How does one build a bridge across a void?

How do you transcend space and time, ignore the laws of the physical world?

How can I accomplish what I want?

I have returned home after a rather relaxing two week stay in Puerto Rico. Did not get to go to beach, but did get to see most of my friends. Others made plans to go out but disappeared at the last minute. Am now gearing up to help Nick pack up in order to kick him out of Boston. He is going down to Florida, where it is nice and sunny almost year ’round. Take that, fiend!

I’ve decided to go back on the diet, and have bought groceries accordingly. I do not relish with great fondness returning to a meat and salad lifestyle, but my health of late has suffered for my indulgences, and so I am hoping to kick start the part of my brain that desires to live past the age of 50.

Classes start tomorrow. So far I have nothing to report on that score. Oh, I did buy three new suits for when I go to work in the Fall.

I carry the bitter disappointment of a man who was just charged $7 to watch someone take a massive shit on something he loved and admired. Ladies and gentlemen, let us not mince words: X-Men The Last Stand completely and totally ruins the franchise.

First off, the direction blows. Hard. Harder than a lubed-up Hoover. Shot frames were unimpressive; the storytelling was flat; the actors were all… acting (even Sir Ian McKellen turned in a performance which was, overall, sub-par. There are moments – particularly near the end of the film – when we see Magneto as more than a character in a movie. But they are few, and by the time they do appear, one simply doesn’t care). Tres amateur.

Second, for some God unknown reason they chose to give the weight of the film to Hugh Jackman and Halle Berry. Now, Hugh can manage an action film, and he does a good job. But the film pretends to be more than an action film, and to carry this they used Berry in large part. That woman… well, let’s just say I disagree with the assertion that she’s a “good actress”. She’s not even visually appealing in that haircut.

Third, they tried to put in too many sideplots. So many, it’s actually kind of hard for me to tell you what the main plot was. There’s the two “big ones”: the Phoenix’s arrival and the cure for the mutant X-gene. But the movie juggles them so terribly that it feels like you’re watching two separate, disparate movies (in fact, I think they could have made two much better movies had they just made two more movies), joined at the hip only because they happen to share a cast. Believe me: The elements of one plot have nothing to do with the elements of the other. I kept hoping for that final “aha!” moment where something from plot A crosses over into plot B to come to a startling conclusion… but instead we get a crappy resolution.

And then you have at least three other sideplots: Hank McCoy’s life in politics, Rogue’s struggles with her powers and managing a relationship with a teenage boy she can’t touch, a useless rivalry (leading to a surprisingly kitsche life lesson) between Iceman and Pyro, and Angel’s introduction. All sum these three take up about 1/3 of the movie, and feel so rushed through and underdeveloped I felt cheated at the end.

What should have been a movie about an alienated minority fighting for their rights as human beings (and fighting from resorting to using violence to achieve those ends) was reduced to a movie about mutants blowing stuff up in what were really quite disappointing special effects. There was not one single “Holy shit, that’s awesome moment!” in the movie (compare to X-Men 2, which starts with a HSTA moment [Nightcrawler as assassin] and then constantly delivers on them [Xavier's showing off in the museum in front of the kids, many of the scenes with Mystique, etc.]) It was, truth told, really basic stuff.

Speaking of conclusions: Man. What crap. I’m curious if they were shooting for arch, because I haven’t seen so much pure, grandiose archness in a final confrontation since… I’m not even sure I’ve actually ever seen such levels, actually. It may well have gone past the cheese-scale, setting world records left and right. There’s even a frightened, muttered “What have I done?!”. This cannot be over-emphasized, folks. (Actually yes, yes it can, and that’s exactly what sucked about it: overemphasis.)

I could go into the merits of the story proper, but I won’t because that would be spoilage. Why not spoil a crap film? Well, for one, it’s not a crap film. It’s a crap X-Men film, yes. But as a summer action flick to watch when you have a couple of hours, it’s about mediocre. The scripts itself has just enough of Whedon’s mutant cure idea to raise interesting questions (questions which, for some God unknown reason, they fail to go into with any sufficient depth), so it can’t be said to be all too brainless.

So, no spoilage for you.

Except to say, if you do go see it, wait the 5 minutes or so for the credits to roll. After watching what you watched, trust me: It’s a small amount of vindication. (That being said, the only thought I had after seeing the hidden surprise was a very unenthusiasic “…Yeah.” People will probably try to hype it up for you. Don’t be disappointed if it’s not exactly life altering, or even all that unpredictable.)

So, overall, I disliked X-Men: The Last Stand. I liked it better than the Matrix sequels, mind (although they were at least visually and philosophically compelling.) I wouldn’t recommend anyone watch it, frankly, except I’d like for them to make another movie. I guess you could say I’m curious in the same way a person watching a car wreck is curious. I want to see the ambulance come in and try to resucitate everyone involved.

(Also, if you’re even a moderate X-Men fan like me, and would like to see more X-Men movies [hopefully with a better creative staff], don’t be surprised if you spend the next hour or so coming up with ways with which they can salvage the shitstorm they leave you with. I’m still pulling for an Apocalypse show-down, myself, but he’s always been my favorite villain.)

People are all up in arms, now that sites like MySpace.com (as well as its earlier precursors Livejournal, Xanga, Blurty, etc.) allows high school idiots students the ability to post their orgies hijinks online, with parents surprisingly understandably shocked that their children are, in fact, deviants mischievous instead of the adoring angels they think they actually were.

So what’s their solution?

They publically announce they’re going Big Brother on them. (To sum: An Illinois school has decided that students engaged in extracurricular activities has decided it will have kids sign a pledge that anything they post online will be open to monitoring and, the crux, punishment if warranted.)

Now, I have absolutely no problem with parents monitoring their children’s use of the triple-dubyas. In fact, I’m all for it. There’s no privacy online, and anyone who has an expectation of privacy on a public forum is an idiot who doesn’t deserve to surf the hallowed hall of informational overload (read: teh intarweb). And, should the kids post about how they stole the school mascot, or broke into the teacher’s lounge and changed the grades around (whatever kids do these days, I dunno,) then, yes, the school should be able to use this as evidence, tantamount to confession, in order to deal out punishment as necessary.

But for schools to step in with activities that are not related, whatsoever, with the school?

That, to say the least, raises jurisdictional issues with me. The school should not be made the child’s insurer. The school isn’t and should never be thought to be, a full time daycare. The school should only be required to monitor what happens within the walls and bounds of the school, anything beyond that and it’s the parent’s time to step up and take the blame. If the kids post pictures of themselves doing lines of China White at a party over the weekend while playing tag with a 3 cent hooker’s derriere, the school shouldn’t have the ability to punish the child for it. That type of failure is not academic in nature.

I think this pledge oversteps its bounds. It’s not a privacy issue. Fuck, I’m 22 and I barely have any privacy – while I’m in my parent’s house, mind. To wit, to hell with their privacy. These idiot parents who say their child’s room is a sanctum to be respected almost deserve delinquent children. Families aren’t democracies; parent’s should be fucking despots.

Let me say that again:

Children should have no rights outside of what their parents give them

(Basic human rights aside – even despots need their leashes.)

But it should be the parent’s job of policing. To do otherwise is to raise lazy parents. And lazy parents create bratty children.

And lemme tell ya.

I fucking hate bratty children.

Besides, this “you can’t post anything bad online” campaign will only have two results. One, you’ll create a Gestapo-like body of individuals policing and patroling the forums and these children’s sites. Second, the children will just take their activities underground and off the web. Which, to be totally honest, I’m all for individuals smartening up and not posting their dirty laundry all over the web. (You don’t see me writing about all the drugged up sexploitation parties I attend, do yaou?) But it’s not the solution to the problem. It’s just giving yourselves an extra hurdle to policing this sort of behavior.

So do me a favor, huh? Read up a bit; Mr. Eric Burns posted some great advice on the subject not too long ago. It doesn’t take up any more of your time than usual. Really. And leave the school to their ABC’s – kids are in serious need of a good education.

Near a year ago, now, one of the greatest roleplaying legacies in my life came to an end. After five years of gaming with my closest online buds, we drew to a close what was probably one of the many great unsung achievements of a person’s gaming lifetime, both from a player’s perspective and from a DM’s perspective. For a player to have played a character from wee little level 1 (as Aramil, Krogoth, and Drakath started out in) all the way up to beyond level 20 is something few gamers can claim to. (Most games last a mere handful of levels; other DMs like to start at high levels, while others still like to end their games at around level 10. All acceptable choices, having their own pros and cons.) The fact that we did not only in 5 years but through a system change (we started in AD&D 2nd Edition, back in ‘98 or ‘99 and changed to 3rd edition once I bought and fell in love with the system), but also through my going to college, half my players going to college, and several graduating (not to mention, my own graduation), I can only sit and marvel at the achievement.

But D&D and pen and paper roleplaying games aren’t about endings, per se, the way other stories are about endings. (And this is so – it should be noted, for the sake of Robert Jordan, that people read stories for that resolution that comes after the climax, not simply to revel in the vapid prose in between.) Roleplaying games are about, well, roleplaying, and by the very nature it lives in vapid prose. That is to say, the prose created by the players as characters and the DM as the story teller.

That being said, I’m not really one to have characters together simply to be characters. For me a big part of it is getting the story, whatever it may be, told. In a way, I, as both a player and a DM, require an ending. Not because I want it to end, but instead because after too long it becomes… well, the words intellectual masturbation come to mind. Much as we might like cranking one out every now and again (far more frequently now, I hasten to add, that I am failing in many respects to garner anything that might be considered play, by any modicum of the word,) too much of it and, let’s be honest, you get a bit sore. Some might have a higher tolerance than others, but once I’ve been pumping for a good half hour, my arm will get tired.

So it was that today, while in the shower, I suddenly realized that there was more than one story left to tell for those characters. (You thought the masturbatory imagery was still going to continue, eh?) Things still left undone. Things left to do. Those characters, resolved as they may have been, still can do more. They’ve got life in ‘em. And I mean a life beyond the repetitive illusion of old men gathered around a tea cozy, chatting about old times, and going to court with the High Elven Lord Count Ulderberchthen.

I mean they still have princesses to save, dragons to slay, and worlds to conquer. (Or, alternatively, worlds to save, princesses to conquer and dragons… well, dragons, let’s face it, still deserve – by and large – the slayage.) Now, it’s no surprise that I was planning on running, at one point or another, a sequel to the campaign.

Forsooth, now, I am planning on two separate sequels – one set some 20 years after, and another an additional 20 years after. (That’s right, I’ve now altered my plans to the Big-T.) Both campaigns are notably shorter than the original Harvest of Souls (as I named my ouvre about halfway through,) as I am planning one (the first) would take something around 20 – 30 sessions (which, meeting once a week every month would be something like 6 months) and the second to be shorter still. The fact that they are largely self-contained, essentially MegaAdventures the likes I’ve never written before mean they are two separate bodies, largely wholly independent of each other and Harvest. (I say largely because, if they were, in fact, totally independent, they wouldn’t be sequels.)

And… I have enough of a clear idea of what’s going to happen that I can actually start statting out the whole damn thing.

That’s right, baby. We is on. I expect to finish planning, at least the first stage, by the end of June. Expect another anouncement then.