Voyeurism

Well, sort of. I have been doing a lot of watching lately.
Anime:
-FLCL again for myself, first time for Theatreg33k
-Escaflowne the Movie (still only half way through. Writting this instead of finishing it, don't you feel special). So then I can watch "Nescaflowne" and then put up a meme-Orable

Movies:
-Wreck it Ralph which was awesome, and I will repeat what I've heard before, that Disney made a Pixar movie after Pixar made a Disney Movie. Also, the soundtrack has been playing in my shop ever since Calamity Jane will sing "Sugar Rush" on her own if something else isn't playing it.

I also beat Sugar Rush and Hero's Duty. Hero's duty was a bit of a grind, but then so was Sugar Rush. Man, I really wish they would release a full version of Sugar Rush, it would be a great Mario Kart alternative.
- Rise of the Guardians which was THE BEST! I enjoyed it thoroughly and will watch it again and again if the opportunity arises. I feel that I am most like the elves since someone else I know has claimed the Yeti's as their new spirit creature and apparently will "speak yeti" at home now. For more of my thoughts and feelings on the subject I will defer to . . .
Vlogs:
-Andre: The Black Nerd:

I have watched almost  the last half year of his catalog and would love to hang with him. Just maybe not barefoot anywhere . . .
-my last post
-Keeping up with other web series and Apparently there's some collab going on between Standard Action and the Zombie Orpheus crew on GAMERS THREE!!! OMG! SQUEE!!


 watching things change, and watching out for things to happen as well as reactions to them.
 . . . and now that I've gotten his far into the post I realized it's not just some filler post but several half posts rolled into one larger post so that it is superior to the inital "imma blather about things until a post appears" even though that's exactly what happened. SUCCESS!. I feel that is good. Enjoy.
-Later Space Cowboys

A Haven, for Mages

Yall know I love me some Fantasy / RPG settinged web series and how I just want to help so bad. Not even necessarily be like "IMMA BE A BADASS Drizzt Clone in all dis gear, that would be AWESHUM!" But you know, offer some locations I have access to, give creative input as I love adding my own flair to stories, OR even contributing my skills & knowledge as a combatant & fight Director.

So, I nearly flipped my wig when my buddy Pablo told me about a buddy of his, who is local to me, was doing a totaly-metal fantasy Web series. MAGEHAVEN

I've watched almost all of their videos, chatted with the creator himself and even do regular check ups on their TWITTAR! and their BOOK-FACE. I have very high expectations for this particular show based on what I've seen so far.
There appears to be professionalism and passion at every aspect. From the diverse cast, to the fabricated costumes and right down to post-effects that don't look cheesy or corny.

There are many hints in the videos as well as should you talk to those on the project as to what the story holds and some of the next episodes. And with thier indiegogo fully funded, it should be very soon!

So far there is only so much to critique as far as a finished product, I really wanted to help get them on other people's radars and hopefully get them some more support so it can continue to grow.

Watch away and wait with me for more awesomeness from the world around Magehaven!

Roll your toon! All of it!

Earlier this year a good friend of mine was in town for a visit, so we had to RP cause he only visits so often from out of state and his time is often monopolized by his slew of friends & family.
Because we didn't have the entire crew from a different gaming group, and none of us really wanted to start lvl 1 chars out of nowhere, we decided to make randomized characters.
I jotted out a roll chart for classes, struck out some that I really didn't want to deal with, as was communally agreed upon by the other players (but they're still on the list if you want to use them).
We then realized to speed things up we should randomize race & alignment. And then there's more, but here are the tables as we developed them . . ..

Roll a d20 for class
1 Magus
2 alchemist
3 oracle
4 inquisitor
5 cavalier
6 summoner
7 sorcerer
8 rogue
9 ranger
10 paladin
11 monk
12 fighter
13 druid
14 cleric
15 bard
16 barbarian
17 gunslinger
18 samurai
19 ninja
20 witch
20 wizard
20 roll twice
(Strike through denotes we did not use them for that game, roll twice was for dual classing as I think we were running lvl 8's? and I don't know how we forgot the Wizard, or if we chose not to use it)

Race!  We had 3 charts associated w/ race, lets see if I can make them make sense . . .

Roll a D10
1 gnome (nobody wanted to play a gnome) orc
2 halfling
3 human
4 elf
5 1/2 elf
6 1/2 orc
7 dwarf
8,9 or 10 roll on "Next Chart"

Next Chart d10 alternative races
1 aklo
2 tengu
3 earth (elemental race, don't remember the name, not going to look it up)
4 wind ( " " )
5 fire ( " " )
6 water ( " " )
7 (Not "Heart") goblin
8 kobold - Roll on "Color Chart" below
9 Assemir
10 teifling
(there was a general agreement to not have damphires)

 I've developed some tentative alternative racial rules for Kobold sin the games I play/run that there are  different colored Kobolds, just like the dragons they emulate giving slightly different racial perks &  flaws.
Color Chart: D10
1 red
2 blue
3 green
4 black
5 white
6 brass
7 silver
8 copper
9 bronze
10 gold
I'm even looking to expand it to the alternative dragon "colors" later on.

Then you roll on your alignment chart which has been modified to only those allowed in this particular campaign.

Alignmet Chart: D10
1 or 6 Lawful Good
2 or 7 Chaotic Good
3 or 8 Neutral Good
4 or 9 Chaotic Neutral
5 or 10 Lawful Neutral


Oh yeah, these tables are intended for use with Pathfinder, but I'm sure the equivs can be translated to other system.
Now, I know these charts exist already in several incarnations, many of them inside the very source books we use, but, like many things in this ultimately customizable universe we all play in, sometimes you want something a little more tailored to your needs, so here's one for my groups and groups like mine.

Enjoy h47ites, see you later Space Cowboys!

Alex In Wonderland

Alex In Wonderland & The Mad Hattress

It's that time again, where I tell you all about one of my awesome trips to Disneyland. But wait! It's sort of like a Con post as well. T1nk's gonna post about it like it's a con, so it totally counts! I will also elaborate a bit.

Theatreg33k and I were planning on making the trek down to the Magic Kingdom for our favorite holiday (Halloween) and our friend Rabbit wanted to go to Mickey's Haunt as a gift to herself for graduating. SO that meant LisaLisa as well, and a couple others were invited. The final crew rounded out to Myself, T1nk, Rabbit, LisaLisa, Squirrel InaComa, & Fromage.

It was decided (meaning some people called dibs on outfits without asking others) that we would be dressing up as Alice in Wonderland characters, but sort of classy like. Dresses and a suit for me. But as what? LisaLisa IS our Cheshire cat, Rabbit, is called rabbit because she is LisaLisa's March Hare and Theatreg33k is ALSO a huge mad hatter fan (one of our common interests) so she really wanted to do a cute outfit for that. Ultimately Squirrel went with The Door Mouse as she felt it would be relatively simple to do, and it turned out Fromage opted for the Caterpillar.

I had trouble deciding as I didn't know how I would do certain characters justice as Mr. Dodo, Bill, Walrus & Carpenter might require prosthetic attachments or props and we really wanted "normal(for us)" clothes as we would be walking around for up to 10 hours, standing in lines, and riding rides, all in costume at Disneyland.
Someone said, "hey you can be Alice" but I wasn't keen on cross dressing for this event (only for money, a real good cause, or if I'm armed) and someone else was like, "T1nk's already gender swapping The Hatter, you can be 'Alex' in Wonderland." That sounded do-able and the other ladies kept with the "generally portrayed as male but are now being converted to female" characters.

Stitch, bitch, tea, knives, Star Wars, SPG playing on a netbook? We do it right.

So, With A LOT of help from LisaLisa a vest was gutted and rebuilt for not ONLY my "Alex" vest, meant to replace the Alice Apron, it's a Kotsetsu Vest for my Tiger & Bunny Cosplay. I also built a small plushy mushroom and a bottle to put "Eat Me" & "Drink Me" tags on them.

Costumes were "finished" (read: Passable to done) The day before everyone left. T1nk & I TRIED to leave early-early, as always, but still got a respectable start at about 6 am, and thanks to MAH NEW CAR The ride was fantastic. We hit the park the day of the Haunt so we saw some people who had dressed up early. It seemed there was sprinklings of costumes the whole weekend, so, yay festive attendees! One caught our attention

The 8yold marry poppins made me feel inadequate . . . And probably poor.
— tony elfson (@h47) October 20, 2012

She was dressed as Carousel Mary Poppins and that poofy little brat looked like someone had shrunk the original costume and thrown it on, it was good.
 But whatever, The rest of the Ladies hit Anaheim later in the afternoon so T1nk & I headed back to the rooms to change into our costumes. Then the whole crew hit the park!
We ran rampant through the park, made sure to do a few key rides to get them out of the way for the rest of the weekend, stocked up on candy and even saw one of my favorite things  . . .

As well as a special Parade & Fireworks show just for Haunt Patrons. Overall I enjoyed the event, but I had hoped there would be just a BIT more. The haunt at full price is about $60+ dollars extra, and if you don't already have a pass for the day, probably a decent deal. But a lot of the attractions we had come to see that weekend were up all season long (the rides, mostly) and I felt the exclusives were just a little short of the price tag. Honestly, for $40-just under $50 I feel would be fair. But either way, we had fun.

Alex, Mad Hatress, March Hare, Disney's Red Queen, Cheshire Cat, Caterpillar & Doormouse (Red Queen was not part of our group)

The weather that weekend was ALMOST perfect. It was only slightly too warm and muggy for like, half of a day, otherwise it was grey to lightly cloudy and never got too warm. One of my favorite trips weather wise.

Never been in Disney while it was this moist. #newexperinces
— tony elfson (@h47) October 20, 2012

At my recommendation, we hit Disney's California Adventure park first so we had the most time to spend there, and the we could finish the night at Disneyland proper, and then devote the final day to Disneyland. We tried to get in on that CarsLand "Radiator Springs Racer" ride, but it shut down on top of a potentially 2 hour wait time, so, we opted for Tower (some excellently embarrassing photo's there) then some food at the wharf. good times. Then Screamin' followed by Midway.

Goofy Conducting the water with that fantastic voice over he always has in his old cartoons. Click for enlarge.

At a certain point we ended up back near the front of DCA and came across this fantastic woman Named Donna who complimented Fromage on her hair color (it's a purpley, marooney, violet highlight shade). Donna had a lovely muppet dog named Lady who was dressed for Hallowen as a witch. It would sniff and be petted, it was adorable. We chatted with Donna for a short bit, exchanged puns and then Lisalisa was consumed by a disgusting amount of Cheshire merch, and her & Fromage got mouse ears.

If I remember correctly, we then moseyed over to Disneyland to see if we could do Space Mt. Ghost Galaxy, it was closed. So we opted for Cpt. Eo. I then dropped off the Ladies back at their room and T1nk & I shut down the park

In trying to keep our waiting time to a minimum as we had persons with serious back issues, a couple people downloaded on of the many handy apps that track open & wait times for the rides.
The next day we hit DCA first to get fast passes for World of color for later that eve. In doing just that, we saw the Newsies performance that Squirrel had been promised, and while Squirrel, T1nk & Fromage went for coffe, Lisalisa, Rabbit & myself went to grab the fastpasses. On our way back we watched Minnies Fly Girls, a swingin musical review by some of the flight attendants, or dare I say, Stewardesses, from the Minnie Mouse Arline. An audio Queue had them concerned that Minnie had crashed, but it turned out Goofy's flight school had another student NOT QUITE pass his test. I then shared with LisaLisa & Rabbit that Launchpad had studied at that very school. And as we made our way back out to the Magic Kingdom for a day of StorybookLand rides (we were on a mission to unlock a personal achievement for one of the crew) we mused how awesome it would be to see Donna & Lady again. And low and behold, there she was, strolling into the confectionery. So we stalked her and noticed she was chatting with a cast member, so all six of us did that silly thing where you look around at odds and ends as if you're truly interested in the wares and not waiting like a silly grinned child.

Us with Donna & Lady

After that we decided to tattle on Donna to a supervisor as she was FANTASTIC and a real treat, especially when she found Fromage's nickname was in fact Fromage. She had a bit of fun with that. So we went to DCA's version of town hall, I think the "Civic center" or some such, and ask the cast member behind the desk if there was any way to compliment on an interaction, and she whipped out a whole order form for us.
Having complimented a fellow performer on a job well done we headed back to where Walt had started things and dove right into FantasyLand StoryBook rides. While some of us hit restrooms others flirted with some camera men stationed near the Sword in The Stone/Carousel. They were discussing some app or another that was in Beta to actually LIFT the sword on command, or had a chance to. Something like that.

Re:Last tweet. "yeah, a beta app that activates the sword from the stone." "hey, the Mt back up?" "not yet, checked the app."
— tony elfson (@h47) October 21, 2012

(Upon further research by T1nk, I doubt there is an app that does it, it still runs off whatever schedule or Queue it always has, because as we stood in line for another ride we saw this small troupe of rugrats, 4-9 years old, tug and yank with all their combined strength to slide that blade out, but when this tween girl who probably thought Disneyland was lame pulled, up came the sword, she grinned, and quickly tried to hold the sword up and beckoned over the squad of runts so they could pose with the sword, it was adorable . . . BUT there is an independent App that is sort of a scavenger hunt app for the park for people who ALWAYS go to give them something else to do.)

At some point we Rode the restored Matterhorn and it was fun. I kind of dig the new style of bobsleds. I'm a little bummed the old bench styles are gone, but the update is still fun. Now we just have to ride both tracks next time we go.
Oh yeah, I have always dreamed of climbing the Matterhorn and placing the Flag atop it's summit. I mentioned this desire to T1nk, and as usual, she began to use her phone to look it up while we stood in line. Apparently, the only way to do that, short of becoming famous and getting a special pass, is to become a Cast Member, as the "Matterhorn Climbers" were added and NAMED by Walt himself as a part of the attraction. They are named Hans, Fritz & Otto and in order to become one of them you have to audition and have some extensive experience.

After some FantasyLand action we booked it over to Space Mt. because we heard the line was LESS than 2 hours long and dedicated to waiting the line as we all wanted to see Ghost Galaxy. It was really cool. I'm not really a fan of that sort of "horror" to be really honest, but it was really well done as far as I'm concerned. T1nk & I both felt they could have done just a BIT more and it would have really made the whole experience, but I would gladly ride that ride over & over again.
Once we had Galaxy-Ghosted, we hoofed it over to DCA for World of Color and . . .

FRANKENWEENIE!!!! (it was delicous)

Then we all watched World of Color. T1nk & I decided that World of Color needs something more. It's cool but it's missing a story telling element or the BANG of full blown fireworks, or just something ELSE. After this we all limped over to the Mad Hatters Mad T Party to take in the sounds
Where T1nk managed to successfully stalk(yay twitter, FB & D.A. accnts) and with my help shoot a previously rare, now epic find in either of the parks (using a camera), a Bri-Chan! We still grin to ourselves when we talk about it, because, we MIGHT actually get some art done by her one day and she seemed really chill with a random couple coming up to her to chat, and squee.
I think we all sidled back to the the main park at that point, rode a ride, then half The Ladies headed home, while Rabbit, LisaLisa, T1nk & myself finished off the last of the rides that were open, then headed back to the room.

Final day, T1nk & I headed back to the resort for last day shopping AND MY CANDY APPLE. I had been jonesin for one since day one and finally got it. There was also an epic pineapple spear covered in chocolate which Lisalisa unfortunately didn't get to experience, but she did get her Pineapple Dole Whip, so win there.
We passed the Ladies eating at the Jazz Kitchen to-go counter and said our goodbyes for the trip. Made it safely home before too late in the eve. One of our best trips yet!
Thanks again for listening in H47ites, hope you enjoy our adventures and I hope to keep sharing them with you. Later Space Cowboys!

A Fellow Traveler

I would like to thank everyone who gave me ideas and suggestions for the new moniker for my new vehicle.

The car is named Ryoko-Sha, or "Yoko" for short!

Roughly, Travel in Japanese is "Ryoko."
Apparently also This Character from Tenchi Muyo
And according to a few translators I found "Traveler" translates to Ryoko-sha (with a dash over the last 'o' but I can't figure out how to make one.
Apparently "Ryoko" is also a fairly common Japanese female name.


As is "Yoko" and of course, one of my FAVORITE Yoko's. So overall, I'm digging the associations I'm making with the car, it's name, and how I view it as one of the things in my life.

 It was Christened Thursday Night 10/18/12, and began it's maiden trip with me & my fiancee at 6:30 am 10/19/12 to Anaheim,CA.

As per my tweet "MPG stands for 'My Pimpass Gasmileage!' "

She performed admirably all the way down I-5, got us to & from the Disneyland resort all weekend, and then got us home safely.

AND THEN, I dragged her out to the central valley for a family visit, and helped me get out of that hell hole just as quickly.
All told, 1k miles, easy and I am loving my car.




To continue pampering and asserting my ownership we picked up a little souvenir before we left the Magic Kingdom . . .

I don't even have the license plates themselves yet, but that cover is on my car. ha! That is of course until I get customs that advertise my 2nd favorite blog! (this one. my blog is my second favorite, my first favorite is T1nks.) Then it goes on the front, so It's the first thing that sees Disneyland.

Any more on mods to the car will probably be another post so I wont bore you. Thanks again for listening to me go on about my new shiny, and I think some of you already know how much my vehicles mean to me. Later H47ites, Cruise on Space Cowboys!