<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><rss xmlns:atom='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' version='2.0'><channel><atom:id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412</atom:id><lastBuildDate>Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:24:48 +0000</lastBuildDate><title>BossBattle.net</title><description>BossBattle.net is a collection of small websites devoted to my interests: imagination and creation. Chief topics are video gaming and roleplaying games, as well as creative writing and music.</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/</link><managingEditor>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</managingEditor><generator>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>166</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-1469861114774902794</guid><pubDate>Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:12:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-09-17T01:24:48.593+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>ratings</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>video games</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>update</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Ys</category><title>Rolling Out the Ratings</title><description>&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Update: New rating system in &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.bossbattle.net/reviews/index.html"&gt;video game reviews&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;, plus review of &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.bossbattle.net/reviews/ys.html"&gt;Ys Book I &amp;amp; II&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I resisted giving games absolute ratings in my reviews for a long time. Apart from ratings being entirely subjective, a game is more than the sum of its parts; a game that is seemingly inferior in one or more aspects can sometimes be just as entertaining as a game with a higher overall rating, if not more so. Still, ratings are sort of fun, and can be some kind of indication about the game's overall quality, so I finally gave in, and added a rating system to the video game review section.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The new rating system is quite simple: Games are given simple verbal evaluations on five main areas: general opinion, story, graphics, sound and gameplay. (These have been there since the beginning of the review section.) Now, based on these evaluations, each area is given a rating of no star, half a star or full star. These stars are added up for a total rating of 0-5 stars. (Although, since I don't really review games I don't like, it's rare to see ratings below three stars.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've now added ratings to all the existing reviews, although I may still do a little tweaking. Additionally, I recently played the TurboGrafx-16 game &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Ys Book I &amp;amp; II&lt;/span&gt;, a rather enjoyable oldschool action RPG title, and the review is now online.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-1469861114774902794?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/09/rolling-out-ratings.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-2667909404285493863</guid><pubDate>Sun, 06 Sep 2009 15:34:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-09-06T19:25:40.154+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Felicia Day</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>web series</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>The Legend of Neil</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>The Guild</category><title>Web Shows</title><description>I've been very quiet lately, haven't I? Well, nothing grand to blog about. Just same old boring existence. I'll leave out my epiphanies concerning traditional magical weapons and formulas, which aren't likely to interest anyone, and get on to proper weblog matter.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've discovered some fun web shows of late, namely &lt;a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/watchtheguild"&gt;The Guild&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://www.effinfunny.com/legend-of-neil"&gt;The Legend of Neil&lt;/a&gt;. Both are hilarious, mainly targeted to gamers, and feature the amazing Felicia Day (who I've totally got a crush on). I've watched the earlier episodes of both shows during the last week or two, and can't wait for new episodes! And that's about all I have to say this time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"&gt;&lt;span class="on down" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-2667909404285493863?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/09/web-shows.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-2924904272690622437</guid><pubDate>Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:32:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-08-17T10:50:47.028+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>rpg</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Dreams from the Fresh Kills</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>update</category><title>Dreams from the Fresh Kills</title><description>&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Update: First session of new &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.bossbattle.net/rpg/fk.html"&gt;RPG campaign&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After a few months, I finally got around to starting my new RPG, titled &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Dreams from the Fresh Kills&lt;/span&gt;. This is a mystery story set in modern day Staten Island, New York City, aiming for a surreal atmosphere akin to David Lynch productions. This grew mostly out of a desire to try something different after running &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Kin of Cerberos&lt;/span&gt;, a much more action themed game, for a good while, and also a little from the trouble we had getting the rhythm of fights right in that game. The current game is likely to feature very little combat for the most part, focusing more on character interaction and investigation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As with earlier games, I'll do story write-ups of each session and post them online. This is primarily for the convenience of me and my players, but anyone is of course free to read them.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-2924904272690622437?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/08/dreams-from-fresh-kills.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-3702619301436159575</guid><pubDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:39:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-08-08T02:09:01.408+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>synth</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>music</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Korg</category><title>Synthesis</title><description>I've just bought my first hardware synthesizer, a second hand Korg N1R from the late 90's. Obviously I don't have much experience with it yet, but it seems pretty cool. It's a rack module style synth, i.e. it doesn't have a keyboard of it's own and needs to be hooked up to a midi keyboard. (As it happens, we have an old Kawai keyboard in the house, dating from the mid-90's, with midi features, which seems to work fine for the purpose.) There are hundreds of preset sounds to explore, and lots of potential for editing sounds, if I ever get around to learning the art of synthesizer programming... Okay, it is more than ten years old, but some of the sounds are still impressive, and I'm not sure a vintage sound is often a bad thing in general, either.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Earlier I've used pure samples, with tracker software, for similar purposes, and experimented with software synthesizers (such as &lt;a href="http://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.net/"&gt;ZynAddSubFX&lt;/a&gt;), though I haven't really done much with those as of yet. (Oh, and there's that old Kawai of course. I used that on a couple of old four track recordings back in the 90's, although it's own sound is rather inferior.) It's nice to actually own a physical synth, though. I have a large selection of at least decent sounds available in one straightforward package, no need to mess around with a variety of software. And it's a name brand, of course. With my ESP guitar (albeit from their cheaper LTD line) and Korg synth I'm almost starting to feel like a real musician.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If only I was a little better at playing keyboards...&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-3702619301436159575?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/08/synthesis.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-7481300798478483309</guid><pubDate>Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:39:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-07-30T12:23:29.771+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Nausicaa</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>LotR</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>SLIME</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Lisp</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Hayao Miyazaki</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>StumpWM</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Nilsiä</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Emacs</category><title>Swankified in the Summer Sun</title><description>Been a while since my last post, mostly because I've been vacationing up in Nilsiä and there hasn't been much to say. I completed my annual ritual of reading Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind, then read The Return of the King (I'd started re-reading LotR a few years before, but got sidetracked somehow, as is too often the case). The weather's been much nicer than last year, but, as usual, I've done much less creative stuff than I'd like.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But onwards to the main topic: I've written before about using StumpWM. Last night I finally got around to setting it up so that it runs the Swank module, the Lisp-side component of &lt;a href="http://common-lisp.net/project/slime/"&gt;SLIME&lt;/a&gt;, Emacs's Lisp editing mode. This makes it possible to connect to the running Lisp process from Emacs and edit the code interactively, while the software is running! This interactive development style is, of course, one of the main features of Lisp.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, whether I'll actually use this potential is another matter entirely. At the very least it'll make editing the configuration file easier (since that is just Lisp code same as the rest of the software). It was possible to load new or modified elements before using a simple StumpWM Emacs mode provided, but this was much more limited. But whether I'll have the guts or inspiration (or simply the energy) to delve into the depths of StumpWM is a whole other matter...&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-7481300798478483309?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/07/swankified-in-summer-sun.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-3156715819992940059</guid><pubDate>Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:47:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-07-09T23:00:24.800+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>video games</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Debian</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Doom</category><title>Doomed to Go Paddy</title><description>&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Doom&lt;/span&gt;. The most legendary of all FPS games. And even after 16 years it still manages to entertain me. In fact, it's one of the very few FPS games I've ever had any real interest in. Obviously I don't play it all year round, but I enjoy returning to it every now and then, in one form or another.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A &lt;a href="http://www.bossbattle.net/blog/2008/07/doomed.html"&gt;year ago&lt;/a&gt; I wrote about playing the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Doomsday Engine&lt;/span&gt; version of the game, with updated graphics and modern, &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Quake&lt;/span&gt; style mouse controls. This summer I'm trying something a little different. As you might know, earlier this year I switched from Mac OS X back to Debian GNU/Linux. I discovered the only Doom port available in Debian's package repositories was &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;PrBoom&lt;/span&gt;. Worth a try, I thought, before I try my hands at compiling another port.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;PrBoom takes a fairly different approach from Doomsday Engine. While there are numerous bug fixes and improvements to the engine, on the surface it looks and feels much more like the original game. Only the original sprites are used (although there are options for smoothing the graphics) and there are no modern control features like jumping or free aiming with the mouse. I briefly tried the mouse control it has, and couldn't really play with it (I'm not a 100% sure it couldn't be tweaked to behave better, though, I didn't really spend much time looking into it). While back in the 90's when I first played Doom I naturally used the keyboard controls, I found them impossible to return to after growing accustomed to the agility of mouse control.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I decided to look into a possible third option: a game pad. The first try was disappointing. While PrBoom, like the original Doom, supports joysticks, the controls aren't really configurable, and no more agile than keyboard control. I would need something more akin to modern console FPS games: using one thumb for moving forwards and backwards, and strafing left and right, while using another thumb for aiming (turning) and a shoulder trigger for firing. (I use PlayStation controllers with a USB adapter.) I wasn't hopeful at first, but after a little digging I discovered a little application that converts joystick input into keyboard input (called joy2key). And, a little to my surprise, it worked perfectly, allowing me to freely configure my game pad controls.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I must say, while I've always been somewhat sceptical about console FPS games, this control scheme works quite well with Doom. It's simple, fairly agile, and fun to play. I don't mind the old school graphics. Quite the contrary, in fact. Doom was an awesome game for its time and there's really no reason to mess with it any more than is necessary.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I've also been trying out some of the many mods available for the first time. I might write more about them in another post.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-3156715819992940059?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/07/doomed-to-go-paddy.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-4617026636531500225</guid><pubDate>Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:03:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-06-28T00:24:20.824+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>poetry</category><title>One More Angsty Candle Light Poem</title><description>Cool breeze tonight&lt;br /&gt;The breath of angels&lt;br /&gt;Grey sky at midnight&lt;br /&gt;Never black, not now&lt;br /&gt;Candle flame, gentle flicker&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Who is that&lt;br /&gt;Dancing, unseen?&lt;br /&gt;She brushes against my skin, softly&lt;br /&gt;Against this flame, too&lt;br /&gt;Dancing to the same tune&lt;br /&gt;Heart beats (heartbeats?) in silence&lt;br /&gt;Just mine?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There's an angel for everyone&lt;br /&gt;So they say&lt;br /&gt;They walk by your side&lt;br /&gt;But some nights&lt;br /&gt;You just need a demon.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-4617026636531500225?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/06/one-more-angsty-candle-light-poem.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-4978742379947507001</guid><pubDate>Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:14:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-06-25T14:53:19.871+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>guitars</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>huuto.net</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>ESP Guitars</category><title>Guitar!</title><description>I finally got the new electric guitar today!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I ended up getting an &lt;a href="http://www.espguitars.com/guitars_deluxe-ec.html"&gt;LTD EC-1000QM&lt;/a&gt;. LTD of course is the lower end line manufactured by ESP Guitars, whose instruments are used by many famous rock musicians, from Ronnie Wood to Nightwish's Emppu Vuorinen. While this is the company's cheaper, mass produced line, the 1000 series guitars are at the very top of that line, with retail prices of more than 1000 euros (in Finland, at least).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Which is more than I could afford, really, so I was seriously considering the next best model, the 400 series. Enter Lady Luck! Just at this point I happened to run into a 1000 model second hand at an auction website. It was promised to be in good condition, and the seller looked reasonably reliable, so I decided I really had no choice but take the chande. I ended up paying 550 euros for it, plus delivery. Which is actually less than I would have payed for a new 400 model! The condition turned out to be as good as promised, pretty much 'good as new', I would say.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The EC series, based on ESP's higher end Eclipse model, has a Les Paul style body. This model has EMG active pickups, abalone decorations (I believe), and a beautiful dark red translucent finish. There's no tremolo, but I was already starting to lean against one, seeing as I've never used one much and needlessly complicating the mechanics is never a good idea.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, if I could only get around to actually using it and getting some songs recorded...&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-4978742379947507001?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/06/guitar.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-1728470260649438663</guid><pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:08:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-06-24T15:27:24.406+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>university</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>me</category><title>Ben B. Bainton, BA</title><description>As of yesterday I'm officially a Bachelor of Arts, graduating from the University of Helsinki, with English Philology as my major subject. Only took me nine bloody years, three times the official target time of three years. In my defense, I've already completed a fair share of the studies for the Master's degree (but I've still been a lazy student, that's for sure).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The BA is really just a formality on the way to the Master's. When I started at university, the norm here (at least in the humanities) was to go straight for the MA degree, and there was little talk of the BA. However, a couple years back they changed the rules and made the BA a compulsory prerequisite for the MA. So, here we are, and it &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;is&lt;/span&gt; nice to finally have something to show for the years I've spent at the university. Now, if everything goes to plan, and I can force myself to do some actual work, this time next year I could be graduating with the Master of Arts degree, all ready for unemployment...&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-1728470260649438663?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/06/ben-b-bainton-ba.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-99784019996493478</guid><pubDate>Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:53:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-06-23T13:17:32.002+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>video games</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>update</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Street Fighter</category><title>Street Fighter IV</title><description>&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Update: Review of &lt;a href="http://www.bossbattle.net/reviews/sfiv.html"&gt;Street Fighter IV&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's been a while again since my last game review, but here we go again with &lt;a href="http://www.bossbattle.net/reviews/sfiv.html"&gt;Street Fighter IV&lt;/a&gt;, which turned out to be one of the most entertaining fighting games I've played in a while. I'd never really played a lot of &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Street Fighter&lt;/span&gt; previously, it didn't feel quite as interesting and original as games like &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Guilty Gear&lt;/span&gt;, but I'm finally starting to get it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I haven't really gotten around to playing other kinds of games since MGS4 last winter, though, which is a shame. I'm getting far too lazy...&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-99784019996493478?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/06/street-fighter-iv.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-8100159817589492230</guid><pubDate>Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:20:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-06-22T01:01:32.276+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>rant</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>music</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>MTV</category><title>I Want My MTV</title><description>I've never been a big watcher of MTV, but these days when I happen to surf to it, it only seems things are getting worse and worse. Honestly, all they show these days is reality TV crap and hiphop videos. Didn't they use to have actual music on? (I should mention this is the Finnish version I'm speaking of... I don't know how much it differs from other regional versions...)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Even Headbanger's Ball has gone down the drain. The show used to have a presenter and guests, but now it's just videos. Which might not be bad in itself, if the videos weren't such crap. Last couple of times I've watched the show, I've seen plenty of rap and electronica. This is Headbanger's Ball, for ****'s sake! Of course it's still &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;mostly&lt;/span&gt; metal, but most of it is boring nu metal and death metal... Apologies to anyone who likes that, but it just ain't my thing. Ever heard the saying "variety is the spice of life"?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On top of everything, half the screen is covered by unbelievably stupid SMS matchmaker applications. All I can say's "what's the world coming to?"&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-8100159817589492230?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/06/i-want-my-mtv.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-8755462510164723600</guid><pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:17:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-06-18T13:54:37.802+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>music</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Lordi</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Rhapsody of Fire</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Nightwish</category><title>Another Filler Post About Music</title><description>Well, in the couple of months that I've been listening to Nightwish, it's overtaken Queen to the number one slot on my most played list at &lt;a href="http://www.last.fm/user/elcalen"&gt;Last.fm&lt;/a&gt;. Which is quite impressive.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since I wrote about Rhapsody of Fire a while back, I've been growing ever more fond of it. While in that post I considered some of the problems with concept albums, it must be said that Rhapsody's music, with its epic fantasy sagas, is unique among concept albums. Yes, it is a different kind of experience compared to, say, Nightwish, but no less wonderful. Particularly to a fantasy geek like me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Having received a little money from translation work, I went on a bit of a shopping spree. I now own all the studio albums by Nightwish and Lordi, and all but the latest by Rhapsody of Fire (which I'll try to obtain soon). My income being what it is, I've favoured libraries, friends and the Internet as sources for music for a long time, but some albums you just need to own in physical form, because the listening experience just isn't complete without the additional aesthetic and informative content provided by the covers and booklets. This is especially true for Rhapsody of Fire, as the booklets contain not only artwork, but also additional narrative, maps etc. vital to the story.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope to receive my next paycheck soon. This one will be spent on the new guitar. I'm kinda excited about that. And rather impatient.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-8755462510164723600?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/06/another-filler-post-about-music.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-9161010664375272890</guid><pubDate>Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:50:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-06-08T22:03:26.952+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>decorating</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>posters</category><title>Interior Decorating: The Epilogue</title><description>More than a year ago &lt;a href="http://www.bossbattle.net/blog/2008/01/interior-decorating.html"&gt;I wrote&lt;/a&gt; about decorating my room, saying it would still be geeky, but strive for a little more elegance by carefully picking the posters I was going to put up, and placing them in glass clip frames.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, it took a while in the end, but I've finally got up all the posters I originally planned on. And I like it. Like I said, the theme would be manga/anime women. There's a big Ghost in the Shell movie poster on one end wall, a couple of smaller posters of Masamune Shirow's work, together with a Lum and a Nausicaä on the other walls, all hung nice and even in their classy frames.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, if only I didn't have quite as much junk covering my shelves and tables, the room would almost look good.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-9161010664375272890?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/06/interior-decorating-epilogue.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-7786717936998641222</guid><pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2009 16:25:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-05-27T19:37:44.155+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>music</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>update</category><title>Expanding into Music</title><description>&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Update: New music website opened.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have just opened a &lt;a href="http://music.bossbattle.net/" rel="nofollow"&gt;new homepage&lt;/a&gt; for my music projects. The site will list works that are available, with background information, lyrics and links to downloads.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have made this website independent of the main site in order to have information available in a clear and concise form for anyone potentially interested in my music, and also in order to better tailor the aesthetics of the site to suit the content.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There's no real new content yet, but I have been hoping to do something in the not-too-distant future... I won't say any more about it before I actually have something to show, though. (Which, knowing me, may be a long while yet...)&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-7786717936998641222?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/05/expanding-into-music.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-2003792199603974993</guid><pubDate>Sun, 17 May 2009 16:34:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-05-17T20:05:10.849+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>music</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Rhapsody of Fire</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Nightwish</category><title>The Concept of Concepts</title><description>I've just been getting acquainted with Rhapsody of Fire. It's not half bad. The singer isn't quite my cup of tea, but he's not particularly annoying either. (Like I've said earlier, the vast majority of metal for me is ruined by vocalists I don't care for. Well, the same applies to any genre really.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, this type of music seems to rely heavily on the idea of the concept album. Rhapsody of Fire has taken this to the extreme by creating an epic fantasy saga spanning multiple albums. This has its pros and cons. The idea of a continuing saga is pretty cool, but it means you really need to listen to the entire work as a whole, and it is harder to really get into.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nightwish, on the other hand, while it can be seen as working in the same genre, symphonic power metal, doesn't do concept albums (or at least such themes are much more subtle). Songs are complete in themselves, which means they hook you in a very different fashion. It was a single song by Nightwish that got me interested in them, and the whole symphonic metal genre. And after that single some came another, and another, and another... great, anthemic songs you can just listen to over and over.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Whether it has something to do with the different approach to songwriting, or simply a result of different personalities and songwriting skills (not to mention the very different style of vocals), it's hard to say, but I don't think this type of music can ever have quite the same appeal to me that Nightwish, for example, has. The same applies to most concept albums, in all genres, not just Rhapsody of Fire and other metal albums. Take Aimee Mann's &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;The Forgotten Arm&lt;/span&gt;, for example. While there's much to speak for it, it just doesn't hook me in the same way that the albums before and after it do.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-2003792199603974993?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/05/concept-of-concepts.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-3988503817270441968</guid><pubDate>Mon, 11 May 2009 21:45:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-05-12T01:15:22.826+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>guitars</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>thunder</category><title>Thundering Guitars</title><description>First thunderstorm of the spring today! Just a shower, but still. Nothing quite as refreshing, awe inspiring and beautiful as a good thunderstorm. I love them. Summer's coming, and fast. Most trees have leaves already, even if they're still small.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok, onwards. I'm working on a couple of little translations again. Which means I'll be getting a little money to spend again soon. This time I'm thinking of finally investing in a new electric guitar.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My old semi-acoustic Ibanez is, to put it bluntly, in disgraceful condition. The frets are hardly in great shape, and tuning it is a nightmare. It would need some major work to be suitable for any serious purpose. And even then, it's not perhaps an ideal guitar for, say, recording songs on my computer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I'm not sure what to get yet. I'll have to visit stores and try some out. But it'll be a solid body guitar this time, probably with humbuckers, I think (the hum has always been a problem with the old semi-acoustic), possibly even active pickups, but I'll need to find out more about them, as I have no experience of them at all. Whether I want a tremolo bar is another choice I need to make. It'd have to be a locking tremolo system, obviously. Etc. Etc. It won't be an easy choice. It'll be easy to spend more than I should. But we'll see where we end up...&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-3988503817270441968?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/05/thundering-guitars.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-6402778955456304313</guid><pubDate>Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:37:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-04-27T21:58:12.705+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Facebook</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Twitter</category><title>I Tawt I Taw a Tweety Bird</title><description>I finally signed up on Twitter, just to see what the buzz is all about. Not sure about it yet, I'll have to wait till I've connected with a few more people and the tweets start flowing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thing is, I'm already fairly active on Facebook, and there's considerable overlap in the concepts. Of course Twitter is a more public medium, and I have no reason not to keep my tweets public. But, frankly, I think pretty much all who could be interested in reading them are already friends on Facebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Don't know if I picked a bad time to visit, but for a supposedly simple site Twitter seems surprisingly slow and cumbersome. Even the mighty bloated Facebook seems to work smoother...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can find me &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/elcalen"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; if you want.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-6402778955456304313?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/04/i-tawt-i-taw-tweety-bird.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-2267600657272982575</guid><pubDate>Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:50:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-04-23T01:57:57.021+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>me</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>music</category><title>Oh But I Was So Much Older Then</title><description>Building on the theme of the previous post, a little more about me and music. It's interesting to look at how my taste in music has developed over the years.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As a child I started out mostly listening to music from the 50's and early 60's, Elvis, Chuck Berry, The Beatles' earlier works... In my teens I proceeded to late 60's psychedelics, particularly The Beatles' later works and The Byrds. In my later teens I discovered a few artists from other decades that carried on the feel of the 60's in some way: Tom Petty, Tracy Chapman, Dire Straits... Of course there were also later recordings from artists who begun their careers in the 60's.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The first major change came at the very end of my teen years when I discovered anime and japanese video games. Video game music became a defining feature of my listening habits in my early 20's, though all the all favourites still remained strong. I also discovered demoscene music through getting acquainted with tracker software, originally from a desire to create music similar to my video game favourites. Also in my early 20's I got very interested in progressive rock, particularly Jethro Tull and Gentle Giant. It could be said that my main musical interest proceeded from the 60's to the 70's.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, in my later 20's, I've witnessed my musical interests becoming ever wider and wider. While at some point I might have described my taste as mostly 60's and 70's rock music, I'd have to describe it as rather eclectic these days. Particularly interesting has been the addition of more modern genres that I had very little interest in, even an aversion to, previously, namely various forms of electronica and heavy metal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My taste for both probably mostly grew out of my taste for video game music, as well as other soundtrack records (and maybe demoscene music as well). I discovered these kinds of music worked very well in certain contexts, and gradually certain artists begun to appeal to me outside of specific contexts as well. I should put emphasis on 'certain artists'. I don't really listen to any genre for the genre's sake. Each artist has it's own, special appeal, and in most cases I'm not particularly interested in the majority that a genre has to offer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's almost like I'm growing younger, beginning with a taste for the oldies and progressing gradually to more current music... In any case, it has been an interesting journey, and has resulted in a wonderfully varied (but still rather picky) taste in music.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-2267600657272982575?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/04/oh-but-i-was-so-much-older-then.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-2479397462690702757</guid><pubDate>Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:16:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-04-22T01:58:21.015+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>movies</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>me</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Finland</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>music</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Lordi</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Jade Warrior</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Nightwish</category><title>Concerning Blacksmiths and Metal</title><description>Generally speaking, there are very few examples of Finnish music and cinema that appeal to me. There are probably many reasons for this. One is that, having an English father, I was exposed to a large variety of English (and American) music, literature and cinema from a young age. English is the language of music for me. It's not that I disrespect music sung in Finnish, it's just never been a part of my life, so it sounds wrong to me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another reason, which applies particularly to cinema, lies simply in my nature, the type of story and aesthetic that appeals to me. This isn't, at least in whole, a result of my heritage; I'm sure a lot of Finnish people, especially of younger generations, share similar tastes. I've always been mainly attracted to fantasy and science fiction, epic stories often of a highly visual nature, and we simply don't have the resources to make that kind of movies in this small country.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And this is obviously the part where we come to the exceptions to the rule. I just watched &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Jade Warrior&lt;/span&gt; for the second time, and I still think it is a brilliant movie, both in story and visual aesthetic, and not only in comparison to other Finnish movies. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Lordi movie &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Dark Floors&lt;/span&gt;, but of course that has so few specifically Finnish elements that I'm not sure it even counts as an example.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The story of my taste for Finnish music, on the other hand, is inseparably entangled with another story, the story of discovering metal music. I grew up listening mostly to 60's music, and others who carried on the tradition (like Tom Petty, whom I discovered through other artists who begun their career in the 60's). While I greatly enjoyed some harder rock, such as the Rolling Stones, and later Queen and AC/DC, I steered clear of metal music for a long time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the late 90's I discovered Japanese video games and through them the world of video game music. This also opened the door for electronic music in general. Then came &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;The Black Mages&lt;/span&gt;, an album of music from the &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Final Fantasy&lt;/span&gt; games re-arranged as metal. It was a great album and together with the later Black Mages albums remains among my favourites. I came to the conclusion, that musically some forms of metal music had a great appeal for me. However, most of the non-game metal I heard was ruined by unappealing, even annoying singers, and an overall attitude that tended to be so over-the-top in its supposed darkness and wickedness that it ended up being ridiculous, and not in a good way. No offence to you metal afficionados out there, that's just how my taste is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fast forward to 2006. Our own Lordi won the Eurovision Song Contest. I found their tongue-in-cheek humour and horror movie themes to be appealing in a way that the majority of heavier rock artists I'd heard had never been. It took a year or two to really get into it, but these days I'm a big fan.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, I recently saw a hilarious YouTube clip of misheard lyrics to Wishmaster by Nightwish. I happened to be in a mood for some suitably atmospheric heavier music, so I figured it was about time to get better acquainted with this domestic giant. And I discovered I enjoyed it greatly. Musically Nightwish is just the kind of metal I seem to enjoy, epic, often fast paced, yet atmospheric and emotional symphonic/power metal, not unlike The Black Mages and other Japanese video game music. The frequent fantasy themes are also right up my alley (although I must admit I haven't had a chance to really pay attention to much of the lyrical content yet).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's curious that, video game music aside, the two examples of heavier music I've most enjoyed thus far are both Finnish. And just as curious that pretty much the only examples of Finnish music I enjoy represent the heavier side of rock.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To end this longish post, I should perhaps make the clarification that the fact that I've lately been painting my nails black does not stem from heavy metal or goth style, but rather from glam style and artists like The Ark.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-2479397462690702757?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/04/concerning-blacksmiths-and-metal.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-2518681141847775605</guid><pubDate>Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:20:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-04-16T00:27:58.450+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Christina Ricci</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>movies</category><title>Howling at the (Hollywood) Stars</title><description>I just watched the movie &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Cursed&lt;/span&gt; by Wes Craven. It wasn't incredibly original or impressive, but, well, I'd just like to put it on record that Christina Ricci is incredibly hot and I've had a little crush on her for a long time already.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-2518681141847775605?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/04/howling-at-hollywood-stars.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-8801939349240174798</guid><pubDate>Sun, 12 Apr 2009 10:19:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-04-12T13:32:06.977+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>rpg</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>in memoriam</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>DnD</category><title>Another DM Gone to the Great Game Table in the Sky</title><description>Just a little over a year after we heard of Gary Gygax's passing, Dave Arneson, the other man behind the original &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Dungeons &amp;amp; Dragons&lt;/span&gt;, has passed away at the age of 61.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.bossbattle.net/blog/2008/03/in-memoriam.html"&gt;What I said&lt;/a&gt; after Gygax died is still true. These men created a whole new medium for entertainment and creativity, and the impact it has had on my life can scarcely be measured.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I still haven't gotten around to running another D&amp;amp;D game, and it won't be my next game either. But some day...&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-8801939349240174798?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/04/another-dm-gone-to-great-game-table-in.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-7270025888489851511</guid><pubDate>Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:52:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-04-11T01:04:43.202+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>poetry</category><title>Corner-Eye Gloom</title><description>Did it rain for an eye-blink?&lt;br /&gt;Or did it snow?&lt;br /&gt;A corner-eye gloom&lt;br /&gt;in place of this calm?&lt;br /&gt;The skies may be clear&lt;br /&gt;but I can't see them,&lt;br /&gt;blocked out&lt;br /&gt;by the cold, frozen flame&lt;br /&gt;of a street lamp.&lt;br /&gt;A corner-eye gloom&lt;br /&gt;I wish for, tonight,&lt;br /&gt;an edge to the calm:&lt;br /&gt;sharp, cold, burning&lt;br /&gt;but all I get&lt;br /&gt;is that cold, frozen flame,&lt;br /&gt;and it blurs.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-7270025888489851511?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/04/corner-eye-gloom.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-7089668003941284712</guid><pubDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:26:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-04-06T12:44:17.294+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Angel</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>in memoriam</category><title>It's Not Easy Being Green</title><description>I just learned that Andy Hallett, best known as Lorne from &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Angel&lt;/span&gt;, has recently passed away, at the age of 33. Lorne was a memorable and lovable character, and Hallett really brought him to life. And he was such a talented singer as well... It's a little ironic, perhaps, that most of the world never had a chance to know his real face. Too soon gone, way too soon.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-7089668003941284712?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/04/its-not-easy-being-green.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-27238215908692494</guid><pubDate>Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:17:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-04-02T13:36:52.948+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>superheroes</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>comics</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Watchmen</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Alan Moore</category><title>The Watchmen Post</title><description>I've now had a chance to finally read &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Watchmen&lt;/span&gt; and see the movie twice. There isn't much to say, really. I enjoyed both the comic and movie thoroughly. The comic is classic Alan Moore, and the movie possibly the best superhero movie made to date (even with the changes to the ending, which, luckily, were fairly well written and, just possibly, even more plausible than the original, though some of the dialogue near the end could perhaps have been trimmed).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Though I love the genre, there are rather few real masterpieces in it, with the possible exception of a couple of the Batman movies. (I haven't actually seen &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;The Dark Knight&lt;/span&gt; yet, I must confess.) But of course the same can be said for any adaptations of stories to new media. And basically all (serious) superhero movies are adaptations of comic book characters, aren't they?&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-27238215908692494?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/04/watchmen-post.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item><item><guid isPermaLink='false'>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268717727995834412.post-5193795663342771582</guid><pubDate>Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:56:00 +0000</pubDate><atom:updated>2009-03-30T23:06:00.187+03:00</atom:updated><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>Kin of Cerberos</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>rpg</category><category domain='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#'>update</category><title>The Dark Before the Dawn</title><description>&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Update:  &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.bossbattle.net/rpg/koc36.html"&gt;New episode&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt; of my &lt;/span&gt;&lt;a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.bossbattle.net/rpg/koc.html"&gt;Kin of Cerberos&lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt; RPG online.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another session of my RPG campaign &lt;a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.bossbattle.net/rpg/koc.html"&gt;Kin of Cerberos&lt;/a&gt; was played, and the &lt;a href="http://www.bossbattle.net/rpg/koc36.html"&gt;story&lt;/a&gt; is once again online for your reading pleasure. This marks the finale of the current 'season', which took almost exactly a year to play. (Six sessions isn't a huge amount for a year, but it's a decent number for our group, I guess.) It also marks the beginning of at least a brief hiatus, during which I hope to try running something fresh. As I said in an earlier post, I've been running this campaign exclusively for three years now, and that's a long time.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/2268717727995834412-5193795663342771582?l=bossbattle.net%2Fblog'/&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description><link>http://bossbattle.net/blog/2009/03/dark-before-dawn.html</link><author>noreply@blogger.com (Ben)</author><thr:total xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'>0</thr:total></item></channel></rss>