Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Gaelcon 2004.

Having recovered sufficiently from the exesses of the weekend. drink,games,sleep deprivation and fun I give you the Gaelcon weekend blog.

I had a ball at gaelcon. This year more than any other since I started going there it felt a bit like coming home.. Familiar faces all round many of whom did us the honour of coming to our convention way out west. Everyone is so friendly and I think I saw maybe one sad face amongst the 600 odd attendees and that didn't seem to last.
actually 2 if you saw my mate duane but that was after I broke the ear off his 1500 euro Batman statue, so you can see why he might not be singing "all kinds of everything" and blowing bubbles. I have already extended my sincerest apologies but I re-iterate them her. hope the damage is fixable...

Games wise it was the Year of Pirates of the Spanish Main ( or BOAT as it is known by some of us). But the other game to really make an impression was Star Wars: The queens gambit. really neat mechanism for having all 4 segments (gungan diversion, storming the palace, Jedi dual, and space battle) affect each other.

Alas I still have not aqquired a copy of the Call of Cthulhu card game. boo.

However I got to play plenty of Call of Cthulhu.. the fairly typical yet dead solid "The Great Game" and "Temporary insanity" which does exactly what it says on the tin...

What else. Karaoke in which Dave (gamer style third person reference not someone else) tries to sing in the Key of C#, fails by several letters then realises its not even the right song..

Pub quiz, which was fun. Club AGM which was actually fairly neat.
Charity auction in which money becomes something far less valuable than it really is and sticking your hand in the air becomes as addictive as crack cocaine.

dissapointingly my efforts to get everyone (including me) to go see AvP over the weekend failed miserable, And the Dang weather here prevented me from doing it today. I better get to see it before vegas, or I shall be very put out.

If I remember anything else I should mention I'll post it next post.

Dave.



Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Empire.

Have to say Empire's a top notch magazine. v. rarely does it fail to nail just how good a movie is. Imagine my dissapointment then, when they give AvP a mere 2 stars. Of course It was always going to be tricky to do either license justice... I'll still go see it. Forewarned is forearmed( and Four-armed is really handy in Mortal Kombat *groan*).

Empire also have a top 100 sexiest movie stars of all time. Which is funny cause this is a discussion I've had several times in the last couple of weeks. Now they got the sexiest men in there and they're pretty much what you'd expect (although orlando Bloom is the top ranking bloke. I would have thought that a bit odd but what do I know.) so I'm just gonna list the top ten ladies ( in reverse order to build the suspense).

10. Grace Kelly - I never watched none of her movies so I dont know if she deserves to be in the top ten or not
She don't look like top ten material from the photo..

9. Rita Hayworth - She was v. sexy, so I won't quibble with her appearance in this list.

8.Natalie Portman - According to empire sexiest role was Amidala in Episode III. Emm. Nope.

7. Uma Thurman - Yeah I guess , to me Uma is a bit too tomboyish to be one of the sexiest. But I'll allow it ;)

6. Scarlet Johannson - I only really noticed her in Lost in Translation so the Jury is still out on her..

5. Jennifer Connolly - Ok wholehearted agreement here. She looked pretty fine in the Rocketeer and she's been
in some other stuff more recently. Hulk I think. Damn.

4. Marilyn Monroe - Nuff said.

3. Halle Berry - Can't stand her. Everyone else is off their rocker for placing her so high..

2. Angelina Jolie - Yeah she is hot, lips to die for but makes some pretty appalling movies plus
a bit of an oddball as far as I can gather..

1. Keira Knightly - I would have said forget about it. But the picture they got of here she's
all done up like some kind of 50's film star and she looks pretty good. But where are (as
a good friend of mine likes to say) the Norks?


Heres a couple from lower down on the list that I think are more deserving of being in the top ten
than some I have mentioned .
Kirsten Dunst, Kate winslet ( having seen her recently in a Beautiful mind) and Selma Hayek.


In other news I have finally got my own copy of "What evil lurks" even if it is a re-issue, and on
vinyl(I don't own a turntable..)

Later.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Do stuff.

Saw adds for The new pratchett book "going postal" made me want to read it. so I pops into easons to pick it up then realise its not available here yet. Howver I subsequently realise that I haven't read Monstrous Regiment yet and it is conveniently sitting on the shelf right in front of me, in handy paperback format. Ah I says to myself I'll get that then. Then I find out I've got the first discworld meetup coming tomorrow night. perfect says I. that'll give me something to talk about then..

Anyhoo. I went to a play on friday, Brian Friels "Faith Healer", I probably wouldn't have chosen to go see it myself but as it was Cap'n Vane suggested we go to the theatre for something different and it was on. It was surprisingly good for a play consisting of 4 monologues.. both Funny and tragic in parts. I liked it but it made me miss the fun we had doing stage performances while I was in sligo....

however I did see that there was a screenwriting workshop going on in the IFI.. Think it'd be interesting even though I shouldn't really be spending money coming up to Vegas (did I mention I was going to vegas next month? go me) and I should be saving money instead, still I think It'd be good to do. I haven't really done anything just for myself since I came to dublin.. I miss acting and Tai Chi and Capoeira and all the stuff I used to do (however erratically) in sligo. Theres definitely less Time here.

More at some point.