Been up my eyeballs in the Book of Fiends all week, after finishing up Black Sails Over Freeport (which is at print, wohoo). Felt a real need to get out last night, so when Ray Winninger invited Nik and I over for dinner and drinks by the fireplace I gladly accepted. Its been micky fricky cold here of late, so the fireplace was appreciated. After several hours of booze and conversation, Nik dozed off and Christine went upstairs to bed. Ray and I then had one of our epic talks about the game industry and game design. Few of my peers these days have the breadth of knowledge and experience that Ray does, so I always enjoy these talks. Nicole roused at 2:30 in the morning and we drove home.

I was awoken today by the burgler alarm; odd, because it wasn’t even on. I went downstairs and discovered that it was beeping because the power was out. Doh. I decided that since the house was already freezing, the best thing to do would be to go back to bed and hope it fixed itself by the time I got up. My slothful plan was vindicated. I no sooner sat upright in bed then the house powered up. Ah, sloth, the underrated sin.

Nik and I went to see Mike Daisey’s play, 21 Dog Years, in the afternoon. It was inspired by Mike’s time working at Amazon and it’s really quite funny. Actually made WotC seem tame by comparison, as its worst corporate excesses were nothing compared to Amazon.

Late in the afternoon, we stopped at Barnes and Noble for awhile and then went to our friend Tim’s house. Time works for Microsoft, has a brand new big house with a huge tv and surround sound, and he was offering up the extended Two Towers for viewing. He and some of his other friends had started early with the Fellowship. Luckily, we showed up between flicks. I may write in more detail about the Two Towers later (or not) but to sum up:

The same things that bugged me in the theater bugged me still (Gimli as laughing stock, adding in new material for no good reason, endless speeches of doom, mischaracterization of Theoden and the Rohirrim), and the extras didn’t seem to make this as good as the Fellowship redo. My favorite addition was the Huorns, who I missed in the original. Adding them in took all of two minutes and I would much rather have had them in the movie the first time around instead of a fourth “speech of doom”. Faramir’s action made a lot more sense with the extra material, though I still question the need for the change in his character and the whole ridiculous Osgiliath sequence. Still not as good as the first movie. I hope the Return of the King is better.

Tomorrow it’s back to the Book of Fiends. Got to finish my development pass so I can finally finish the Nocturnals books. Got way too much to do to still be mucking about with that book.