As mentioned in our latest podcast (Episode #10 – out now!), I spent last Saturday at the Melbourne Armageddon Expo. Despite my annoyance at the terrible management of the interviews (pick up your game organisers!), I’ve decided to keep this post more positive and use it to showcase some of the awesome cosplay costumes I saw there. My favourites are the completely hand made White Spy (EDIT: it has been brought to my attention that the costume I assumed was the White Spy is in fact Excalibur from Soul Eater. My humble apologies all anime fans!), Dalek Girl and friggin’ awesome Starkiller in Sith Stalker armour. If you are the person in any of these pictures please let us know by leaving a comment, we would love to hear from you.
Graphic intensive so click More to see the pics 🙂
I call this spec “Unholy Embrace (OE)”. I put in the OE in to show that it is open ended, and is flexible for the player.
The point of this spec is to get the disease on your enemies, and then embrace them with the Blight talent. This spec is used for constantly firing off Death Coil as much as possible to get your zombie minion to be mutated into the monstrosity as much as possible. One way to be cheap in doing this, if need be, is to target your minion and use your Death Coil on it, since your Glyph will reduce the cost if used to heal. Also, if you are targeted by spells, your Anti-Magic Shell will reduce the damage to nothing, and allow for a lot more Death Coils.
As for the remaining 4 points. If you are PVPing, Death’s Advance and Desecration are very good ideas. For PVE, Unholy Command and Butchery are wise moves to keep the slaughter going strong. For instances, Improved Unholy Armor may be a good move to increase your DPS from both attacks and diseases, as well more likely chances of Sudden Doom procs.
After you have gotten all of your diseases on the target it will be vital to change all of your Blood and Frost Runes to Death Runes using Festering Strike. Then, when you have all of your Death and Unholy Runes ready, let loose 6 of your Scourge Strikes followed by a barrage of Death Coils. Or you can also just let loose your Death Coils whenever you have the runic power available to do so. Also, you will want to increase your Mastery and Critical chance to really dish out the destructive power of your Unholy Embrace!
Today I was flicking through an assortment of cheap DVD’s at a newsagent and stumbled across Some Girls.
Starring Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Dempsey, and released in 1988, I caught this gem of a film on late night TV one night about 10 years ago and tried to buy it but it proved elusive. I happily paid my $5 and watched it as soon as I got home. Some people class this as a teen sex comedy but Some Girls is much more than that.
The plot involves college student Michael, who has been invited to spend Christmas with the family of his lost love Gabriella D’Arc. He believes it is her attempt to take their relationship to the next step, but is shocked when she declares that she is no longer in love with him. Thus begins a emotional rollercoaster of a week, as he attempts to rekindle their relationship, while fending off the sexual advances of her two equally attractive sisters, as well as dealing with their stern Catholic mother and eccentric father, (who is writing a book about Pascal and spends the entire film naked, as he cannot be creative while wearing clothes). If this was all there was I wouldn’t have been able to sit through it. There are some obvious metaphors in the film, like the 3 sisters representing Botticelli’s `Three Graces’, but they are subtle enough to not worry about as you are drawn into its two major themes -Love & Lust and Life & Death.
This is explored in Michael’s various relationships with the D’Arc family, but none more so than Granny, Gabriella’s maternal grandmother. Brilliantly portrayed by Lila Kedrova, Granny is introduced when the family go to visit her after one of her many escapes from the hospital. She mistangly believes Michael to be her deceased husband of the same same and is filled with joy to see him again. At first Michael is bemused and doesn’t give it much thought as he continues his single minded quest to win back the fickle and cruel heart of Gabriella, but this soon changes. Granny once again escapes into the wilderness and Michael joins in their frantic search to find her before she freezes to death.
In the end, it is Michael who finds Granny (or rather, Granny finds Michael, trapped in a hole). They find their way to the house Granny shared with her late husband and Michael gains a new perspective on love, as he undresses the soaking wet frail old woman and gets her warm. Still confusing him for her husband they talk about their past and she has new life, radiant just being with the man she loves. I challenge anyone not to be moved by these scenes, at the pure joy on Granny’s face, and Michael’s heart opening to a new world. During my review of John Carpenter’s Starman on the podcast I mentioned that it contained my favourite piece of dialogue that explained the meaning of Love. Well Some Girls has one of the best examples of showing someone falling in Love.
Being nerds we of course had to take advantage of the fact that we were in New Zealand and do some serious Lord of the Rings style sightseeing.
Hobbiton
Our first stop was Hobbiton, the set of The Shire. A tour guide led our group of about 30 people around and offered some fun facts about its development. It was very cool.
The set was constructed in 1999 and used for filming in all 3 films, but when filming was done 2/3 of the set were demolished. Luckily someone was smart enough to realise the money making potential of keeping the site open for tours and the surviving pieces were left for the huge amount of LotR fans to visit. But not long before our visit the site was recreated with brand new pieces in preparation for filming on The Hobbit. Hobbiton was returned to its full glory and we were part of the lucky few who were able to see it before it was closed for filming. In fact, it was closed 3 days after we were there and they are filming there right now!. Because of this we were made to sign confidentiality forms stating that we couldn’t post any pictures on the net or even discuss some of what we saw. Silly, but that’s Hollywood for you. So, that means I wont be able to put any pics in this post and I’m limited in what I can say so I will write only this and move on – it looks awesome!
Our next exposure to the behind the scenes magic of LotR was in Wellington. This personalized tour takes a small group of people in a very cool mini van (electronic doors!) around the LotR filming locations in the Wellington area. Luckily for us we were the only people booked for our tour that day and our guide Mike was a very knowledgeable (of course) and generally awesome guy (bonus!). Part of Mike’s awesomeness was the fact that he was also a nerd. While traveling to the various sites we discussed all kinds of nerd related topics (seriously, his nerd knowledge rivaled my own!) and of course I took the opportunity to plug the site/podcast. These two factors combined were even enough to offset the fact that it was raining for most of the tour. The only thing the rain really affected was the walk to Rivendal so it wasn’t so bad.
So, give a Flat Earth tour a thought if you’re in Wellington, you wont be sorry. It is a great tour. Learn more about Flat Earth Tours here – www.flatearth.co.nz
Here are some of the sights from the tour:
Buckland Forest used in the “Get off the Road”/hiding from the Black Riders scene, falling down the edge after running through the corn field, and where they found the mushrooms
