After hearing a few good things about Flashpoint on CBC I decided to check it out. I will admit I was impressed, especially since the sniper is the lead singer of “The Headstones.”

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Ouch.

My interest in this one was never very high as I heard of the various inexplicable plot decisions and my general low-level contempt for the prequels continues. Now, although i’m stilll game for seeing it on Sunday, I’m starting to think there’s only so much longer one can say, “Whatever, it’s ‘Star Wars’ and I have to like it.”

UPDATE: Oh shit. I just noticed they didn’t even get all the original voices.

Ara Abrahamian is a putz. I don’t believe in the moronic double-standards that will rake Sherraine Schalm over the coals for slipping up and saying something that professional players do all the fucking time. I just wanted to point out to the big Swede that all throwing a hissy fit and storming off doesn’t wake the world up to the injustices perpetrated by your fellow Man. It makes you look like a fucking crybaby.

Sale and Pelletier had trouble like what he claims to be going through, but thanks to remaining within the proper channels and keeping their cool it got sorted out. When the officials see these antics they’ll probably just roll their eyes carry on. Later, if others protest, they can just cite these dramatics as evidence he’s too immature to deserve the consideration.

Someone saw too many movies like “Dead Poets Society” and thought that crap works.

At least I can congratulate the Ukrainians.

UPDATE: If Phelps fails a drug test drinks are on me.

Except that they’re dead because they wouldn’t commit to a Bad Choice. The party entered the first stage of the enemy hideout and ended up in a long protracted fight instead of a series of encounters. The resulting wave attack whittled them away until finally I dealt the death-blow. As it was in the middle of a sacrifice chamber, the fate of the PCs is pretty clear. I gave the so far only character showing any depth one last chance: Sacrifice a member of the party (an NPC, albeit a significant one) and free a powerful devil loose onto the mortal world so the rest may live and continue. He chose death, and therefore the end of the game.

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This article from BBC News’ Lizo Mzimba makes a good point. Ledger’s performance is not “one note,” but I agree Bale’s performance will be overlooked. There is more than a few movies I have damned as a whole thanks to the failure of only one actor’s performance. DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet being one good example. I will praise The Dark Knight as the sum of its parts, as Bale’s performance manages to be brooding without hamming it up like Thomas Jane in The Punisher or Macguire in Spider-Man 3. I will grant Tobey might actually have done more of Spidey-seething in Spider-Man 2, but 3 is whinier in general.

Ledger’s Joker, bombastic as he is, still feels like someone I would see on a CNN news report, where Nicholson’s was excellent but in the manner of a big top announcer. In the mood and setting of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, a performance like Jack’s would have ruined the mood; Heath Ledger had a monumental task ahead of him, making an uber-psychopath like The Joker believeable, and I think the writer is not giving him enough credit for that.

The BBC pointed me to this: The Periodic Table of Videos. I’ll be watching them all, with a particular interest in the artificial elements.

Warning: Don’t try to read comic book plots when you’re used to the continuity of novella, movies and video games. I do not think I have ever seen people so trapped by their desire to one-up themselves with each series.

Now I read the are “killing” Batman. You know, because that crap worked so well for Superman.