My own self

Courtesy of Obdormio.

Read more...

Oh, Obdormio, what have you gotten me into?




It's a mere handful of my books for now, but suddenly I'll have something better to do one day and it'll grow like nobody's business.

They're blocking messages with "www.youtube.com" in them. How hilariously sad isn't that?

Sitting down to write this, I realize I wrote most of what there is to say about the series in general here, but I will quote (and occasionally paraphrase) the relevant paragraphs here for convenience before I address the more specific subject matter of the two volumes of the series spublished so far:

---

For those nil point fourteen of my readers who don't know, The Order of the Stick is a quite excellent webcomic by Rich Burlew. The comic blends traditional roleplaying-game-humour rather seamlessly (and impressively) with the humouristic fantasy story-approach. By that I mean that while the characters will make jokes and comments about saving throws, D20s, monster manuals and gaining levels, they will also have character-, plot- and situation-based humour. As the series has progressed and the characters and the plot has grown, the weight has shifted from the former to the latter, but both are still very much present in the comic. The other - rather ingenious, actually, in all its simplicity - rather unique idea in this comic is that there are no roleplaying-players. It's the characters themselves who talk about their levels, the new rulebooks and the like. In effect, this creates a world that everybody who's a little bit of a geek (and let us face it, those who aren't would never read this) will feel intuitively comfortable with as it plays on literally all the stereotypes used in traditional fantasy RPGs, while being incredibly unique by embracing RPG-mechanisms as actual in-world laws of physics. Levels, stats and dice-throws are, to these characters and this world, real.

Oh, and his characters are drawn as stick-figures. Impressively detailed ones at that.

Currently at its 552nd strip, The Order of the Stick has developed quite the mythos and cast, as well as a plotline that's stereotypical enough to match the general feel of familiarity everything in the comic offers while being just original and mysterious enough to be interesting. The first 300 strips are collected in two volumes (with tons of excellent bonus-materials, extended scenes and author-commentaries) following the first two story-arcs; Dungeon' Crawlin Fools and No Cure for the Paladin Blues, which are both highly recommended, but the archives are still right there on the webpage to read for free.

---

It is these two volumes I'm going to give my thoughts on in this post, to the extent I have any such to give.


One thing I really liked about these two volumes was how thorough they both felt. There is no less than three short essays opening each volume (a preface, an introduction and a foreword), written one each by a guest-writer recommending the comic, Burlew himself, and one of the characters of the world. All of which are both informative and humourous, though obviously in different degrees.

The stories they gather are quite amusing, though I must admit I far prefer the more story-centric second volume to the more gag-focused first, as I'm the kind of reader who, when asked to choose between the good single-strip joke and the good fifty-strip-buildup-plot-twist, will ask for the second every single time. Luckily, Burlew often manages both in both volumes, the weight is just shifting as the story progresses and gains momentum.

While the first volume, On the Origin of the PCs, collects - as the title suggests - the main characters stereotypical exploration of a classical RPG-game dungeon, the second sees them adventuring out in the wilderness. This allows for a more varied scenery, which in such a simplistically (in concept though not in execution) drawn comic is rather appealing to the eye. This also allows the second volume to play on new and different RPG-clichès compared to the first, which is a nice freshening of the jokes.

The cast is quite good, a rather classical comedy-cast consisting of a straight man (Roy, human warrior), the quiet oddball who often seems surprisingly insightful (Durkon the Dwarf cleric), the morally ambigious sarcastic one (Haley, human rogue), the selfish guy utterly lacking self-restraint (Belkar the, interestingly, halfling ranger), the lofty holier-than-thou one (Vasrsuvius, Elf wizard) and the childish, silly and naïve optimist (Elan, human bard). Exactly the kind of mis-matched band that stereotypically would for some obscure reason band together to explore dangerous dungeons together in RPG-settings. Naturally, because of this, some characters are less funny than others, but their combined dynamic is really quite good. Over the course of time I've personally grown somewhat tired of a few of them, but considering the spectrum of personalities this cast contains, some are bound to fall less in the tastes of the reader than others. Burlew should be congratulated to keep them all as fun and interesting as he does. He is also to be acclaimed for managing to give all his characters some time to shine, some plotlines where they hold the spotlight, and some arcs for them to go through. Can't be easy, juggling all of these people together with the over-arching plots and the ever-present need to end every strip with a punchline. The second volume, No Cure for the Paladin Blues, additionally sees rather heavy development of the main antagonistic characters' personalities as well as the introduction of one or two new characters.

These two volumes, as mentions, collect what's mainly freely available online strips, but they also come with a lot of interesting extra stuff that can only be read by buying (or borrowing from a friend, like I did...) the volumes themselves. Chief among these are Burlew's extensive commentaries to each section of the stories and the bonus pages. Because every now and then, he'll have added an extra page of story and jokes where he's seen fit into the story, and they're to a one at least of average quality compared to the old stuff - often more so - and they fit rather seamlessly into the stories. In the first volume there's also a quite wonderful introductory story added before the first original strip, as he (rightly) felt that in such a first volume of a long story, the in-medias-res-start works less well than on an online webcomic. I'd say reading this "miniprequel" alone would justify the purchase of the first volume.


All in all they're both very good - and prettily made! - books that anyone who'd call themselves fans of the webcomic should strongly consider buying. I know I am. And I've already read them.

Look at the pretties!


This is why every nation with self-respect has royalty.


(I'm looking at you, Finland!)

The Most Badass US Presidents of All Time

Especially numbers 5 and 1 contain more awesome than you can shake a stick at.

Couldn't resist the pun.


So, Psych 101 - or episode 1 of season 1 of the television series named "Psych" - has just been seen, and I must say, this show has potential. I'll be following the Norwegian airings for the time being, which is about a season and a half behind the US as I'm writing this, but I'm watching enough shows, taking this one slow could be nice.


The show's basic premise is basically that some guy has had the following thought: "What if Sherlock Holmes was a goofy, fun-loving scam-artist?" Because that's what the show's about - a guy (James Roday) with amazing deductive skills (if Holmes is too antiquated a reference-point for you, a certain Dr. Gregory House uses the exact same methods to impress chicks and scare patients) who decides that he'll pretend to be a psychich private invastigator since he solves cases quicker than the police anyway. Stir in Dulé Hill as the reluctant sidekick with stomach-issues and maybe especially Corbin Bernsen as the capitous, disapproving ex-cop dad, and you've got quite the interesting show on your hands.

Or so the pilot would have it seem. As Blodstrupmoen would put it - time vill sjåv.

Today, Santa Claus gave a lecture on the American revolution and early government, referencing Luke Skywalker, Napoleon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Superman, and then went on to state that "God wants greedy Americans" and "Sweeds are whimpy".


It was the best day ever.

"Now, just a few seconds longer, there, Mrs. Adams, and it'll all be over... there! Now you can spit."
Fredrick "Garlic" Gobblevalley, dentist par excellence and, totally coincidentally, also frightful excuse of a bowling player, threw off his plastic gloves and made some notes on a sheet of paper on his orderly yet over-filled desk. The sun gleamed in through the window and played shadows over Gobblevalley's mouthbind, which did nothing to hide the ever-looming stench of an impressing sortiment of onions from his patients but still made him look dashingly handsome by hiding his beak-like nose and giving the very subtle impression of a gentleman rover bandit in the Wild West. Behind him, Mrs. Adams was done spitting, and tried to sit up - quite the impossibility, seeing as he'd conveniently forgotten to move his instruments-panel away from over her. Mrs. Adams apparently refused to admit this little piece of stark reality, ensnaring the panel with Gobblevalley's instruments in what could be described as a helpless little dance, but will rather be described as a gruesome display of the purest futility. Gobblevalley chuckled to himself - Mrs. Adams had been his English-teacher some twenty-odd years earlier, and never once would he he forget how she made him dance in the school-performance of Pinocchio. If there was one thing to be known about Gobblevalley, it was this: He did not dance.

After a conveniently hurried excuse for a totally unecessary bathroom-break, Gobblevalley came back into the room, smiling pleasantly to the sprawling heap of wrinkles in his dentist's chair. "Well, now, sorry about that. Oh! I'm so sorry, I seem to have forgotten to remove my instruments. I do hope you weren't inconvenienced?"
"Oh, no, not at all," came the frail remains of a voice whose spirit died years ago with the sevenhundredandtwentysixth attempt at making young boys cease their war-like activities with the classroom-sponges. There is just no coming back after that, and Mrs. Adams' voice had as it realized this decided to retire while still in marginally decent health.
"Well, that's very nice of you, Mrs. Adams, very nice of you. I guess a little extra laid-back time isn't something to wrinkle one's nose at, eh?" Chuckling merrily of his own excellent little pun with the always very tasty side-dish of twenty-year-matured vengeance, Gobblevalley moved over to move the panel away. And then the phone rang. Not believing his luck, Gobblevalley waved a hand at the wriggling Mrs. Adams' and her clearly uncomfortable hind-parts. "So sorry, I'll just be a minute."
"Not a worry, young man, not a worry," it sounded feebly from deep within the chair.

Grinning more widely than years of experience in the field of dentistry told him was physically possible, he pulled down his mouthbind and picked up the white little phone on his desk.
"Grayham Dentist's office, Dr. Gobbleyvalley speaking."
"It's started, Gobblevalley. You have hereby recieved your summons," said a bleak voice in the other end.
Gobblevalley admitted to some amount of perplexion at this. "Started? What has? Summoned to what?"
"The Bicentennial Election of Dentists!" hissed the voice impatiently. "I can't believe that I have to remind everybody!"
Gobblevalley was affronted. "Well excuse me for the audacity of being born after the first World War." Then the sentence finally followed the tone in properly registering in his garlic-weakend brain. "Wait, what? The Election?! Are you sure?"
A sharp wheeze in the other end, as the mere question was a blasphemy towards not only all that is holy, but also all that is holy's petite old grandmother and her stray cat Marlin. Then: "Of course I'm sure! Do you think this is a child's play, Gobblevalley? Do you think it's a game?!"
"Oh, eh, nono, no not at all! I'll be there!"
"I trust you are at least familiar with the protocols of location and ritual?" said the voice, clearly trusting no such thing. This, at least, Gobblevalley felt comfortable with. His old professor had initiated him fourteen years ago at the Academy, but he'd never thought it would occur during his own lifetime.
"Of course I do." He lowered his voice, mindful of the patient tossing helplessly a few feet behind him. "Where the Palatal hill drinks the first few drops of the morning sun, the first of December, there all who know the art of arts will come to remember. I always found the rhyming to be a little silly, honestly." He added that last part, feeling cheeky now that he was on familiar ground.
"We all do," groaned the voice. "Can't be helped. Tradition, you know. Like the drilling?"
"Ah, of course."
"Right." The voice seemed to suddenly remember itself and grew bleakly mysterious once again. "You will attend," it stated, and hung up.

Gobblevalley whirled around, carelessly dropping the phone to the floor in the process. "Dreadfully sorry Mrs. Adams, but something has come up, I will need to leave at once. The nurse will be in within the hour to see you out." Grabbing his coat, idly wondering what the frail sounds from the chair was intended to mean before deciding that he didn't really care, Gobblevalley left his office in exultion. Finally, the dentists would choose their king!

The next LotR? Highly doubtful. Very well done? Yeah.


And, something which as far as I gather should please Mr. Pullman to no end, it's at least on par with the Narnia-book-made-movie from two years back... Okay, it doesn't have anything as brilliant as James McAvoy as Mr. Tumnus, but aside from that, it's as good, I think, and in parts better.


Starring Nicole Kidman as a fun and well done female version of Darth Vader (if the Empire was called the Magistratum and existed in an 1800's fantasy/sci-fi version of London...), Derek Jakobi as O'Brien (only a somewhat, er, bigger brother), Ian McKellen as Azeem (if he was an alchoholic, huge, furry and, well, a talking bear), Ian McShane as Denethor (if he was also a bear, and, er, well, evil), and Daniel Craig as Aunt Polgara (if... if you bugger everything about the movie except the things allowing me to make the joke), the cast is very good, as is the characters. Yes, as I now somewhat unseriously joked, there is a lot in here that is hardly original - but the mix of it all, and the world it is placed in, is. Which is enough for me, when it's well done.

Of other cast should be mentioned Sam Elliot, Jim Carter and, of course, the girl who plays the main character, Dakota Blue Richards. She was surprisingly good.

Oh, and Christopher Lee. Gods know why he was even in there, he sat in a chair and had two lines, but his name came, like, fourth on the ending credtis.


The plot is... okay. Decent. Nothing stellar, and it got weaker by the very open ending. At times, too, they pushed the plot onwards too quickly, clearly trying to save time for action-scenes and push as many scenes as possible in from the books.

The world, though, is interesting. While the Witches seemed awfully redundant and Eagle'y (in the Hobbit/LotR-sort of *cough*-ex-machina way), the Gyptians were okay, as were the "normal" Humans and the icebears. (Which to Norwegians sounds more normal than you'd think...)

One of the two most interesting points about the world, though, is the all-encompassing Magistratum. Well, all-encompassing save for the Gyptians, the Witches, the Icebears and, for some reason, a University. For some reason, they all ('cept the University) seem to be unambigiously opposed to the Magistratum's rule, though they don't oppose it openly. And yet they show no hesitation in allying in an all-out attack in the ending scenes. Lack of logic, to me. But a minor one I'll let it pass. Apparently, it's supposed to be an allegory for the Catholic Church, but I never really caught that, so it's probably very obstrued in the film. Cool, though.

The second one, obviously, is the dæmons. At first, it struck me as cool but silly. Why would these creatures take the form of all kinds of animals except humans, and do so for humans alone? Seems a very Christian Man-Above-Animal way of looking at the world for a supposedly anti-Christian author. The plot-point about the icebear wanting a dæmon and the main character trying to pass as one for him, though, remedied that in great part. I like mostly everything about this concept, it's very appealing to the imagination and shows a lot of promise. I hope it'll be delved more into in subsequent movies. And in the books, if I ever get around to reading them.

A solid, even strong 7,5/10

In 3D!

This is, by the way, the first post I've made on my new computer - my old laptop's screen died some weeks back, and I've been using the tv-screen as a substitute solution since then. Just a random FYI, also explaining the lack of posting in recent days.


Anywhos!

I quite liked it. As far as I gather, not having read the poem myself, the original's basically your run-of-the-mill-epic-hero-tale. Guy encounters monster. Guy slays monster. Guy encounters another monster. Guy slays this monster too. Guy lives happily as a king for a number of years, and then encounters a third monster that he dies while slaying. Guy's name lives on forever in song, 'cause he totally rocked with the monster-slayage.

So this is what I expected. I expected it to be well done - the script's done by Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman for Woden's sake - but I did not really expect that they would flesh it out like this.

What they've done - and, from what I can tell online, quite well - is they've opened up every bit of the story the poem doesn't describe, and added drama, twists and texture there. That way, the movie is quite different from the original legend, but it never really contradicts it either. Which sounds ingenious to me, and which will give them an extra boost in my rating of the movie.

Visually the movie's an interesting experience, everything being digitally animated despite most prominent characters being very heavily based on their actors in their looks. Add to this the 3D, and it's... different. I find that a lot of people complain that the CGI-people were too well done - so well that you noticed the few glitches way more than you'd like to by contrast. I get that. But I didn't think they were THAT well done. It was impressive, sure, but they did not really have that effect on me. The fake-looking-faces here and there bugged me very little, when at all. I think I might just be better at accepting the visual paradigm at face value than most, though. I'm, like, "oh, so it's CGI. 'Key." If something then looks very CGI - that is, looks very fake - I don't really respond that negatively. I'm expecting it.

The 3D was nice, but kind of superfluous. It served no real narrative purpose, and while making the odd action-scene here and there way more interesting, it was only really taken advantage of in the grand opening scene. In the more mellow dialogue-scenes, it was pretty redundant and didn't really add to my experience of the movie. Still, it was refreshing, and in the odd scene here and there it did improve things.

I quite liked this. I see some people compare the "I am Beowulf!"-scream to "This is Sparta", and this is lot like 300 in mood. Not in plot or really even dialogue, but in mood. They are both predominately pre-Christian tales with pre-Christian values and pre-Christian ideals, and they makers of both movies seem very aware of this. If you're expecting an epic legend of infallible heroes with just enough modern complexity and drama to make it interesting added in, you should go see this. If you're expecting something else, then I don't know. Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't. Let me know, 'key?

A strong 8/10

Or something. (My puns pain even me. I'm sadomachopunny.)


Anyway, I recently saw Elizabeth: The Golden Age in the theatre, and then the day after (!) the first movie, Elizabeth, from the late 1990's aired on Norwegian television. So I saw that too. Ironically, I just the day before protested to the idea of a genre of "queen-movies", and, well... maybe there's something to it. Blanchett really pulls off this personal journey of the strong but untested woman in a man's world in the first one as well as the life of a woman cut off from a woman's life such as her time would have it be in the second.

As you've probably gathered by now, I thought they were good! Better than I thought they'd be. I actually preferred the sequel to the first one due to a series of reasons, foremost of which is probably simply the fact of having seen it in the cinema. Then again, the first one also had Elizabeth walk around be all unsure of herself the entire time, and she only got properly cool by the last scene, so I think that might have been a big influence on preferring the sequel - especially after seeing it first and thus expecting her to be cool in the first one only to find that she's not. (With the exception of the very clever treatment of the duke of Anjou, anyway) Because, by comparison, the sequel had Elizabeth go about her ruling very, very convicingly capable manner, and thus she came off as quite cool, though no less conflicted when in private than she was in the first one.

I should add, I love Cate Blanchett when she's in regal-mode, in the end-scene of the first one as well as in key scenes in the sequel she speaks in a certain commanding manner which quite frankly rocks like crazy. I dare even the most inane republican not to get a tiny little closet-feeling of royalism if he'd been in the room with a queen speaking to him like that.

Geoffrey Rush's Walsingham was awesome, but he had, like, no screen-time at all in the first one - and I already thought he had little to do in the sequel and was expecting there to be more of him in the first, not less. This was a huge disappointment. Also, I preferred Clive Owen's Sir Raleigh greatly to Joseph Fiennes' Eal of Leicester as far as romantic interests go, and the plot surrounding it, too, was more interesting in the sequel. However, Owen's Raleigh might have been painted a tiny tad too much the unflawed hero for my tastes, so I'm not exclusively positive.

All in all, two very strong movies. I'd give Elizabeth a weak 8 out of 10 (if I ever do a rewatch, I might retcon this post into showing 7,5) and The Golden Age a fair 8,5/10.

I've been hesitant with posting this, mostly 'cause I've no clue what the thing I said that Obdormio quoted in his MSN subnick even means. But that's not a good excuse to treat it any different than other things, eh? Because to be fair, I rarely know exactly what whatever I say means. ;P



After my mocking him with his inconsistant complaints regarding his studies and his saying "Ah, you know me so well", this was my response by way of explaining this knowledge:

"I am a student of the human condition, and you've got more condition than most other people put together."


Thanks for the quote, man.

Obdormio says:
Islandsk er det norsk burde ha vore, utan all denne danskeinnblandinga
Obdormio says:
also, they have policies of linguistic purism
Obdormio says:
gotta admire that
Loki! - wistfully flying - Is a context to a text like a conman is to a man? says:
får sikkert norske medlem av Språkrådet til å sikle i draume
Obdormio says:
Språkrådet!
Obdormio says:
pah!
Obdormio says:
veike sveklingar, heile hurven!
Obdormio says:
krypande larvar framleis fanga under samnorskskuggen!
Obdormio says:
kvar er reformane for klarare skilje mellom nynorsk og bokmål? reindyrking av begge til fordel for begge?

Read more...

So, there's this Hayao Miyazaki-guy who's apparently really well known for his anime-movies. I've now seen one. Obdormio (there is absolutely no reason to click that link, by the way, he never updates anyway) more or less made me, you see.

I don't have anything against anime as such. It is the sudden outbreaks of overstated emotion , embarrasment or attempted humour coming out of nowhere characteristic in both anime and manga that fills me with distaste, it brings me out of the story and cheapens the characters involved.

Luckily, "Princess Mononoke" had little such. There were tendencies, but on the whole, not so much as to ruin it. It also helped to note on the cover that Neil Gaiman himselfest had done the English-translated script.

The movie starts out in an interesting fantasy-world (supposed to be a long-gone historical Japan I suppose), in medias res. Then it slows down a bit - as is to be expected - and you gradually get acquainted with the world. The main character is a pretty stereotypical protagonist hero all around good guy superdude who's an excellent shot with his bow, is extremely finely tuned together with his mount of choice, is incredibly butch and honourable, and despite being the strong silent type totally managing to befriend everyone on his way and being an outspoken voice of pacifism and tolerance.

The degree to which this bothered me, however, was extremely little, because the entire movie reeks of being a faery tale, and in a faery tale, that's how your main character's supposed to be. If anything, I was surpried and happy about just how outspokenly anti-war the warrior protagonist actually was, considering the context, you'd expect him to be slightly more blood-thirsty, methinks.

The title character, with whom, of course, our hero falls in love, is a Mowgli-adaption - a young girl adopted by a wolf and defending the forest against man's brutal progress of so-called civilization. Only main difference other than this Mowgli having a somewhat different physique is that no limping tigers were involved in the backstory and the wolf adopting her was incidentally also a god.

Tons of gods in this movie, by the way, which I liked. I'm a big fan of convincingly polytheist worlds, and I liked how it was done here. The main antagonist was also interestingly done, one of the more successful takes on the "disarmingly charming mysterious guy turns out to be villainous"-clichè I've seen.

I basically have little complaints at all on the movie, except that it maybe, just maybe, was somewhat too long. Parts of it moved a little too slowly, and cutting it twenty minutes or so would, I think, have made it even better than it was.

As is, it earns a very strong 8,5/10, and enough enthusiasm on my part to let Obdormio (still no point in clicking the link, I'm afraid) lend me the other two Miyazaki's movies of his.

Alright.



I can certainly see why they're making those direct-to-tv-movie-sequels. 'Cause this didn't resolve or wrap up a thing.


But a very, very good season. I'm not sure if this season or season 9 is the series' best - season 8 is its third best - but my gods did this show ever get good as it went along. Watching certain episodes of the first season of this show after this would be pure torment.


Someone should compile a set of DVDs with the, say, 30 best and most character- and plot-relevant episodes of the first four seasons. That'd help this show a lot.


Anyway, thanks to the people who asked me to see this. Again and again and again. I finally have. It's a nice notch in the belt, gotta admit that. And the last few seasons were damned good. And Richard Dean Anderson as Jack O'Neill makes MacGyver look boring.

As for its spin-off, well, I'm soon up-to-date on it, and I'll keep watching it. It is good. Not great, but certainly good. And who knows, maybe it'll pull an Angel season 5 and heavily reference the characters of its mother-show after it stopped running.