Great looking site that offers engraving. Check them out: http://www.cengraving.com
plastic nameplates
Friday, August 17, 2012
Thursday, April 9, 2009
The Undead
So I was kinda on a zombie kick lately. My oldest son and his friend have decided that they want to design a game, and its about zombies. I have spent a good amount of time going over ideas with them. It is allot harder than I thought coming up with idea that has not been done. I will leave their ideas out of this post, but I think that they might have a fairly fresh angle. This got me thinking about the whole zombie lore, more and more. I decided that I wanted to tear into something new too.
I rarely watch a movie more than once, a game even less, and I don't even touch a book that sounds to similar to something that I have gone through already. In my searches, I found several that seemed to have a fresh take (thank god for the library 'cuz barnsNnobel don't take food stamps).
First I read Monster Island: A Zombie novel. This sounded like it was going to be pure cheese like many of the movies and games in the genera. I found more to like than expected. First was the setting. The 'civilized' parts of the world, in which carrying a gun was uncommon, the zombie plague wiped everyone out in less than 6 weeks. The parts of the world controlled by power mad drug lords, or religious zealots lasted longer. Long enough to be secure. The other point introduced that I liked was another layer of supernatural on top of the walking dead. A large portion of the book was written from the point of view of a zombie that had kept his faculties. Being able to think, he was able to see that the dead animate were connected through a network that he could tap into and control. Some parts were clumsy, but over all it was pretty good.
I was able to reserve and get in pretty short order 'Patient Zero' by Jonathan Mabary. I explained this book to my wife by saying 'Hey, they got Tom Clancy in my zombie!"If you are old enough to understand the reference, then you should be OK with this book. It is derivative of many of the Tom Clancy, Dan Brown style of books. A strong but flawed hero, insurmountable odds, a dash of patriotism, a pinch of espionage and a big heaping of potential terror. For what it was, I liked it very much. I shot through the book in about 36 hours, and I took plenty of time to work on other things in the mean time. As far as this style of book goes, it held me pretty good. There are maybe one or two times too many where we are asked to suspend disbelief. On top of that , at least in one area, the end sequence was a bit to obvious. You knew it would come down to a hand to hand with the big bad dude. I think that this book is a good read, just like transformers is a good movie. Sit back and have fun, but analize it and you will sound jaded like I am sure I do.
Although, this guy should write the next Resident Evil. Put RE againts this and you see why most will laugh at you when you talk about the 'story' of a game.
I rarely watch a movie more than once, a game even less, and I don't even touch a book that sounds to similar to something that I have gone through already. In my searches, I found several that seemed to have a fresh take (thank god for the library 'cuz barnsNnobel don't take food stamps).
First I read Monster Island: A Zombie novel. This sounded like it was going to be pure cheese like many of the movies and games in the genera. I found more to like than expected. First was the setting. The 'civilized' parts of the world, in which carrying a gun was uncommon, the zombie plague wiped everyone out in less than 6 weeks. The parts of the world controlled by power mad drug lords, or religious zealots lasted longer. Long enough to be secure. The other point introduced that I liked was another layer of supernatural on top of the walking dead. A large portion of the book was written from the point of view of a zombie that had kept his faculties. Being able to think, he was able to see that the dead animate were connected through a network that he could tap into and control. Some parts were clumsy, but over all it was pretty good.
I was able to reserve and get in pretty short order 'Patient Zero' by Jonathan Mabary. I explained this book to my wife by saying 'Hey, they got Tom Clancy in my zombie!"If you are old enough to understand the reference, then you should be OK with this book. It is derivative of many of the Tom Clancy, Dan Brown style of books. A strong but flawed hero, insurmountable odds, a dash of patriotism, a pinch of espionage and a big heaping of potential terror. For what it was, I liked it very much. I shot through the book in about 36 hours, and I took plenty of time to work on other things in the mean time. As far as this style of book goes, it held me pretty good. There are maybe one or two times too many where we are asked to suspend disbelief. On top of that , at least in one area, the end sequence was a bit to obvious. You knew it would come down to a hand to hand with the big bad dude. I think that this book is a good read, just like transformers is a good movie. Sit back and have fun, but analize it and you will sound jaded like I am sure I do.
Although, this guy should write the next Resident Evil. Put RE againts this and you see why most will laugh at you when you talk about the 'story' of a game.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Start things off with an anecdote
My 12 year old son is in boy scouts. This past week the family was attending a court of honor in which there were several rank advancements. The scout leaders had a great visual display for the ascending scout ranks. The display showed the patches for tenderfoot through eagle. Two were talked about more than others. The star rank is about the midway point to eagle, the varsity scout leader asked "why do you think it has a star on the patch?". I saw my 8 year old start to answer, I was sure it would be a Mario reference, but someone else answered first with the "because you are a star" answer. This must have gotten the competitive side of my son going. When asked about why the next rank of life had a heart in it, my son blurted out "because you get an extra heart like in Lego Star Wars so you can live longer!". The poor varsity leader had no idea what my boy was talking about, a real deer in the headlights look, as all the kids were laughing. I was giggling too.
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