Remorse code

Am wearing a heart monitor for 24 hours (to check for irregularities). Mobile phones can interfere with the recording device, so I've switched my mobi off for the duration. Let me tell you, it's tricky sleeping with five electrodes attached to your chest, their wires leading to a wee box you mustn't roll onto!

You've probably heard how great Pamela Anderson is in this 2024 fillum. She plays a believably real character as flawed as she is sympathetic (aging Vegas dancer who can't give up the biz). Dave Bautista is just as great! His best role by far. Jamie-Lee Curtis also good. What a late-career resurgence she's having.

Pod rec. Fascinating, mysterious shithousery from the espionage world.

--

Memory modules, Part 5

Was it DL1 or a different "Dragonlance" module? That's not the point here. The point is a pal was flipping through an instalment in the saga during a study period when a nice gal in our year enquired about a picture of Goldmoon. I wish I could recall his *exact* response, but it approximated to: "She's a beautiful golden-haired cleric - a bit like yourself." What a compliment! As a painfully shy twerp, I was so impressed. They later dated. In fact, I wanna say they were together for years. Mishakal be praised.

Gold-pressed latinum

COMIC COVER OF THE WEEK

By Phil Hester. Probs wouldn't hang it on the wall, but there's a curious precision and at least it's doing something thematically clever.

SONG OF THE WEEK

"Unsterblich Sein" by Kraftklub feat. Domiziana (Germany).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vt9-leCVhw

BEST FILM I SAW IN THE PAST WEEK

No matter how many productions of Ibsen's "Dollhouse" you see (this is from 1973), it remains uncomfortably tense and ultimately devastating.

--

Memory modules, Part 4

Despite being billed as a beginner adventure, this '89 oddity turned out to be a comedy romp for powerful high-level characters. BP was so disgusted he took it back to the game store. While grumbling about how unusual it was for a customer to return a module, they gave him a refund. After all, it was in perfect condition and he'd only purchased it on the previous day. What they didn't know was that our group had stayed up the whole night groaning our way through the silly caper.

The exception that improves the fool

Just me messing with words...although I do foolish things on the reg.

--

Memory modules, Part 3

I borrowed this from a guy in the form below who I'd met through DW. Photocopied it for my archive, of course. Breakdancing was popular at the time and the dude's breaker name was Sphinx - mayhap influenced by the Egyptian-ness of "Lost Tomb". Bastards that we were, we continued referring to him by that moniker long after the craze had subsided. Examined today, the module is highly innovative, playing with space, time and expectations (a desert sea of glass!). I'm afraid to say that, back then, our "D&D" group really didn't appreciate its strengths. We cared not for the continuity from the previous two adventures or the stranger aspects. Like I said: bastards.

--

Knocked over a little kit while watching the AFL GF (well, the first half was exciting...). There's a detachable speeder bike underneath the "Force Burner". Zoom in and you'll see it sticking out.

--

Superior to Volume 1, IMCO. The creative team is basically unchanged. The action relocates to the Forgotten Realms, where a few famous faces appear as friend or foe or possibly both.

--

Switching to a serious subject, as well as an extremely harrowing and tragic one, I binged the 13 eps of this true-crime murder investigation over the past 3-4 days because AH assured me justice was finally done as a direct result of the pod. And, thank the gods, it was.

--

What else? I perused an exhibition of resistance art at the college gallery after unloading a stack of manga onto the "Help Yourself Shelf" in the library. The exhib. was tiny, but a standout piece about our connectedness to the earth made the effort of going there worthwhile.

Memory modules, Part 2

Crashing outta 1981 like a mighty wave, it's "The Sinister Secret Of Saltmarsh".

We borrowed this from a woodwork/metalwork teacher (and made Xeroxes). Somehow, we discovered he had a son who was older than us, went to a different high school and was also a "D&D" maniac. Can't recall how we learnt that, but either MG or WD boldly asked if this boy we'd never met would loan us a good adventure! Which he did! At the time at our junior high, there was a system of merits and demerits which took the form of blue and red slips of paper. When we heard the teacher in question had awarded a blue to a kid who'd stayed behind to help clean the woodwork/metalwork room, we tried the same trick the next week. It didn't work. He obviously thought we'd done it out of gratitude for his son lending us "Saltmarsh". To be fair, it was a fab bit-of-everything introductory quest.

Memory modules, Part 1

No, not RAM sticks. Let's call this a new ongoing series wherein I reveal quirky memories associated with official "D&D"/"AD&D" adventures (since my teenage group played the majority of them).

"White Plume Mountain" (1979): When I ran this for a trio of neighbourhood kids (i.e. not my usual gang), one of them had his seemingly all-conquering fighter die in combat deep into the dungeon. He excused himself to use the bathroom. When he returned, I could see his eyes were red from crying. It was a shock. As a DM, you never want to genuinely upset anyone. That lad had very strict parents. He later rebelled. Last time I saw him, he was sporting long hippie hair and rolling a joint. A mutual acquaintance told me that when the cops busted the unlucky fighter player for something, his father did the cliched thing of asking them to keep him in a cell overnight to "teach him a lesson". I'm sure he was fine - he'd endured worse hardships inside White Plume Mountain.

--

Fig of Sorceress class from "Diablo IV" wot I snaffled on super special.

--

"Alien: Earth" [Disney+] is so fantastic I'm only letting myself view an episode per day. At times, it feels more like "Blade Runner", such is the artistry.

"Contra" cheat code

Blatant commercial plugs aside, worth the journey. Not one of those cooking comps that's about manufactured rivalries and bitchiness. The contestants are a colourful, likeable bunch. The food from the various challenges looks bloody delicious. Can't argue with the winner. I shall be incorporating some of the culinary techniques and flavour profiles into my Vegemite sandwiches.

Reinstalled "MTG Arena" for a while to muck about with online-exclusive release "Through The Omenpaths". Am experimenting with Wrench as a Commander. She's the kind of creature who can just about engineer victory on her own (courtesy of multiple stolen cards), allowing you to fill out the rest of the deck with mana helpers and fiendish removal/control.

Thanks to RS1 for passing these on as well. Even better than the anime. Currently goes further, with Season 2 of the cartoon emotional cliffhanger-ing part-way through Volume 9. It's rare I prefer an anime to a manga, although it does occur, e.g. with "My Dress-Up Darling". The "Dan Da Dan" dozen will also be left in the book nook at the university for a lucky student to find.

Can't resist a list

I don't know how school students fill their free periods/rainy lunchtimes/lazy days close to term's end now, but I'd bet cash money that in 99% of cases it involves screens. Back in my day, we had to be more creative. Hence...

1. Boxes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_and_boxes

2. Calculator races, e.g. continually adding as fast as you could press to a set number. Alternatively, competing to stop the stopwatch function on your digital wristwatch as near to a chosen time as possible.

3. Reading "MAD" magazine or a "Choose Your Own Adventure" gamebook.

4. Chimper chompers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_fortune_teller

5. Pen-flick races. Draw a twisty track on the back of a worksheet, try to negotiate it (pinch top of pen with thumb and one finger, flick pen with wrist) in less moves than your oppo, drop back a step if you stray outside the boundary.

6. Shooting targets with elastic bands launched from the end of a ruler or spitballs blown through a pen tube.

7. Defacing textbooks. How many copies of "Let's Make English Live" were altered to "Let's Make English DIE"? How many educational tomes had words written across their page-ends a la the Redd Kross "Phaseshifter" album cover?

8. Designing dungeons/updating your character sheet.

9. Hand-slapping games - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hands (Cowardly Addster was never a fan.)

10. Trying to sharpen a pencil to the longest point. Especially if there was a motorised sharpener on the teacher's desk!

I could go on and on...

Related to the paper games above, my good old buddy BS gifted me these. Note that along with extensive rules, they also feature different types of playfield pages. I plan on showing 'em to the nephews'n'nieces at Christmas. Assuming, that is, I can tear them away from their screens. These Paper Apps woulda been pure gold in the 1970s-80s. We're talking instant King Of The Classroom material :-)

Robot roll call!

COMIC COVER OF THE WEEK

By Mike Del Mundo. Arty, smarty and unsettling.

I'm giving a second award for this sweet tribute to the late Shannen Doherty. Cover by Ryan Gajda.

SONG OF THE WEEK

"Masha Allah" by Abrila feat. Eicost (Argentina).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNSew1kZ5PA

Commended: "Chxxai" by Creepy Nuts (Japan), the rendition of "Stayin' Alive" by Royal Republic (Sweden) and "Supermuted" by R. Missing (US).

BEST FILM I SAW IN THE PAST WEEK

Also the only one.

-- 

Where the @#$% am I going to put this?

--

Beautest thing I played at Pinfest 2025. You actually have a character with ability scores, level, items, quests and whatnot. Saw a fella defeat the mechanical red dragon in the middle of the table. He juggled the multiballs like a hero until the wyrm was slain.

--

Solid listenation. A variation on "Snowpiercer", plus biological horror combined with a sophisticated sort of alien contact. Ending perhaps a tad weak.

--

Parked "Dicey Words" after reaching difficulty 6/7 and unlocking most of the achievements. Diminishing returns. This be my new lexical diversion.

--

Thanks to RS1 for this box set. "Slime" is a classic that transformed the isekai subgenre. Now Vol. 1-6 are read, I'll be dropping them in at the uni book nook when I get the chance.

--

Also downloaded this into my brain. Like a modern "Tomb Of Horrors" trap-fest with more plot and more detailed scoring. Also a ton of monsters/items/spells, etc. useable in any campaign. Would I run it? Nah.

--

Working my way through the below pod. Particularly interesting to me are the changes made for the Australian audience.

--

An older figure, sure, but half price (including postage) is half price!

--

Two short seasons of four short episodes - and they are ace. The contents of the "Star Wars" Universe all mixed up to great comedic effect, e.g. Luke is a slacker pod racer who only uses The Force to help him cheat. It's funnier than that sounds, trust me!

--

Tried this with RS2. Terrible instruction manual and the cards could be more clearly differentiated. However, a finely tuned "travel edition" game. It received four thumbs up.

Scanner screen

RIP, Robert Redford. Made some ripper flicks, often with a conspiracy bent. "Three Days Of The Condor" is a personal fave. Also "All The President's Men" and "Sneakers", the spiritual sequel to "War Games". Killer cast in that last fillum (albeit a sausage-fest). Its plot is even more relevant now!

Speaking of conspiracies...yeah, I bought it. Why do I read every Dan Brown novel? Quite simply, in the hope he'll manage to recapture the perfect storm of historical-mysterious-implausible dumb fun that was "The Da Vinci Code". Hasn't happened yet. That said, this Prague romp is all right so far.

Enjoying the challenge of "Dicey Words" [Steam]. It's flippin' hard!

Pod rec. Weird, disturbing and question-raising. Standup comedy meets biography meets true crime. Not the type of thang you'll want to listen to late at night while home alone. That said, I eagerly await Ep. 4.

The multitalented Felicia Day as Carmen Sandiego. She must have posted this one Halloween - not suspecting that an aging nerd from Oz would save a copy and share it on his blog in the distant future :-)

The C&B of Vecna

We are in the opening week of a grand sumo tournament. There are six per year; three in Tokyo and three in other cities. They run for 15 days, Sunday to Sunday. So this is Day 4. Tonight, I will likely listen to the roundup of the top division done by the best sumo podcast (and it's Aussie!), "Sumo Mainichi". Sometimes I instead watch the highlights packages, again only of the top div, posted by NHK World-Japan. The problem is these are always at least a day late. And they fall further behind on weekends. If you take that route, you end up following the entire tourney on delay. There are live "unofficial" streams on YT, but these are unreliable. Fan roundups appear more quickly than the official equivalent. Unfortunately, they don't tend to be as comprehensive (e.g. it could be just the person's Top 5 Bouts Of The Day) - presumably 'cos they don't wanna be shut down for cutting NHK's grass. Start spectating sumo and you will soon learn the rules, traditions and moves, and discover your favourite sumotori. As with many soccer leagues, the divisions feature relegation and promotion, meaning every competitor is constantly battling to hold onto their place/achieve a higher-paid spot. There are multiple prizes to be won in a grand tournament and the champion often needs to be decided via playoffs due to tied scores. It's a fascinating pressure cooker and a uniquely awesome martial art!

--

I dunno if ex-WWE superstar Kaitlyn ever tried sumo, but she could definitely do a neat impression of The Ultimate Warrior :-)

A toast to grilled bread

RS2 and I cracked open "7 Wonders Duel", a modified version of "7/W" specifically made for two players. After getting our heads 'round the rules, we engaged in a close tussle that went to points, i.e. a Civilian Victory (neither of us having been able to secure a Military or Scientific Victory). We agreed it was balanced, with a slow start not a death sentence, and offered a pleasing amount of strategy. The way the cards for the three Ages were placed in three set patterns, some face up and some face down, and gradually revealed "Mahjong Solitaire" style, was nifty. We're both keen to play again.

--

According to my note, this cute 'toonish pic of Red Sonja washing her chainmail bikini is by "Alex-C".

Auto-reverse

COMIC COVER OF THE WEEK

More about my affection for these li'l chaps/chapettes. There's nothing groundbreaking in the art.

SONG OF THE WEEK

"Heavy Foot" by Mon Rovia (US, born in Liberia) is a joy. The peaceful lyrical protest. The infectious music. The sweet, sweet vocals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyXccqTlhoI

Commended: "Hot Goblin" by Em Beihold (US) evokes early Marina & The Diamonds, the cover of "Sabotage" by Winona Fighter (US) is tops, "Burnin' Up" by The Boojums (Canada) has a rad vid and the chorus hooked me like a fish, same deal with "Drag" by Yumi Zouma (NZ). If you're a "Blake's 7" fan, have a gander at "Marked To Kill" by Federation (UK). That one's been out for a month.

NO FILM THIS WEEK

Blame the footy finals and other live sport. I've also begun watching doco series "Bronze Age Apocalypse".

SEYFRIED GAMBIT ACCEPTED

Who snips the whips?

Went to the nearby university's annual five-day secondhand book sale. Waited until Saturday (Day 2) to get free parking. As I arrived, people were walking away from the huge hall in which the event is held lugging armloads of tomes. It wasn't a case of "All the best stuff is already gone", though, as once inside you soon realised that the numerous volunteers were constantly unpacking stock and adding it to the long wooden tables. I heard one senior staffer tell a junior, "We need to put out more cricket books! We can never have enough. There are five more boxes under here." 

The tabletops were signposted as "Science Fiction", "True Crime", "Poetry", etc. The only sections that looked a bit sparse were Sex and Philosophy. Had they been raided or were there less volumes available on those topics to begin with? It's a saucy conundrum. By the Literature section, a family(?) was conversing in Russian. At Ancient History, a young woman was seated on the floor - despite the heavy foot traffic - studiously searching through the boxes under the table that were yet to be unloaded. A trio of 20-something dudes argued the merits of computer manuals.

While my fellow patrons represented every age, ethnicity and style of clothing, it'd be pretty easy to categorise some by what they were carrying - bespectacled guy with old jazz records, alternatively dressed lass stacking up hardcovers about the theatre, mother with teetering pile of maths and science texts trailing small, pale child. Pretty easy for you, I mean. Personally, I don't categorise people like that. Haha, gotcha. Below is what I bought. The seven items cost a total of $26. I'm sure I missed real treasures, but there was too much to take in and it was BUSY.

--

Pod rec. Been hearing this post-postmodern analysis praised for yonks. Not sure why it took me so long to investigate. It's a blast. The gist:

“A podcast where two non-believers read through The Bible but try not to be jerks about it. Join comics writers Benito Cereno and Chris Sims as they journey through the ‘good book’ from Acts to Zephaniah, with stops in the Apocrypha along the way.”

--

Rosamund Pike as Hedda Gabler from around 2010 <cartoon hearts>:

Party badges on your overalls

The colourisation is AMAZING. This alone makes it worth investing in the DVDs or Blu-rays. Condensing 10 episodes into a standalone movie was always gonna result in the odd jarring moment. I those with live can. The rejigged soundtrack ranges from adequate to intrusive/annoying. Room for improvement on the next such release. The continuity tweaks didn't bother me. It's not like they're doing a George Lucas and trying to bury the original B&W serial - you get that as well, along with a heap of extras. I like the new background shots. But most of all, I love the new colour.

Been waiting for this collection ever since peeps I respect raved about the debut issue. It absolutely did not disappoint. Basically, it's about misfit teens finding surrogate family, freedom, fun and, on occasion, a farkload of trouble in the skate scene of 1980s USA. While the events in the kids' lives escalate beyond the point of believability, their attitudes and feelings consistently ring true. Similarly, though the pop-culture timeline might have minor anachronisms, and there are NO LEVELS in "Pitfall", neither do the references feel cynically inserted. I could happily reread it right now.

I played countless hours of squash as a lad. Was initially skilled for my age...then never grew any better. School friends who took up the game years later rapidly surpassed my abilities. This suspect old-timey advert ("A bigger sweet spot"?!) reminds me of the teen queens at my local squash centre who always appeared put out if they were matched against a gangly, spotty boy like myself rather than a grown man or woman. Star players with posh names like MARGOT and RENAE. They'd swan onto the court, dispense a merciless beating (quite possibly with a Pro Kennex racquet), then swan off again. Even the bolder lads who punched arms or hid bags for no reason were slightly scared of them. Squash was a very blokey world then, so these gals had probably learnt to take zero crap in order to excel.

DL's latest zine was provocatively, dark-humorously entertaining.

Guess I lied about the LEGO freeze. But it was only a wee kit. The chassis design was so intricate - 'tis a shame it's hidden in the completed model.

ScarJo has a message for ya. (Credit in the bottom left suggests I pinched this from a certain online tabloid. Woulda been many, many moons ago.)