling the world and returning from time to time to teach Vorsilder together with Cybele certain abilities as Bridge of Roots, a magical way to make a bridge. How otherwise would an elven ranger learn such a thing? So then the Spellplauge happens turning the Forest of Mir to the Spires of Mir, turning Cybele into stone. Misery is a great way to forward character development is it not? Anyway, Stargazer returns from his travel and take Vorsilder back to Baldur's Gate. 4 years of therapy and it's of again with Stargazer to the east, the Dalelands. What adventures awaits them there? Check in the next post.

Into the Underworld

Another week, another game of DnD. A little more action-packed this week. Our barbarian, avenger and swordmage tracked down a cultist leader and killed her without much problem, a tiefling Asmodeus worshipper if you wonder. Our bard played some songs for the people in the poor district and encouraged them to rebuild it more beautiful than ever or something like that. Me and my psionic elven cousin delved into the Vault of the Nine, passing through a maze and standing in front of a door with a magical rune. From the shadows a slippery black gelatin creature, an ooze, began moving toward us. I began firing my arrows... and I didn't roll that well, in fact several once missed and my elven companion only had one useful spell and that was pushing the creature backwards after he spent his daily. So after using up all our special powers it was finally slain. 11 arrows was needed. ELEVEN! Luckily I had 90 of them to begin with so I'm fine for the time being.

After the ferocious fight our attention went to the door. My cousin, Garien Leafsinger, checked it out and then tried to remove the seal that sealed the door. He failed I believe cause it set of a trap and a lightning bolt struck out toward us. He jumped aside and had to use his psionic powers to push me away since my dices really don't like me. After that we entered the door and found us in a room with several statues of the protectors of Neverwinter. We detected that the catacombs stretched far across the land, but since our little encounter with the ooze had trained our better abilities we decided it was best to retreat for the moment and gather the rest of the party if we should have some chance of survival. We closed the doors and it sealed it self. Being a bit worried since it got a new rune we wrote it down and decided to use the remaining hours to prepare with so much knowledge we could gather from the library.

Of course I was hardly of any use since the dice failed me once again and Garien was on his own. He is of course the closest we had to a "true" wizard in the party. So after gathering the information and preparing to open the new seal we returned to the tavern, finding the barbarian and swordmage passed out on the floor after yet another drinking contest. The next morning we once again travelled into the maze and onward toward the sealed door. This time no trap was set upon us and we entered. The next 15 minutes was spent on finding a chest, dragging it out of its alcove and letting our bard and swordmage try to open it. When that failed our barbarian came forth and more or less broke it open (or at least that's what I imagined). Inside we found a cloak, a brooch and gauntlet. I got the cloak, the brooch went to toward our bard while Garien got the gauntlet... that he promptly told everybody was going to be sold at the very first moment due to our limited cash supply.

Anyway, we checked the alcove again and what did we fid? The key of course, so our swordmage decided to lock the chest and then gave the key to Garien for safe-keeping. We push forward to a doorway which flows of magical energy. Drawing our weapons we set up a formation and ventures forth. Everybody rolls a stealth check and everybody succeed except Garien who for some reason starts to hum Beethoven's 9th symphony. Luckily he was at the back, bad news was that I was right behind him and the last in our formation. We passed through the corridor and reached another room. This one on the other hand was inhabited with a couple of ghosts and ghouls. After some talking with them we found out they were the protectors of Neverwinter when they lived and would let us stay here and help us the little they could. Which was perfect time to end the session so we have to continue next week to search through the catacombs.

Who Am I, Where Am I?

So I played my first session of DnD and it went fine. Introduced as a bodyguard to an important wizard traveling to Neverwinter. There I met my elven wizard cousin... or was he an alchemist? Anyway I joined his party since my business with the wizard was done so I was free for other stuff so I hit the tavern to meet the rest of the gang. While there some demon worshipper appeared and our barbarian decided to have a drinking contest with a half-giant. She decked out. So did my cousin and the rabbit sword-mage leaving myself and the assassin. Of course we couldn't end there so I was next up and fell to the ground. I would call foul since shouldn't elves have a racial trait in resisting alcohol? Apparently not in DnD. Anyway, after drinking 4 people under the table our assassin had little trouble with the half-giant. So I slept through the night on the floor together with the barbarian while the others at least could walk away. Funny thing is that my cousin was the only one with a hangover.

Not much else happened. In the morning we were summoned to the lord who asked for or help and before going there we decided to prepare for whatever could happened so me and my cousin visited the church of Corellon to receive a blessing and trying to get some information. The others pretty much did the same, The barbarian, assassin and rabbit went to another church while our bard went to the slum more or less to get some info about the lord himself. And that's pretty much all we did in 4 hours. So now I'm reading up on the world and shall try to craft a decent backstory to my character. At least it gives me a reason to have some cola and snacks without my health obsessed sister finds out. That in itself is a great adventure to be told.

Turning Tides?

Maybe time to update what's happening around here. Seems like I'm back in a one per month posting. Well, I can blame it on not much happening. Until now that is. Suddenly everything happens at once. It all started some day in May. I said to myself enough is enough about this unemployment stuff so I joined... a political party, the Liberal People's party to be more precise (I know what a shock). Thought about it a long time, but I finally took the step. Sure enough, everyone welcomed me with open arms. Not strange since I appear to be the youngest in Värmland not counting the Liberal Youth of Sweden (Liberala Ungdomsförbundet in Swedish) and I'm pushing 25 in a couple of months. Take note, that was 4 months ago, I went to some activities and found it stimulating and all and this week I'm contacted by the district president (?) about an opening as a reserve in one of the municipality committee's (nämnd is the swedish word) and asked if I was interested. Sure enough, so now I'm part of the democratic institutions and that took me just 4 months. What happened to the bureaucracy that strangles all the newcomers? I'm quite frankly shocked, I at least expected 1 year quarantine to test me. Do they pick first best from the street? That would of course explain people like the green party member who think the CIA is spewing toxic on Sweden from airplanes.

Anyway, it at least give me something to do with 5 years of university studies in political science and more (plus a huge debt from all that). So I might walk the path I tried to avoid, the one in where you go through a political career and have no touch with "reality" (even if it is relative). At least I get some experience to put in my CV. The other thing that happened is that I was asked to join a group playing D&D and I couldn't say no to that. So tomorrow I'm to put on the persona of Vorsilder, the elven ranger of... The background story isn't that well developed since I know nothing of the world and the other players so we shall see what comes of this. I might even have a new topic to write about. Hopefully I'm not the first to die. At least I know the first rule of D&D:

The Hobbit

So the Hobbit is getting three movies. Like many others I'm a bit skeptical toward it since it's three movies on one book, but on the other hand there is probably enough supplementary material to fill it out and most important flesh out characters and the story. Now, the problem is that they already filmed the first and second part, the first even being prepared for its release in December. So certain things probably aren't gonna be the way I imagine it. You could actually (*this is gonna be spoilers to an almost 80 year old book if you care about that*) put in a flashback in the first movie when they tell about Smaug hunting the dwarves from their home for those who want more action. A lot more character development can go in between characters like Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf and Saruman how they tried fight of Sauron and the corruption of the white wizard. How Gandalf infiltrated Dol Guldur finding Thorin Oakenshield's father Thráin II tortured and dying. The war between the dwarves and orcs as revenge for killing Thorin's grandfather Thrór establishing the backstory for Dáin II Ironfoot and Thorin himself and why he has the name Oakenshield.

But as I said, they are already finished film one and the second is going up next summer when they are supposed to film the remaining scenes they need for part three. If they succeed good for them, if they don't I will still see all of them since this is probably the most anticipated movies for me since Return of the King, and that was 9 years ago. I didn't care about the Transformers-movies when they came out (and apparently I dodged a bullet there), the Star Wars-movies died pretty much after the first one (can probably say the same about the Harry Potter-movies which got less and less interesting from my side) and both Avatar and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were spur of the moment movies I went and saw. This time I actually check up the production, which actors are in and so on. It could probably also be due to me having read the books so many times that there is no spoilers to have compared to the others though... or it might also be the reason why I'm so eager to see it.

Duck Tales

Watched a couple of episodes of Duck Tales with the swedish dub. Just beautiful and hilarious as I remembered, or even more so when I now get references like Walter Kronduck and other small references here and there. The swedish dub is just so good, although the original english at least had the scottish accent which made the episode where Fenton Crackshell takes on the role of Scrooge McDuck a bit more realistic, in the dub he just changed tone a bit so I never got that when I was young and that is still hard to correct in localization. Of course it wasn't just nostalgia this time since I actually were able to look at one of the episodes that never aired in Sweden for some reason: Scrooge's Last Adventure. Why I don't know. All I know is that it isn't because the subject it was about.

Spoilers here, but anyway. The nephews crash a clock, take it to the "doctor" who calls Scrooge by mistake who got home from a checkup and believes he is doomed since it is impossible to fix. So depressed Scrooge begin thinking of the future and what to do with his money. So he put it in banks (finally) and just by a freak accident all money gets lots to a glitch and Fenton and Scrooge transport themselves into the computers to fight the glitch. So, when I watched it I got the feeling I've watched it before even though I haven't. The answer to this mystery is... Disney had recycled a "a doctor calls telling about a critical condition, but really means  some other thing"-story that aired one month earlier on Tale Spin, Bearly Alive. They even use the same joke about wanting the spare parts. The other part of that story is the inside the computer which happened in the Darkwing Duck episode Whiffle While You Work a year later (a show by the way that they stopped airing on swedish television because it was "too violent and encouraging violence" after some mothers complained).

Other fun facts about Duck Tales in Sweden is that it has two different names in swedish and therefore also two intros, both great actually. First is Ankliv (Duck life more directly but it is a valid direct translation of Duck Tales) with very close direct translation of the lyrics:

The second one being Joakim Von Anka och tre knattar (Scrooge McDuck and three nephews (?), I'm a bit uncertain about my translation there) with lyrics that pretty much has nothing to do with the original. It emphasis more on the characters than Duckburg and the things that happens there and especially mentions the nephews more often than Scrooge, but it is still good. Oh yeah, and the series name here was Knatte, Fnatte och Tjatte på Äventyr (Heuy, Dewey and Louie on adventure or is it Adventures with Heuy, Dewey and Louie?):

This is also the one that got the extended version if someone is interested. Which is my favorite? I don't actually know and I can't even lean toward nostalgia because I can't say which I heard first without looking it up (it's the Ankliv one if you are curious). Still a great show 25 years later. It's almost as old as I am.

Dragon Quest VIII

 

Have been playing Dragon Quest 8 since I finished Tales of the Abyss. At the moment I played around 144 hours and of those 40 hours are a second playthrough. Somehow I find myself enjoying this game more that I can spend over 10 hour playing a damn bingo game with a cheating little slime giving me wrong numbers all the time. Hate that slime. So I have wasted around 2 days straight just playing in the casino to get some special items and extra cash cause you are constantly in need of some extra money, leaving gambling as the only viable option.

But why do I find this game so captivating? Could be to the simplistic story which reminds me of fairy tales, meaning it's pretty cliched. You, the only survivor of a curse that has befallen the Kingdom of Trodain has been tasked by King Trode (who turned into a troll like creature) to find the jester Dhoulmagus who is responsible while protecting the king and his daughter Princess Medea (who was turned into a horse and pull around the wagon). On the road you meet the legendary cockney-speaking bandit Yangus, the femme fatal Jessica Albert and the womanizing, card-cheating templar Angelo, all with personal motives to hunt Dhoulmagus (well, except Yangus who just follows "the guv"). On the quest you encounter dragons (well, it is a Dragon Quest-game), sages, ghosts, bunny girls, slimes, a giant technicolor bird and more when you try to lift the curse and bring the culprit to justice... at first glance. True to Dragon Quest formula the main villain changes half way through and a larger plot of darkness unfolds in front of you.

Really, you can see the plot as early as the first town and this is gonna be spoilers. You are in hot pursuit of the criminal  when you gather information in a town where one person died, Master Rylus, Dhoulmagus teacher and apparently a descendent of a sage according to a priest. And there is 7 of them, who would have thought? Could they possibly sealed some evil away? Haven't I heard that before? Yeah, so the story is cliched, but with good characters it doesn't matter and here the game shines bright. I actually care for them and with the good voice-acting it really feels worth it helping them. The only one I had problems with was Angelo regarding his voice. He's to silent most of the time, but when he shows stronger emotions or just speaks a bit louder it feels perfect. I just have to mention that I love Yangus dialect. This in contrast to, say, Baiten Kaitos where the voice-acting more or less sucked. 

Back to silent, once again you have a silent protagonist and I don't mind that. Also notable how good this game is are the dialog where the character chosen names are mentioned and they just ignore it or use a stand in word like hero, he and so on making the dialogue run smoothly. Compare again to Baiten Kaitos where they just left a pause around your name completely throwing you out of the fantasy. Your character, a palace guard with close bonding to the princess since 10 years back. Sweet romance, but she is promised away to the prince of Argonia, Charmless... I mean Charmles. Yeah, you can see that's not gonna hold, but how could you, a mere guard ever take the hand of the beautiful princess? Well, I would have asked that question if I hadn't found out that the king of Argonia have an older brother who disappeared long ago searching for his true love and the first thing the king does when he sees me is saying he was reminded of someone. Come on, really? You going that way? All right, suits yourself.

The ending then? How did it go? It is a beautiful ending that would have brought tears in my eyes if it wasn't a small tiny bit that nagged me. The scene goes I'm escorting the princess to her wedding with Charmless who is ever so annoying, her disdain and sadness for this current event shows through and you can't even attend the wedding since you and the others aren't noble enough, forgetting that they consist of one descendent of a sage and a noble already before the game as well as saviors of the world (it doesn't count for anything does it?). So the other pushes you to do the right thing, crash the wedding with the princess happiness in mind. A peer pressure session later it's on. You storm the cathedral and prefer to challenge the templar guarding it when news come that the princess been kidnapped. Charmless accuse you so now it 's on. You escape and tries to reach the princess. Your friends have your back while you run down the stairs finding King Trode fighting of the guards with a twig (he would have been a bit more helpful if he had fought with us thinking about it than complain about it) making sure that Medea doesn't have to suffer. you arrive, she wants you to take her hand and you run of, eloping together. Damn, I'm weak for these love stories. 

And then the credits roll and it is afterwards the small problem arises. Back in Trodain you are finally home and the king apologizes for having forced Medea into this against her will and say he will respect her own choice, but it wouldn't be easy now that she rejected a prince. First thought is, who cares, she wants the handsome steadfast guard who have guarded her for over 10 years, took care of her and... what do you mean "who cares we are finally home. THE END"? WHAT, no statement like "who would want a prince when I have my personal guard, savior of the world, destroyer of Darkness"? What more do you ask for? No, apparently I have to be a prince, what kind of message is that? So now I have to play a second game since I screwed up my skill leveling system to be able to beat the bonus dungeon so I can get the happy ending. Oh well, beside from that little bit, it's a good game.

Tales of the Abyss

 

Finished playing Tales of the Abyss yesterday, the sad ending accompanied by rain falling upon my window while the credits rolled on the 3DS. While I saw it fitting I don't know if the people across the lake appreciated  the rain that much during the camping (sorry about the Swedish, but the music festival is probably to small to garner any English fans). A fun game, a bit short though with just 50 hours, but then I didn't search for every single side quest or that sort. Compared to Tales of Symphonia it's not that good. I quite prefer Symphonia with its very good story and tragic characters that you have to fight. You actually feel for them and their plight and goals, but at the same time you see the evils they commit. In that game the main character is quite one-dimensional, he's the idealistic youth who strive for a better world. Same as the main antagonist, but he's pretty much a communist with all the Homo Sovieticus thinking.

In Abyss on the other hand the main character is deeply flawed. He begins as a spoiled aristocratic brat, but due to a traumatic event that changes his world upside down he starts to reform. You hate him in the beginning, but after playing through those events you begin to feel sorry for him. He feels like a real character and that's pretty much one of the main themes of the game. The main antagonist on the other hand is just set on destroying the world to "free it from itself". In Symphonia that was pretty much the same goal for Mithos Yggdrasill, but the character felt much more alive and logical (in a... twisted kind of way). A great part in that story was also when his ancient friends tried to push him toward a different path instead of that idea he clinging on to in hope to bring a better world as well as revive his sister. In the very end all that you saw was a former hero that regressed to nothing but a lonely scared child with a dream of a better world, who pushed his friends and loved ones away. No wonder you feel sorry for him.

Van Grants then? He's not alone. He has people who believes in him to their very end and dies in order to protect them. He doesn't even seem to care. Yes, he has a tragic back-story as well as he was forced to be a weapon that destroyed his home, but it's not the fall from grace story that Symphonia used. Van's plan felt more like vengeance upon the world for what it did to him while Yggdrasill tried to make it better, but due to insanity would let it burn.

Other things? 3D was kinda useless. Yes, it gave depth, but not in the animated cut-scenes so why do it? Music on the other hand was beautiful and certain themes really puts tears in my eyes (or would if it wasn't so damn hot that they evaporate before they leave the eyes). And why would it not when it was partially composed by Motoi Sakuraba, the composer behind the Golden Sun-games (didn't think I would sneak that in would you)?

Mysterious Cities of Gold (2)

Yesterday, I wrote a bit about the new Mysterious Cities of Gold-series and the expectations I had for it so now I would like to point out the parts that probably gonna bug me, but if the story holds up I will probably not care that much.

First of the animation itself. Not bad at first glance. Much more vibrant and colorful than the original according to me, the problem though that bugs me is that at certain points it feels... stilted? It almost hacks during the action scenes making it feel unnatural (or more correctly out of place). Minor point and could be due to Youtube or something like that.

Second, the music. Listen to the background music of the trailer and then listen to this:

Biggest difference is the synthesizers in the original. The new one also seems to favor an orchestra. Not bad music, but it doesn't seems the same (and I hardly believe Haim Saban and Shucki Levy are doing the music which is a shame). Another thing is that it doesn't have the Inca or spanish feel the original had, although to be fair it would probably be more asian influenced since it's actually where the story takes place. Last thing is that it also is to early to say with just a trailer.

Thirdly and last... not the same voice actors. Yes, I know it's in french, but let be honest. The english dub isn't gonna be the same and it will annoy me for a bit and it's something no one can do anything about since all the actors are to old to sound like they used to. At least if you go by the special from the DVD box where they have the actors for the kids and Mendoza:

Then again, watching this I would probably if anything want Mendoza and Zia to be on it again, but I wouldn't mind the others as well, but that was in 2007, who knows how Howard Ryshpan (the voice actor for Mendoza) is doing today.

Still just nitpicks. If the story is fine it doesn't matter that much as long as they don't do something horrible bad in the voice acting department. And before I forget again, Kokapetl the green parrot is also appearing so that rounds up the protagonists.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold

Back again and what is the special occasion? The Mysterious Cities of Gold... SEASON 2. AWESOME!!! Ehum, got a bit carried away. Quick check trough the archive tells me I haven't spoken that much about the series (maybe a relief after my over observation of a certain game series). So now I got a subject to talk about again. First of, the reason for this peaked interest is this trailer (*WARNING* Contain ending spoiler for the original series):

It gets you pumped does it not? Finally, after 30 years we get the continuing saga and all the characters are there. We get Esteban, Zia, Tao, Mendoza, Sancho and Pedro for the main cast and a cameo from Mayuka (the old man in blue that opened the stone temple for the man in red in the beginning, or at least I think its him since they look the same although Mayuka only appeared in one episode, ep. 13 for those interested, and was trapped in Machu Picchu).  The interesting parts is that the setting begins once again in Barcelona, Spain like the original series, but instead of continuing west we go to the east, China. We also get a main villain right from the start (or so it seems, the first season didn't give us the main antagonists until the last 11 episodes although we had adversaries stalking the heroes during the whole course but they were just greedy).

And then it's the Golden Condor:

 The only thing I remember from this series as a child was how they found the Condor in episode 17, climbing on the top of it. My parents didn't understand what I talked about and believed I dreamt it all up and so it could have been until one night when I was seventeen (I'm just guessing, I don't remember when exactly) my dad wakes me up after he went through our VHS collection (the link is for those young enough that doesn't know what an VHS-tape is) and found the very last episode of the series. A half hour later I sat with tears in my eyes as the dramatic ending transpired before me, without knowing the full story it still felt in my heart. Will this season come even close to the original or will it fall flat? Probably have to wait till the english dub comes out next year or something like that, but I will gladly wait for the moment.

Doin' the Omoralisk Schlagerfestival '12

Maybe I have to crawl out of my hiding hole now that we actually won the Eurovision Song Contest 2012. And I didn't write anything about this year. Mostly because when the Swedish competition was I actually had an internship in a bank and also prepared to move out of my apartment. So I didn't watch carefully enough or invest anything in it, mostly sat at the computer doing other stuff. Like listening to some good music. Of course that doesn't stop the rest of Sweden or Europe from going crazy about this. Just yesterday some danish commentator argued that the rest of the nordic countries should join in an alliance against Sweden to put us down to earth. How admirable that is in this context, it didn't work out that well for them with Norway ending last with an Eric Saade copy, Denmark ending in 23d place with an Anna Bergendahl copy and then Iceland going to the 20th place with an Marlena Ernman copy on stage (tall the similarities was all pointed out to me by political scientist on twitter, because I would really not know and it works for the narrative at the moment). Not to mention that Norway had Swedish songwriters, actually 8 other countries also had Swedish songwriters in the finals, in total 10 including Sweden itself. We may be weak on hard power, but we got a lot of soft power in our music export.

So what can we expect from next years Eurovision in Sweden? First of all, were is it supposed to be? My guess is Gothenburg since the last time was in Stockholm and apparently Globen will be booked with the Hockey finals or whatever. Malmö is... well lets say they have enough trouble as it is. So thats my guess for location. Entertainment then? I have only one idea and that would be, after all the voting's been done, the light goes down, electric lights spout out of guitars to a heavy metal rendition of ABBA's Waterloo (after all, Gothenburg are Sweden's heavy metal capital), the drums drum synchronized to pyrotechnic fire, synths and orchestra all in a glorious symphony, all instrumental, then silence. BANG, an explosion of fire and light while all the music you here are the sound from the  70's version performed by... a reunited ABBA performing Waterloo for just one night. How awesome wouldn't that be (from a theatrical point of view that is)? Eurovision's best song performed once again by the originals. You can't possibly top that. Unfortunately the chance of that happening is pretty slim due to the artist themselves. Have to go with the second best so I it would probably be one of the other swedish winners then, but that wouldn't be as fantastic in my opinion. Maybe get all the other winners performing waterloo instead... Dammit, I give this to much thought it actually deserves.

The Avengers

Saw The Avengers movie yesterday with my sister. After the trailers I wished I went alone so I could used the free tickets I got from my work at Swedbank on the movies I saw. Especially Prometheus looked really interesting and then it was another Spider-Man movie. Nothing wrong, but it's the second origin movie about him and the last one was just something like 10 years ago. At least it had the Lizard as the main villain or it seemed to be him with Dr. Connors making an appearance (hard to miss a man with just one arm). There's also a new Tim Burton movie with the usual cast of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Christopher Lee.  And lets not forget the music by the usual suspect, Danny Elfman. Dark Shadow is the movie based on some TV-series I don't know about, but this one got Alice Cooper in it so that could be interesting. The last trailer (technically the one first shown, but lets not get into that) was nothing interesting. Snow White and the Huntsman didn't seem to impress me with all the special effects. If I want to see a Snow White story I would honestly prefer the Disney version.

What did I think of the movie itself then? Awesome! It was fun, action packed and I felt correct emotional response the film wanted to give me at the different times. The story worked and the actors did a great job and the music fitted the mode. No problem knowing who the heroes were even though I haven't watched all the movies building up to this one. In fact I have only seen Iron Man missing out on Thor, Captain America, The  Incredible Hulk (I don't know if I had this going on the TV while I did other stuff on the computer)  and Iron Man 2. Of course, it didn't hurt that I saw the animated cartoons of Spider-Man and Iron Man from the 90's when I was a kid and have a fairly good idea on what the different heroes and organizations are as well as the 2003 Hulk movie. So I'm not completely lost to the mythos around the characters. I don't know how you would react if you haven't seen anything about these characters, but at least they are all wearing bright colored costumes that all look different (with some minor exceptions).

Last thing to note is that it is important to sit still in the cinema until the lights go back on again so you don't miss the stingers at the end as many did when I watched the movie. I think it was just me, my sister, half the row in front of me as well as a few more people in the back that saw the end of an almost full cinema when it started. Patience people.

The Return

Wow, I was inactive for so long that they changed the layout. How long ago was it now? Last February? That is some time to cover. Easiest to explain is... a lot of work at my internship at a bank. Didn't lead to a real job, but I didn't expect any since I'm fairly up to date with the problems in the swedish financial sector or the economy overall. Wasn't time for that. So that went on until the end of March. Of course, at the same time I had to move from my apartment due to not studying anymore. So I moved in with my sister for the time being until something pops up or we are at each others throats. Or I will freeze to death since I'm having my bed just under the window and she insist that it shall be open all day. At cold spring days on the seventh floor surrounded by open water. The winds are freezing.

Anyway, there is nothing else to say really, just letting anyone reading that the blog isn't abandon and might wake up again now that I have some more free time. Unfortunately I am a bit late for making resurrection jokes and all that due to easter being a couple of weeks ago. What I can say is that SVT disappoints me. They didn't show Jesus Christ Superstar this time. I feel betrayed. It was becoming a tradition for me... and now they stole it away from me. Oh cruel world. Or so I thought, but apparently they didn't show it in 2010 either and I didn't find anything about it last year. Who would have thought that. My memory sucks.  

Spring Time

And once again I lost myself in my everyday life (read that as "just lazy"). And now it's the end of February. Not much happens during work, except last week when I had a really rough time. Friday, I lost one of my gloves. One of them, it annoys me even more than losing both cause now I will always be reminded about losing the pair. Anyway, went to the store to get some chicken and what happens? I don't read the freaking label and buys clubs instead of filet's. And I only notice that after I defrosted them two days later. It didn't help that the particular brand of filmjölk I like was out in the store. Does it end here? No, the following day (that's Monday) I almost miss the bus to work for some reason that escape me at the moment. The senior customers of the bank rails on me because I can't let them into the bank vaults (I'm just an intern for goodness sake). Then on the way home I take the wrong bus and the following morning I get on the bus in time, but it became delayed due to many people wanting to board it and then some cyclist walking on the narrow road. Short and easy, it was a hell of a week.

At least I had some better moments. This weekend my sister participated in a farce so me and the rest and the family was invited so I had to take a trip to Örebro. It was about Wilhelm Tell, the Swiss liberation hero. A very entertaining show if I say so. Good music, good acting and good (or so bad it's good) jokes. In the music department we had the snobbish side of me smiling for the Wilhelm Tell Overture (or it could be my Disney nostalgia), my metal head could have (but didn't) head-bang to a rewritten Hearts on Fire and then some other classic songs rewritten. One that made me smile just hearing the first tunes was a rewritten Brave Sir Robin from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The only downside was that the music sometimes blurred out the song. And most importantly, I actually helped to write part of one of the songs (or part, it was one word but still). My sister actually called me and asked for a two syllable word that had some connection to the Jönssonligan-movies. The word was flagpole if you had to know. Unfortunately I couldn't get writing credits since it was a "do over song" so it wasn't in the pamphlets and therefore no credits.