Category: Time

A Mystery Finally Solved!

August 19, 2015

I like Mark Gatiss. While there’s no doubt he’s a bit of a genre gadfly, he’s certainly literature, accomplished, and seems to share a lot of my interests. A lifelong fan of horror and science fiction, he’s forged a career in writing and acting that includes such shows as (new) Doctor Who and Sherlock. I’ve liked most of his work, read a couple of his books, and watched (or listened to) quite a few of his documentaries. In short, this is a guy worth paying attention to. Plus, Jon Pertwee is His Doctor too.

Yesterday I watched his three-episode History of Horror series that he made for BBC some years back. It’s all on YouTube, but if you only watch one episode I recommend the second. As I watched it yesterday I felt a great sense of relief wash over me as a lifelong mystery was solved.

Let’s cut back about 30-something years. It was a dark night, past our bedtime, and mum and dad had started watching a horror movie. Being a bit of a (nascent) buff, I wanted to watch as well, and sat down with them to enjoy it. I recall shots of fields and forests, and someone plowing a field, and then a terrifying and eerie shot of a skull with a living eye in it. This very shot, to be specific:

It terrified me, and I’m sure you can see why. Mum quickly changed the channel and packed us off to bed, but I didn’t forget the image quickly. In fact I never forgot it, and have wondered for my entire life what the film was and why the farmer found this in his field and what happened next! I’d made attempts over the years to deduce the identity of the film, and have watched countless british horror films of the 1960s and 70s always wondering when – if! – I’d find the one with this unforgettable image.

Until yesterday the mystery was unsolved. But thanks to Gatiss’ documentary, I now know the identity of the film:

The film is called Satan’s Skin or The Blood On Satan’s Claw and was made in England in 1970. It seems like an entirely disturbing and remarkable horror film about a rural village influenced to depravity and evil by The Devil. I think it’s quite right that my mum didn’t let me watch it 30+ years ago!

Of course now I know the identity of the film the next step is to actually watch it. This may prove difficult due to the DVD being out of print and the Blu-Ray being UK region only (and very expensive). It’s not available on Amazon prime either. But I’m a patient sort, and it’s now added to my list of other films that I intend to one day sit down and enjoy. I wonder if I’ll find it as creepy now as I did when I was a child?

Probably Of Interest Only To The Bear

July 18, 2015

I haven’t made a World of Warcraft post in ages since I stopped played about 2 years ago (Sep 10, 2013 to be precise). Blizzard have been relentless in trying to get me to return, offering me free game time several times over the years. Mostly I ignore the offers, but yesterday I redeemed a free week and logged on to see what has changed.

Here’s what I saw upon login:

Of course there has been a new expansion added as well. I found it interesting they don’t mention that.

A couple of UI buttons were highlit with big glowing help arrows. One was the ‘collections’ button, that contains the pet, mount, toy and heirloom collections. Here’s a shot of the toy collection:

And here are the heirlooms:

There are so many mounts in the game now (>400 I think!) it’s just a bit crazy. The new ones added in the expansion are mostly boring reskinned wolves and pigs, but this guy caught my eye:

Look at the cost! Many of the new mounts seem excessively pricey. I guess Bliz wants to reduce player wealth.

Speaking of wealth, the other UI button they were directing me to was the in-game shop, where you can buy mounts and pets…

Or other things like game-time tokens ($20 each) that can be sold on the AH (~24k gold apiece) or even a $60 – sixty dollars! – level boost:

I wonder if they only priced it that high to make the additional cost of the expansion (which includes one boost) seem like a deal?

Anyway I had to see the new character models, which were billed as a big draw. For comparison, here’s a shot of Momomo (my main character) from back the days of the old models:

And here she was, all ready for some styling, immediately upon logging in today:

It’s not a massive difference is it? The short hair and weird face were not to my liking though, so I tried a few looks…

Before settling on this:

The fancy new character models are underwhelming. For starters the characters still look quite dated due to the limitations of the armor. And secondly the vast majority of characters have their faces covered by big bulky helmets (or shoulders) so you never see the new faces anyway. Not a selling point in my opinion.

Since I don’t have the expansion – and don’t intend to buy it now – playing the game stuck at level 90 is a bit like getting a free ticket to the movies but having to leave after the trailers. There wasn’t really anything to do that wasn’t available back when I quit, so I got bored very quickly.

I did have one quest I was always meaning to solve, so I went and beat up this dude:

They have added some sort of buff when it comes to fighting lower-level monsters (including raid bosses), which made Black Temple a faceroll. Which is good, since I’ve forgotten how to play and the class has changed so much I couldn’t really be bothered to relearn 🙂

Oh, and the game is dead. There wasn’t many people on at all (including in the capitals) and the guild seems to only have a dozen or so people that play:

So my free week didn’t keep my interest more than 24 hours. I parked Momo on her pretty sparkling horse (obtained from playing Hearthstone of all things) and said goodbye once again:

I’m sure one day I’ll buy the new expansion(s?) and return again. Just not today!

The 30 year old Zoid

May 14, 2015

A few weeks back I went to a local convention and bought this:

I’m sure I don’t have to explain why, but in case you’re having a senior moment…

This, my friends, is a Zoid. Specifically from the series called ‘Robo Strux’, which were the US Zoid rereleases from 1985. Zoids are robot animals (often dinosaurs or predatory cats) and I’ve always liked their design. As a child we were too poor for me to ever own one, but I’ve been remedying that in recent years! I was agog to see such an old one for sale at my local con, and my agog-level doubled when I discovered it was unmade. A quick ebay search told me his price (at which I first baulked) was low, so I snapped it up. I was a very happy man that day.

Unquestionably the value of this product was mostly due to the fact it was still unmade and almost complete (only the sticker sheet was missing). Were I a fanatical collector, I would have put it somewhere safe and been happy in the knowledge I owned it. But I bought it to make it, and this past weekend I did. Here’s what was inside the box:

And this was between the pages of the manual:

So it was purchased in NYC back in March 1987, almost certainly for $9.99. That’s about $21.50 in todays money. Which is much less than I paid 🙂

The basic construction of the kits is remarkably similar to today’s models. There were several runners, molded in 5 different colours. It was snap together, and very easy to assemble with only cutters and a file (to remove the flash). However since the model is motorized and the legs need to move, some pieces were loose against each other and held on by interesting rubber caps:

Even after 30 years, the rubber was still perfectly pliable.

As a kit designed for children, there weren’t nearly as many pieces as one of the ‘High Grade Master Model’ kits I’ve been buying recently, but there were still enough to make it interesting and fun. The design was very clever, especially of the legs. Here he is the first time he was able to stand up:

Assembly took me about an hour, and was great fun. I wish the dude at the con had had more of these buggers for sale!

And here he is finished:

Oooh! Dangerous and mighty he looks, but Gordox (or more correctly Gordos) is apparently a specialized command unit more useful for his long-range sensor and communications than his offensive abilities.

He’s also a bit slow…

Isn’t he cute!

Robot Claw