Lev Lafayette's journal

Recently had the opportunity at Splodge with caseopaya, severina_242, _zombiemonkey, and cvisors to see the classic Hammer film Horror of Dracula (with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee). A good bit of cheesy horror (the working class Londoner accent complete with Gordon's gin at a Kluj inn would horrify Transylvanians). Later in the week watched the classic Vincent Price flick House on Haunted Hill which was quite clever and finally, wonder of wonders, found the memory card for the Playstation 2 which had been missing for several months and contained four hours of a saved game for Project Zero, certainly one of the best horror games that has ever been produced.

In real world horrors, there has been both the earthquake in Chengdu and a rising death toll (approximately 10,000 mostly in Mianyang) and the effects of Cyclone Nargis in Burma, where the number of dead or missing is over 100,000. The military junta that rules Burma deserves a special award for disgusting behaviour for not only blocking aid workers, but for also holding a particularly rigged constitutional referendum days after the event. An interesting comparison can be drawn between how the contemporary Chinese government is reacting to the disaster compared to their government during the Tangshan earthquake which killed approximately a quarter of a million. Communications technology is a bedrock of an open society.

On topic, there was the kerfuffle over a local Liberal Party 'blog, managed and operated by insiders, criticising leader Ted Baillieu. Although now closed it has been mirrored with history all the way to December. Not only is it amazing to think that it took that long to go through the IP logs, but in the fall-out the conservative's hatred of Jews is once again exposed. An isolated incident? Perhaps not - consider just prior Republican Congress hopefull Tony Zirkle (who, not surprisingly campaigns primarily against pornography and prostitution) decided to attend an Adolph Hitler birthday celebration sponsored by the American Nazi Party. If one was to give a broad summary it would seem that "the left" has a problem with Israel, whereas the "the right" has a problem with Jews.

Apropos there recently has been "some discussion" over an online Harry Potter RPG which called itself "Kristallnacht", which has since changed its name. Personally, I thought it was a great name for the story with enormous potential for thematic references and an oppurtunity to teach people some history via analogy (which is one of fantasy's better uses). In my own gaming worlds, I am pleased to see that a DragonQuest PBeM I am involved in has just restarted, had a good session of Bushido last Sunday and most recently I've started a Powers & Perils PBeM which has developed very quickly. Finally, one of the players in my HeroQuest PBeM has culled the archives into a story representation; it currently runs at 185 pages.