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Another Sad Day for RPGs

Posted on April 10, 2009 | Filed Under Gaming

Gary last year, Dave this year. Everything I’ve seen from 4th edition makes me yearn for the old days. But now those old days are leaving us to. Time marches on, the dice role, and somewhere out there swords are clashing.

So long, Dave. Thanks for giving your best. Rest in peace.

John Carpenter’s The Thing

Posted on December 31, 2008 | Filed Under Celluloid

First let me start by defining horror. Horror to me is a combination of suspense and terror. It’s the thing (no pun intended) that crawls up the back of your neck and when you reach for it, terrified to find out what it is, it turns out to be far worse than you could have imagined. Terror and horror to me are not gore fests. Movies like Friday the 13th, Saw, Hostel, Black Christmas and a reign of other knock off movies are laughable at best, mostly maudlin, and at worst so terrible that you can even get a good Mystery Science 3000 night out of them.

Movies like The Exorcist or Alien are truly terrifying. They don’t rely on their gore to be horrific. They are horrific because of everything they don’t show, of placing the human element in a world so foreign that the very question of humanity is turned upside down.

That said, after recently re-watching ‘a favorite’ of mine I have now decided that it is the most horrifying movie of all time. John Carpenter’s The Thing.

Why do I rank it as the best horror film?

Simply put, the movie has very little gore in it. Admittedly what is in there is quite repulsive and shocking but what makes this movie so frightening is to watch these intelligent, bright and civil men inhabiting Antarctica Outpost #4 (3?) dissolve into a paranoid, cut-throat, and self-surviving shadow of humanity. Carpenter shows an uncanny ability to add one extra character to this movie. No, it’s not the Thing itself, it’s claustrophobia. It’s paranoia. Whatever it is, it becomes an actual character in the film. It’s astounding how pervasive this becomes. While watching the movie it gives one the urge to glance to your left at your fellow movie watcher and make sure they aren’t getting ready to stab you in the back.

It doesn’t hurt that Carpenter has a stellar cast to help him with this monumental (yet strangely effortless) task. And it also doesn’t hurt that the special effects, even in the overly done CGI world of today, hold on their own.

This movie is a nightmare. It’s a haunting that won’t go away any time soon. It’s the type of movie that on a cold night, when the snow is deep and you look out the window knowing you are somewhere safe deep inside civilization, you still can’t shake this feeling that something is inside with you. Something that shouldn’t be there. Something that nothing seems to be able to stop.

“I know I’m human. And if you were all these things then you’d just jump me and be done with it, so I know some of you are human.”

Yes. But who is a Thing and who is human.

Don’t turn your back. And if someone comes in by themselves, take another quote to heart. “Burn them.”

Ben Beecher

Posted on November 30, 2008 | Filed Under Who's Who

I’ve gotten a wild hair up me arse and decided I wanted to write some things about friends of mine. The list isn’t horrendously long (if you know me you know why) but since all of these folks have had, at the very least, a large impact on who I am today I thought it might be a nice homage to give them each their own little official Constuct biography. None of the ‘constuctologies’ will be particular long, some shorter than other’s but whatever the case, all of them rank at the top.

So, that said, we’ll start with Ben. No reason why really, but we must start somewhere.

My friendship with Ben started back in the spring of ‘98. I’d seen him fall of ‘97 in a rather dull production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Ben was the one big standout in the show, despite the fact that he was playing one of the players (they’re mostly mute.) So in ‘98 when I was involved in a production of Richard II and Richard III in rep, I sought Ben out to get him in the show.

The rest as they say, is history (that pun will become apparent later when I caption the photo in this post.) Read more

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