20070825

top ten nationalities, by attractiveness of girls (arbitrary)

1. Scandinavian
2. Irish
3. Japanese
4. French
5. Korean
6. Spanish
7. Chinese
8. Ethiopian
9. Czech
10. Salvadoran

American doesn't count.

20070817

CSI: Silent Hill

I've been playing Condemned: Criminal Origins, which is pretty creepy. Being able to beat psychotic homeless people in dark hallways is surprisingly fun. So is using a paper-cutter as a makeshift sword.

I think it's cute that the game gives you the option to turn off your flashlight. Because THAT'S a good idea.

20070810

20070802

125,000

The most important thing to remember about the San Diego Comic-Con is that it is ridiculously huge. It occupies the entirety of the San Diego Convention Center, a very large convention center that was specifically rebuilt to be able to house ComicCon a few years back. And now ComicCon has filled that convention center to capacity. As in, sold out.

My primary objective at ComicCon was to buy some stuff and get other stuff for free. Maybe catch some panels if there's nothing better to do. So first I decided to scope out the exhibition hall, methodically, row-by-row. That took me about three hours. Maybe I'm just really jaded, but I didn't find anything especially amazing. You've got your tiny artists' booths, your huge mega-corporate booths (Sci-Fi Channel's in particular is a weird squiggly alien plastic arch thing), booths selling comic books, booths selling expensive art, booths promoting organizations (which are generally the boring ones, although the CBLDF's booth was selling comics from Frank Miller's personal collection...), and, of course, booths that were constructed entirely out of metal racks covered in T-shirts, stretching high into the sky. Step into one of
those things and it's like you've entered an entire dimension of poor graphic design.

Although I saw a pretty cool shirt featuring Luke and Leia kissing above the words "Incest is Best." (It's true. But twincest is better.)

And there's also those booths that showcase good, albeit very Asian graphic design, selling overpriced-but-stylish T-shirts and pseudo-toys. At Dominica's behest, I visited the Tokidoki booth.



Although I wasn't entirely sure what I was supposed to do there. I ended up buying a T-shirt, which violated my moratorium on T-shirt buying. I have too many T-shirts.

Actually, I ended blowing most of my money on cool dice, RPG sourcebooks, and prints of Magic art, and not on comics. Although I bought a copy of "Tiempos Finales," which is arguably the finest Mexican-Lovecraftian action-adventure epic ever created. Sam Hiti = new favorite comic artist.

Alas, I only added four robots to my Con-robot-sketchbook. But three of them are crazy awesome, and the other one is Robocop in a birthday cap, so I'm not displeased.

This part is for Nat: I played in the Magic Amateur Championships, trying to take my Sliver deck all the way and win whatever I could. My strategy consisted of an early-game threat with Venomous Sliver and Sinew Sliver that could go explosive with the dangerous combination of Gemhide Sliver and Firewake Sliver. Homing Sliver allowed for a toolbox approach with Pulmonic Sliver, Necrotic Sliver, and Sliver Legion (which is surprisingly very good with Gemhide Sliver). My win-loss was only about fifty-fifty, though, so I ended up dropping in round 5 of 7 because I didn't want to slog through another couple hours and still not place. High point: Some guy used Glittering Wish to pull a Dormant Sliver from his sideboard and make my Slivers hibernate in hive-minded sympathy. But I had a Putrefy in hand. Also I almost poisoned a guy to death on turn 3. With Slivers. Sliver.

I went to only a couple panels: Worst Cartoons Ever, which lived up to its promise, and the premier of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, being a Terminator spinoff series on Fox. Featuring Summer Glau as a Terminator! The pilot wasn't terrible. Well, okay, the first act was terrible, but that turned out to be a dream sequence. And apparently they're just going to ignore Terminator 3, which is for the best. It seems like the second episode would be the guide of whether or not it'll be good, though. That usually seems to be the case.

I took some pictures, and actually took the chance to wander around the city a bit. I bought a new belt. This is my favorite picture (that I took at ComicCon):


NOT CANON!!!