tonybro001

I seem to be making a habit of this. This month's raffle prize was a copy of The Good, The Bad and The Munchkin, the new Wild West variant of Steve Jackson's Munchkin. Jim, Sandy, Tom and I also managed to get a game of DOW's Colosseum, two games of Looney Lab's Zombie Fluxx and a game of DOW's Ticket to Ride.

Colosseum was definitely the stand out game of the day and has a couple of really interesting mechanisms. One is the charity rule forcing the player in the lead to gift the player at the back an asset token. The other is moving the emperor, senator and other "spectator" tokens round the board in order to maximise your score when putting on an event. All in all a great game which everyone agreed was fun and has jumped onto my christmas wishlist (don't tell the bank manager or the missus).

Well, that was interesting... A film of two halves.

The run up to Optimus Prime turning up was pretty good, lots of humour, lots of tension. The big battle sequence? very so so.

Things for directors to consider:

1. Shaky cam - just stop it okay, it's irritating, makes it difficult for people to discern what is happening and doesn't complement the cgi, use it sparingly - for reference watch Children of Men, that's how to do first person action.

2. Speed - slow it down, if you've got too many whirring spinning things happening people just can't see what's going on and it becomes boring.

3. Wide Angle - It's that other type of shot, you know the one that isn't a close up, which lets people get an overview of the scene. It's not hard to do just step back a bit.

4. Plot - Try and write something that makes sense and explain things that don't to your audience with dialogue. Be careful to make sure that you didn't leave a vital piece of plot discussion on the cutting room floor. Better still get your mom to watch the rushes, if she can understand it so will your audience.

Not a good turn out, and no Angus. Possibly due to the confusion surrounding the 1st of the month issue . Still got some good gaming in with two games of Mission: Red Planet by Asmodee Games and 3 games of the excellent drakon. Both titles I picked up at Salute.

Paul, Mark and Myself went to SALUTE 07 at the excel centre, docklands today and had a fine time, pictures are up on UK GAMING .

Came back from Paris here's some photos

One of my friends Ben Chan plays keyboards in the band Big Yellow. Last night they played a prestigious gig at the Royal Opera House. So what you ask? Well the band debuted their new GOBO (The big yellow thing behind the band) logo designed by yours truly at the gig. Here's a link for more info on Big Yellow and to download their new single "Twists and Turns".

Finally got round to ordering a 3/4 sized acoustic guitar for my Girlfriend's daughter, and whilst hunting saw a bargain I couldn't miss out on. An electro-acoustic bowlback for £80, what a bargain!!! Here's the pictures:

Tina's Pink Classical

Tony's Blue Encore Electro Acoustic

Received my replacement BattleLore dice in the post this morning Days of Wonder get 10 out of 10 for customer service.

NTL have just installed my 10Meg Broadband, Oh my God how fast is this!!!!

Just had confirmation that my replacement BattleLore dice are on there way. I hadn't really noticed that the silk screening on my original dice was faulty until some of it wiped away after a particularly sweaty handed roll. Thanks to the guys at Days of Wonder for being all round good sports!!! Now I just got to earn enough dosh from my GamerClothing site to get a Battle Lore T-Shirt made up.

The nice guys at TFL (Transport for London) bunged me a £50 fine for driving in a bus lane today.I guess you can't argue with the photographic evidence...

Therese brought back some Plopp chocolate bars from Sweden, they're pretty scrummy although should probably have a health warning as they are pretty fattening.

Anyone else see Seasick Steve on Jools Holland's Hootenanny 2006...

If not check it out, how awesome is this?

Looking forward to a fantastic new year, my new years resolution is to be more positive and go with the flow a bit more, say "yes" more in general.

Received my first delivery of D20 a couple of days ago, the Dungeon Masters Guide v3.5, and can't wait for the other two Players Hand Book and Monster Manual to turn up so I can really get down to writing some Lands of Dual stuff.

Back to work tomorrow and can get to grips with the new job and be a bit more organised and productive, start the new year as I mean to go on.

Still haven't managed to play past scenario 2 of BattleLore, I'll have to invite Paul over and get into these Lore Adventure Rules. Also still waiting to christen Shadows over Camelot as I didn't get a chance to try it at the Hobbits Hole all day game session we had on Friday, check out Richard "Commodore" Wells new aquatic creations on my flickr pages

Only 4 more days to go till Christmas!!!!

Sadly going to miss Carmen as she's going away to her aunt's for Christmas. Am really looking forward to Boxing Day with my nieces and nephew this year, especially as I bought William his first Eurogame... Carcassonne, so I get to teach him how to play it.

Looking forward to club on Friday, no clue what the hell I'm playing.

Must start work on my "Lands of Dual" campaign which will kick off in the New Year, should have at least the first two scenarios complete before I start. The intro sidetrek will have to wait until I know what characters I have to accommodate and where in TLoD they come from whilst trying to avoid the meeting in the Inn scenario.

Wot a weekend, excellent xmas party on Friday night, fun with friends on Saturday and Gameforce on Sunday, new lady in my life but more of that in another post.

Richard, Him and I came tooled up to Gameforce and managed to get in a five player game of Twilight Creations Zombies!!!, with gun card rules variant. Jim brought Carcassonne with all the expansions including the gorgeous and yet infuriating "Tower", I won by kidnapping everyone else's Meeples and a huge amount of luck, particularly where my farmers were concerned. Thanks to Jim for being very patient and pointing out the best moves for everyone.

I got home thursday night after an evening drinking to find the stairwell and 2nd floor landing of the block of flats where I live like this:

As seen on
[info]lenfant_de_jeu
... Go here and pick the list from the year you turned 18.Then split the list into songs that you like, hate or are indifferent too.

Seperated in a list of Love, Hate, No Preference & No idea:

Love:

06. Groove Is In The Heart - Dee Lite
07. Vogue - Madonna
08. Pump Up The Jam - Technotronic
12. Tom's Diner - Suzanne Vega/D.N.A.
23. Black Velvet - Alannah Myles
24. Hippychick - Soho
31. Epic - Faith No More
44. Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode
46. Enjoy The Silence - Depeche Mode
50. Freedom - George Michael
51. Suicide Blonde - INXS
52. Pictures of You - Cure
53. Dirty Deeds - Joan Jett
54. King Of Wishful Thinking - Go West
66. I'm Free - The Soup Dragons
68. You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) - Jimmy Somerville
70. Doin' The Do - Betty Boo
74. 911 Is A Joke - Public Enemy

Hate:

04. Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
05. U Can't Touch This - MC Hammer
13. She Ain't Worth It - Glenn Medeirous
14. Step By Step - New Kids On The Block
73. Opposites Attract - Paula Abdul & The Wild Pair

No preference

10. Everybody Everybody - Black Box
11. Blaze Of Glory - Jon Bon Jovi
15. Unskinny Bop - Poison
18. The Power - Snap!
16. From A Distance - Bette Midler
27. Janie's Got A Gun - Aerosmith
32. It Must Have Been Love - Roxette
34. This Old Heart Of Mine - Rod Stewart and Ronald Isley
35. Close To You - Maxi Priest
56. Cuts Both Ways - Gloria Estefan
69. Deadbeat Club - B-52s

No Idea:

01. Humpty Dance - Digital Underground
02. Here and Now - Luthor Vandross
03. I Wanna Be Rich - Calloway
09. Here We Are - Gloria Estefan
17. Cherry Pie - Warrent
19. Love Will Lead You Back - Taylor Dayne
20. All My Life - Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville
21. The Way You Do The Things You Do - UB40
22. Just A Friend - Biz Markie
25. Get Up! (Before The Night Is Over) - Technotronic
26. Jerk-Out - The Time
28. Rhythm Nation - Janet Jackson
29. Miracle - Jon Bon Jovi
30. Joey - Concrete Blonde
33. Cradle Of Love - Billy Idol
36. (Can't Live Without) Your Love and Affection - Nelson
37. Vision Of Love - Mariah Carey
38. Wiggle It - 2 In A Room
39. I Don't Have The Heart - James Ingram
40. All Around The World - Lisa Stansfield
41. That's What I Like - Jive Bunny (50s medley)
42. Heart Of The Matter - Don Henley
43. Swing The Mood - Jive Bunny (1940s medley)
45. Do Me! - Bel Biv Devoe
47. Up All Night - Slaughter
48. Something Happened On The Way To Heaven - Phil Collins
49. Downtown Train - Rod Stewart
55. Escapade - Janet Jackson
57. Think - Information Society
58. Lambada - Kaoma
59. Two To Make It Right - Seduction
60. Oyo Mi Canto (Hear My Voice) - Gloria Estefan
61. Got To Get - Leila K with Rob 'n' Raz
62. L.A. Woman - Billy Idol
63. Bad Love - Eric Clapton
64. Free Fallin' - Tom Petty
65. Black Cat - Janet Jackson
67. Dangerous - Roxette
71. All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You - Heart
72. Hungry - Lita Ford
75. I'm Your Baby Tonight - Whitney Houston