D&D: I wonder... do I have any great adventures left before me?

The cat was raising a ruckus in the other room down the hall, so I went in to investigate. Miss Kitka was up to an unusual shenanigan (at least for her) and was knocking over a stack of DVDs, which had fallen on her water dish, which had splashed the side of a box full of magazines.

It was one of those white boxes you get at comic shops in which to store oversize comics and magazines. Naturally, I opened it to make sure it wasn't wet enough to seep through and damage anything inside the box. This particular box was a mishmash of things: Comics, gaming magazines, graphic novels, old MAD Magazines, Doctor Who Magazines, etc. And a few oddities, including some of my old game journals, nestled right up against my copy of Snarf Quest.

I'm a prolific note taker when it comes to gaming. Back in the day, I was lucky enough to play in campaigns that ran for years. Every Saturday, like clockwork, I'd be over at Murphy's house or at his barracks in the day room, slinging dice and slaying monsters.

Those were some of the heydays of my gaming life. I was working, married, then returned to school, and was having a blast. Then I looked at the date and realized that those adventures were from 1994!  That was 16 years ago!

Wow. The time has flown. Yes, I've gamed since those days... and had some great times (both with Gutshot and with other games). But I don't wax nostalgic for them. When I think of my other games, I remember the friends and a few exciting highlights (perhaps that's because I was GMing in those later games, not running a character).  Whatever the reason, when I look through these old notes and mementos, I feel like an old adventurer -- who has long since settled down -- and is going through one of his old trunks only to find a haversack with some of his old gear, tucked away... mostly forgotten.

Most of it came rushing back when I read the pages: The epic details of the haunted island, our role in the war to the south, but it was the little things that I recall best: (the cold camps, the bandits we fought on the road and executed,the widow whose solider son had come back from the war and we used our healing gifts to save his life in exchange for a warm barn to sleep in, and the nightmare when we washed up on the shore of that haunted island, only to realize that one of my bottles of whiskey didn't make it). It's all there, like a forgotten life. Parts of it were crystal clear (Lena, Airth and Rikus), but for the life of me, It took me a moment to remember who Dargon was. It came back to me, but it took longer than it should have.

Maybe it's the beer that's made me a little wistful tonight, but this journey down the pathless trail of my past heroic adventures in the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons made me wonder, do I have any great adventures left before me? Will I ever again sit at a table, dice in hand, ready to go in search of the unknown? Are there any giants left to kill, or ghosts to quiet? Or have do my best days of gaming lie behind me now?

And what about you, fellow dice slingers? Are there any dragons left in your future, or are you like me, a tired ex-adventurer sitting on a backside that's broader than it used to be, sipping a brew and thinking of his gaming glory days?

Memorial Day -- We remember

Spent much of the day with the History Channel watching Battlefield 360 focus on the WWII invasion of Sicily. Then I started to work on updating a new Memorial Day image for the Hawgleg Websites… and then -- a few beers in me -- I read "In Flanders Fields." Must admit, there are a few tears in my eyes.

Earlier, I had thought of my grand dad. We weren't particularly close (he'd left my dad when he was a kid -- started a new family and all that). But I do remember his stories of WWII. He wasn't allowed to serve. He worked on the railroad in El Paso and, as a member of "essential industry," he was not allowed to enlist. He had tried, but was flat out denied. I remember his stories of the troop trains that passed through in the middle of the night. That he would catch a few winks in a boxcar, pulling a 48-hour shift, and had some of the hobos wake him when the next train went through. He talked about the USO girls who were there, brewing coffee and handing it up in buckets (a few tin cups attached by long strings) through the windows to the thirsty GIs shipping out to the West Coast. There was no passenger station in the yards, so the women had to make do with open fires and what supplies they could muster. The men weren't allowed off the trains (although the "porters," corporals in charge of the cars, I think, would let some of them off on the side opposite the women so they could go relieve themselves before the train got underway again.

Anyway, I suppose I'm just a bit sentimental tonight… thinking about people who "gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God…, shall not perish from the earth."

God bless everyone -- past, present, and future -- who has fallen in the name of justice and liberty.

Comics: Willie & Joe

I was at Half Price Books today and was looking through the comics section and I saw this cool, brand-new, slip-cased two-volume set: Willie & Joe: The WWII Years by legendary comic artist Bill Mauldin.
It is a very attractive set: Hardcover, cloth bound in khaki-green, and quite sharp looking. I instantly started drooling over it (thank heavens I was alone at the moment). It was really impressive and -- I must admit -- expensive looking. Furthermore, it was the only copy on hand and it was still in its shrink wrap. Alas, I was certain it was out of my price range, yet nevertheless I picked it up and got a wonderful surprise. It was only $19.95! Less than 20 bucks. That couldn't be right. I quickly looked for the regular price and, sure enough, it was listed at $65. That definitely seemed like a fair price for such a slick looking product. Ah, but I was in Half Price Books, and it's not uncommon to find an amazing deal tucked amidst their dusty shelves.

So, needless to say, I grabbed it. And, to sweeten the deal, I got another 10% off with my faculty ID! (I mentioned that discount to a friend the other day and his eyes opened wide: "You mean you get a discount if you're a teacher?" I assured him that was true, and that it even works when they are having other sales and promotions.) So, all in all, I walked out with the books for about $18 and a smile on my face.
The sweet deal is not the reason I'm excited. This is a great book. It's almost 700 pages of great comics, many of which have never been reprinted before. And they are FUNNY. I've laughed out loud a dozen times since I opened it. Bill Mauldin really knew his stuff, and this is a worthy treasury of his work.


My two favorite strips:

Page 79
Willie tells Joe: "Joe, yestiddy you saved my life and I swore I'd pay you back. Here's me last pair o' dry socks."

Page 154
Joe is talking to a corpsman: "Just gimme a coupla asprin. I already got a Purple Heart."

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put on some Andrews Sisters and big band music and finish reading about Willie and Joe.

Movies: Sayonara Jupiter -- Japanese Sci-Fi DVD review

Sayonara Jupiter
Actor/Actress: Tomokazu Miura , Akihiko Hirata
Director: Koji Hashimoto , Sakyo Komatsu

Year: 1983 / 1984

Runtime: 129

Rating: Not Rated (but it has nudity, sex and medium violence)

Language: Original: Japanese; Dubbed: English; Subtitled: English

Color: Yes

Sayonara Jupiter is a wonderful example of the type of work that Japanese film giant TOHO Studios was attempting to do in the 1980s: Grown up, mature, and well made. At least for its time, that is. When this movie came out in the early 1980s, the first two Star Wars movies were out and they had forever raised the bar for special effects. TOHO did their darndest to meet the challenge, and by the standards of that time, they mostly succeeded.

Unfortunately, the effects and costumes do look very dated right now, and there are some long, verrrrrry slow shows of space ships docking. Things that we would speed up now, but back then looked kind of cool and had a "2001: A Space Odyssey" vibe. Nowadays we routinely see cooler stuff on TV shows like Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek, so we tend not to linger over simple scenes like docking a shuttle to a space station.

The plot is really simple, but fairly well executed:

It's the 22nd Century and we've colonized the solar system. In order to provide more solar energy to the outer systems, they're going to turn Jupiter into a small sun. However, right before they do this, a terraforming project on Mars reveals something astonishing. While melting the polar ice caps on Mars, the water washes away a lot of dirt and debris and reveals huge carvings on the Martian surface -- that look exactly like the carvings at Nazca! These carvings indicate that aliens may have left something on Jupiter.

The movie takes off from there: Earth puts the Jupiter solarization project on hold while they investigate what seems to be an alien artifact hiding in the storm-tossed clouds of our system's largest planet. Some space hippies show up to protest and cause some damage (they don't think anyone should ever leave the earth, and if I lived with them in their little island paradise playing beach blanket bimbo, I'd be happy on earth, too). And did I mention that the leader of the solarization project used to date one of the hippie terrorists? Oh, and there's something about a black hole racing toward our sun and they need to blow up Jupiter at just the right moment to deflect it...

You know, the usual plot stuff you need to put between the special effects shots and the space nookie.

That's right, there are a few things you need to know before you watch this with the kids. There is nudity and a sex scene ("Sex in spaaaaace!"). There is also violence: as people are shot by lasers, blown up by space hippies, and meanwhile, on earth, a dolphin dies in a shark attack. Most disturbing of all, though, if you do let your kids watch this, you might just have to pause the movie for hours while you try to explain why our hair looked like that back in the 1980s.

This is a good Japanese sci-fi film, and I would recommend it for fans of the genre. There are plenty of space ships, laser blasts, and fun to keep things moving, but this actually is a fairly serious film and it does give you some things to think about.

Also, I would suggest you watch this in the original Japanese soundtrack with English subtitles. This is not because I'm some fanatic purist who hates dubbed movies (AIP did some great work on the Godzilla movies in the 1960s and 1970s). No, my reason for preferring the original soundtrack is because the movie is only half in Japanese. Many of the characters speak English (US and UK varieties), as well as German, French, and a smattering of other languages. There are several scenes where one character is speaking Japanese and the other responds in English. In the future, it seems that everyone is multilingual and this sort of babel is common. So, unless you totally hate subtitles, give the Japanese track a fair chance.

So, it's a good movie, I recommend it to fans of TOHO Sci-Fi. And good luck getting that song, "Sayonara Jupiter" out of your head!

Books: Back to the library

I used to haunt the library in Mineola, Texas. As a kid I was desperate for any sort of escape and the library was a great place to find it. For a small town, it had some interesting stuff. A bit weak on sci-fi and I doubt there was a single tome by H.P. Lovecraft, but there were books by HG Wells, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and others.

In general, though, I prefer to buy my books. It keeps them around for when I'm in the mood to actually read them. You see, I might pick up a book and leave it on the shelf for a year or more before the mood strikes me to read it. Those moods are frequently striking me at 2 a.m., so the library really isn't the best option for me.

However, my wife has recently started listening to Books on CD during her commute. Since she's in the car about two hours a day, that means she's going through those CD Books pretty fast. About one a week, in fact. So, we've gone to the local library to get some new ones.

The Barbara Bush Library is fairly near our house, so that's where we go to pick up and drop off our stuff. And to browse a bit. You see, you don't have to "prowl the stacks" any more (as old grad students used to call it) to find what you're looking for. You can just go online, select your stuff, and they'll pull it and have it waiting for you when you get there. There's even a self-serve line to check out. It's all pretty cool.

Now, I just got a library card, too. I'm starting to do some research on a topic for a book I'm working on. Now, usually I prefer to have my research books on hand, but in this case I just want to skim them. So, in a way I'm using the library as a "try before you buy" system.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the library.

Books: My life in a spy novel...

I buy a reasonable number of used books. Mostly from Half-Price Books, but I also hit a few other stores around town. Right now I'm reading some "Da Vinci Code" like stuff by other authors. You know the kind: thriller/mysteries based on ancient secrets and stuff like that.

Right now I'm reading my second novel by author Steve Berry. The first book I read was The Alexandria Link and it deals with the hunt for the Library of Alexandria. Now, in this thriller, the library was spirited away by members of a secret society and hid it somewhere in the Middle East. The Library holds secrets that, in the right hands, could destabilize current world politics. Not great fiction, but it was certainly good enough for me to pick up another one of his novels: The Amber Room.

The Amber Room is about people hunting for the eponymous chamber that had once existed in Catherine's Palace in Tsarist Russia. It's an entertaining novel, but a bit slow in places. I definitely preferred The Alexandria Link. Still, I suspect I'll read another one after this. They're pretty good.

But back to what I found in the book.

You see, over the years I've found the odd scrap of paper inside a used book before: Business cards, receipts, a movie ticket once (though I can't recall the movie right now -- I think it was a chick flick). This time, however, I actually found something VERY odd. This time I found a taxidermy receipt.

This is a small printed receipt of the type that you would get from a shop. It's obviously a standard receipt: it's got spaces on it for names, phone numbers, drop off date, pick-up date, and so on. In the upper right corner it's been numbered by a machine (0085, in this case).

It's from a taxidermy shop in Ingram, Texas. It's dated two years ago, and it's go instructions to "Mount for -----" (I'll redact their names). And a bunch of phone numbers.

Even though it doesn't say what kind of animal they're talking about, I'm going to guess it's deer, since it's dated in November (that would whitetail season around these parts). And I can easily imagine some guy packing a paperback to take along with him to his deer lease to kill some time out there, taking it easy with a six-pack (or maybe something stronger). It sounds like a nice, peaceful getaway. Definitely nothing to really catch my attention.

Except one thing: The receipt has a note to package and send the meat to someone in Iraq.

Again, I can easily imagine someone sending some nice deer sausage to a buddy or son stationed in Iraq. But there's just something odd about it. Maybe I've been reading too many thrillers, but this sounds like a weird coded message that you'd find in a novel like I'm currently reading. I can see it now...

[Cue wavy lines and weird music as we slip into a fantasy sequence]

The agent has collected the information, but his enemies are closing in. He's got to ditch the clues, so he grabs a taxidermy receipt and puts it into the paperback he was reading. The names are really code words, the phone numbers are hidden clues. The only word he can't risk being misunderstood is "Iraq." He enters Half-Price Books and slips it onto the shelf, then gets word to a fellow agent where he's hidden it.

But it's too late. They find him and, refusing to compromise his mission, he fights to the death. He dies thinking that the information is in good hands. Hundreds of lives will be saved...

Then I walk into a book store, buy a used paperback, and leave with the only copy of the clue. I don't even find it for a week until I get to the middle of my book. I look at the weird paper, note the word Iraq, and make up some back story in my head about a bored hunter reading a paperback and shipping some deer sausage to his son serving in Iraq. I continue to use the slip as a bookmark because it's convenient.

Meanwhile, the other agent arrived, bought every copy of Steve Berry's "The Amber Room" and couldn't find the coded message she was expecting. She is stalled and the bad guys get away with whatever evil thing they were planning.

Thus ends the worst spy movie ever.

Oh well, at least I'm enjoying my used paperback. I've got about 90 pages to go and, if I continue reading at a leisurely pace at night before I go to sleep, I'll probably finish it this weekend. I'll start the next one sometime next week. Who knows? Maybe this next book has a receipt to that will help thwart some Bongolesian gun runners!

Today is my 10th wedding anniversary

Wow. July 3, 1999. This time back then, I was soooooo nervous. I think Murphy was crashed over at Paul's house with Eric and they were actually out, around this time in the wee hours, hitting Wal-Mart to buy the stuff to "decorate" my car. I still owe them for that! At least Murph insisted on writing this on the side: "She got hers, tonight he'll get his!"

:-)

Our wedding was followed by a GREAT party. DJ. Keg of Shiner beer. Margarita machine. We all danced the night away! It was awesome! One smart thing we did was stay in town the next day so I could have brunch with my grandmother and family, visit with her folks, and take our time packing. Then we flew out the next day. Seeing everyone outside of the service and reception was nice, and I'm glad we did it.

As for the marriage itself? Without doubt, it was best danged thing I ever did.

Today I've got a few neat gifts for her, including one she only slightly suspects. I digitized our wedding videos and have put them on DVD. This will make it much easier for us to watch them, considering we retired our VHS player about two years ago. Right now our plans for the day are to enjoy some romantic time together. Then we plan to hit The Melting Pot restaurant for some fondue.

We definitely plan a nice, lazy day with each other, just enjoying each other's company.