Halloween for me is like Christmas for a lot of other people, in that I have an idealized version of the holiday and usually wind up finding that it doesn’t live up to my hopes. I’ve always wanted to be the cool house where all the kids come for trick-or-treat, but that’s not going to happen in our current neighborhood. As there are no street lights, the few kids we have in the immediate area typically go elsewhere. In our old neighborhood we were getting upwards of 90 trick-or-treaters on a good Halloween, but here we’re lucky to get 25.

Still, I want to make at least a token effort. I made me a new iPod playlist that I’ve been running here in the office all week, and I put out some of my yard decorations.

I only put out a handful of my old foam tombstones, as the tree in our front yard is so full that it would be hard to see more than a few. I used a couple of my favorites, as well as the “Beelzebub for President” one that only comes out in an election year. However, I did spiff up the display a little with a couple of nifty 3D grave markers that Target offered this year.

Amusingly, as I was setting up the skeleton in the front porch rocker, a pair of door-to-door religious types came up to witness at me. I politely said, “Sorry, not for me,” and fortunately they took the hint. What I really wanted to say was, “Did you miss the Beelzebub for President tombstone? ‘Cause I’m thinking that I’m not the target audience.”

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but only a giant spider can pick your friend’s nose.

Dave General corpses, Halloween, religious absurdity, The Devil

Tiny cat explores big, new world. Our first photo of Tigger. Early 1993.

Soon after we got our first cat, Cupid, we began to feel guilty. It was heartbreaking to leave for work in the morning and know that she’d be alone all day, and it did not help that she always came to the apartment window to watch us go. It was time, we felt, that Cupid had a playmate.

When we went to the local humane society, we noticed a cute, tortoise-shell kitty hanging near the back of the cage. She seemed so tiny and timid, and we were afraid that she would be constantly overlooked in comparison to her more gregarious cellmates. And so we decided to bring her home with us.

Face to face.

Despite her looking nothing like her namesake, we dubbed our new family member Tigger. Partially, this was because we considered her “bouncy,” and partially it was because we were woefully uninspired when choosing cat names back then.

To our dismay, Cupid did not like Tigger AT ALL. She’d walk up to the new kitten and bop her on the noggin with a paw. These early encounters set the two on a path of mild antagonism over the years, though it was later Tigger being the bully.

Tig’s first Christmas.

One day, Tiggy began to exhibit some bizarre behavior. She sat at the window, making a chattering sound with her mouth strangely unhinged. Vic was convinced she was having a seizure, but it turned out to be some manner of hunting instinct brought on by the presence of the birds outside.

Tig’s eating habits were equally odd. It seemed that no food was beyond consideration, and she soon developed a fondness for broccoli. She frequently begged for treats, and also enjoyed the ice chips which fell from the freezer compartment, batting them around the tiled kitchen floor.

Kitten in the sink.

Once we moved to our first house, we discovered that Tig was fiercely territorial. If another cat came near the place, she’d throw herself against the window screens in a rage. It was pretty disconcerting in the middle of the night.

Somehow, she managed to curb this when our third cat, Hobbes, entered our lives a couple of years later. The three had a complicated relationship: Hobbes dominated Tigger, Tigger dominated Cupid, yet Cupid took no shit from Hobbes.

Hobbes finds Tiggy to be a comfy pillow.

Tig was not an especially friendly cat. If she did come to sit on your lap, it was a fairly momentous occasion. She did, however, have the loudest purr we’ve ever heard, and all it took was a stroke or two to rev up her motor. Even in the middle of the night, it was easy to identify when Tig walked into a room.

While we’ve always made frequent use of nicknames when referring to our cats, Tigger accumulated the largest collection, including Tig, Tiggy, Wigger, Wig, Wigs, Wiggy, Wigster and The Purrmeister.

Tiggy wears a wiggy.

Sadly, Tigger had more than her share of health problems. She developed some mysterious lumps which ultimately turned out to be allergy based.

More frightening was the evening back in December 2003 when Vic called to tell me that Tig was having serious issues, breathing heavily and in obvious distress. We rushed her to the emergency vet and found that she had cardiomyopathy.

We were sad to be told that she probably only had six months to live. Even though she’d never been the friendliest cat–we’d gotten Hobbes in part because Tig WAS so standoffish–we realized in that moment how much she meant to us.

“I has a box for sitn.”

Yet Tig surprised everyone by beating the odds, ultimately living more than four years beyond that initial, grim estimate. She had to take more daily pills than the two of us combined, but she proved to be a strong kitty. And she was pretty good about the twice-daily pilling sessions, even if she did occasionally try to hide out atop the kitchen cabinets.

“They’ll never see me up here.”

Unlike the situation when Cupid died last year, we had plenty of warning that things were turning for the worse. We tried everything reasonable that we could to keep her with us, but it became clear this weekend that she was fading fast.

We’d hoped to wait until this morning to have our vet make a home visit, but Tig couldn’t wait that long. And unfortunately, she began to die even as the emergency vets were trying to insert the catheter. Our final moments with her were hasty and traumatic. It wasn’t at all what we’d wanted.

And yet, we have to look at it this way: unlike Cupid, she spent her last days at home with us. And while it’ll never be enough time, we did at least have plenty of opportunity to sit with her while she was alert, and to let her know how much we loved her.

The last picture we took. March, 2008.

Tigger was a part of our family for more than 15 years, nearly five years more than we thought we’d have together. She never quite escaped being the shy kitty at the back of the cage, but we never stopped caring for her.

Goodbye, Tiggy.

Dave General kitties, obituaries

A little over a year ago we lost our first cat, Cupid. Now our second cat, Tigger, appears to be having health problems.

It’s unfortunately nothing new for her; she’s been living on borrowed time ever since we discovered that she had a bad ticker back in December 2003. She’s been getting up to seven pills daily and has far outlived her original six-month prognosis. Tiggy’s had a good run; she’s more than fifteen years old.

Really, her current condition is hard to pin down. For the past week or so we’ve noticed that she’s been lethargic and lacking appetite. Other than that, she’s had no outward signs of illness.

We took her to the vet yesterday for a battery of tests, and everything turned out negative. That’s not really a good thing, though, since it likely means that it’s something not easily treatable. She’s a bit anemic and a bit dehydrated, and she’s lost about a pound.

The doctor suspects cancer, but the only way to tell that would be additional tests that we’d rather not put her through. It’s not as if they could really do anything for her given her age and pre-existing health conditions.

So, for now, we watch and wait and hope, though we’ve resigned ourselves to the likelihood that she may not be with us much longer. Still, she’s previously proven to be much more resilient than anyone believed. In any case, she doesn’t seem to have any obvious distress, and at least she’s at home where she can be comfortable and loved.

Dave General kitties

The first photo of the new Star Trek film cast in costume on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Fuck, yeah.

Dave Sci-Fi freakin' awesome, Star Trek

TV Guide magazine was just bought out. For a dollar. As the article points out, an actual issue will set you back three times that.

Any chance I could buy out Entertainment Weekly? I’ve got a shiny quarter right here!

Dave TV bargains

Over on my work blog, I’ve got a new piece up about alleged media bias.

Dave TV blogs

Star Wars are breaking out all over with a pair of recent projects further expanding the scope of George Lucas’ private universe.

The weekly, computer animated Clone Wars series has begun airing on Cartoon Network. It’s much like the recent theatrical film: it’s impossible for me to become invested in the characters, but at least there are lots of pretty things blowing up.

The most recent episode was rather neat in a way that only old-school fans would likely appreciate, at last paying off a design concept from more than thirty years ago.

In the original Star Wars, one of the Rebel ships was the “Y-Wing fighter” (below, left) which got its name because the top view resembles a capital letter Y. The craft was given a “stripped-down” look, in part to appeal to Lucas’ love of hot rods. The idea, as related in books of the day, was that the Y-Wings were originally sleek spaceships that were such a pain to maintain that the Rebel techs removed their outer plating.

I had thought that we might eventually see these sleeker Y-Wings in the prequels, which very deliberately started out with a design aesthetic emphasizing smooth lines and unbroken surfaces. The idea there was that with each subsequent film, the ships would come ever closer to the angular, utilitarian look of the original trilogy. I was sure that Y-Wings would make an appearance in Episode III, and disappointed when they didn’t.

As you can probably gather from a couple paragraphs above, Clone Wars stepped in to complete the circle, with Anakin Skywalker leading a Y-Wing squadron (below, right) in a bombing run on General Grievous’ battle cruiser. It was a nice Easter Egg for us old-timers.

The other recent attempt by Lucasfilm to milk the cash Bantha is the long-gestating The Force Unleashed video game/comic book/novel/toy line. The game was delayed several times, coming out nearly a year after its initially announced due date. (The toy tie-ins arrived on the shelves eight or nine months ago.)

The Force Unleashed is a more ambitious effort than Lucas’ first attempt at building a multi-media event around a non-movie storyline: the ill-fated Shadows of the Empire. This time, the setting is between the two film trilogies, a couple of years before Luke Skywalker’s battle against the Death Star. Luke’s nowhere to be found, though; instead the main character is “Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice.” In another fan-friendly nod to us old-school fanboys, his nickname is Starkiller, Luke’s original surname in the early script drafts.

Starkiller isn’t just some punk farmer whining about his moisture vaporators. Don’t get me wrong, he is a whiny punk, but he’s also the baddest-assed bad-ass that ever swung a lightsaber. The game amps his Force powers up to absurd levels; Episode III Yoda’s got nothing on this emo kid.

The storyline (which is presumably fleshed out in the novelization) has an interesting core, with Vader sending Starkiller out in search of the remaining hidden Jedi Masters, all the while plotting to use his apprentice to overthrow the Emperor. (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD: skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know.) The twist is that the entire thing is an elaborate plot orchestrated by Vader (with the Emperor’s blessing) to lure the Empire’s enemies into open rebellion. Starkiller is tasked to found the Rebel Alliance so that Vader can capture the lot for public execution. Naturally, the apprentice turns on his masters and frees the prisoners at the cost of his own life. I don’t know that I find it necessary for the Rebel Alliance to have a secret origin story, but I can appreciate the irony of the Emperor setting into motion the army that eventually brings down the Sith. (END SPOILER.)

In Entertainment Weekly’s review of the game, they compare it to the Grand Theft Auto series, something I hadn’t considered. However, it makes a lot of sense; in both games, you play a morally-challenged character who kills hundreds, possibly thousands of sentient beings. And like GTA, I’ve found it quite impossible to NOT accidentally kill innocent bystanders. When our emo boy starts whipping out his Force, he wrecks pretty much everything in sight.

One difference here, though, is that in The Force Unleashed, you’re supposed to be the good guy. Sort of. When you start out you’re very much in full-on Sith-wannabe mode, not letting anything stand between you and the Jedi you’re hunting. But as the story progresses Starkiller goes on a familiar redemptive path…except that the murder rate never decreases. Sure, most of the time you’re Force-choking stormtroopers or (my favorite) tossing them into the Death Star’s planet-destroying laser, but there’s almost no one, friend or foe, that you don’t wind up either trying to kill or claiming as collateral damage.

Not saying that I’m not enjoying it. I especially like the visceral feel of the Wii version, in which you literally punch the air to create your Force blasts. And throwing stormtroopers into bottomless chasms never gets old. But, as was the case when Darth Vader’s one redemptive act in Return of the Jedi somehow washed away twenty years of sins, it’s a little hard to swallow that I’m getting away with being the hero after my epic mass murder spree.

Dave Star Wars Clone Wars, geek stuff, Star Wars, Wii

Last Friday’s session in my ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaign began with the players breaking a cardinal rule of RPGs: “Don’t split the party.” Separating into two groups is bad for the DM, who then has to keep both subgroups engaged even though one isn’t “there” at the moment. It’s also bad for the players, who are much more likely to find their characters outgunned by whatever opposition their DM had balanced with a larger group in mind. Note to my playgroup: telling me that you’re splitting the party in a manner which suggests that you know better does not actually help.

So it was that the paladin, wizard and ranger went to check out the new shipment of goods at Marali’s Fine Imports, while the warlord and rogue investigated a report of a “beastman attack” outside the Punt & Pole Tavern near the waterfront. The previous day, a bestial humanoid had slashed the throat of a patron leaving the establishment and fled into the night.

Arriving at the tavern, they soon encountered Meepo, an enthusiastic, relatively innocuous kobold (a small, lizard-like humanoid) who had recently been kicked out of his usual pub after an altercation. Meepo fancies himself a brave adventurer, and that–plus his race’s worship of dragons–caused him to quickly latch onto the dragonbord warlord Kesek.

Meanwhile, Marali–a comely half-elven proprietor–asked the other group to talk to a shady character who had been lurking outside her shop the past couple of nights. The stranger was rude and gave them a bad feeling. He eventually ambled away but soon returned in the company of a sinister, hooded figure with eyes that glittered in the half-light.

The players asked about Marali’s recent shipment from the north, and learned that there was one item which wasn’t listed on the manifest. It was a bowling ball-sized, black sphere which had a mysterious sigil etched upon it: the mark of the long-dead “Night Wizard,” Tor Shok. They offered to borrow the sphere and take it to the Arcane Assembly for identification, but Marali was hesitant to let such a potentially valuable item out of her hands.

By this time, the two groups had reunited at Marali’s, but they soon split up again, with the ranger and rogue tracking the hooded figure through the dark alleys, while the others stayed behind to guard the store. This proved to be an error in judgment, as did Green Leaf the ranger’s attempt to “distract” their quarry by tossing down a magical bauble which flashed into a bright light.

Well aware that he was being followed, he led the pursuers into an ambush, as four human-appearing creatures came at them from two sides, their faces morphing into bestial features as they attacked. One of them slashed at Cynfael the rogue’s throat with its fangs and began to lap his blood. Things were looking grim, as the twosome were cornered.

Fortunately, Green Leaf’s frantic whistle carried to Marali’s shop, and the rest of the party was able to catch up surprisingly fast. (Brave, little Meepo was left behind to hold down the fort.) While Cynfael was temporarily brought down, the creatures were soon routed, each exploding into dust as they died. Green Leaf fired an arrow at long range and pierced the heart of the last, fleeing vampyr.

As the hooded figure had dallied to watch the fight, the heroes were able to follow him as he fled into an abandoned temple to Corellon. They burst through the doors to find him reunited with his fellow vampyr from outside the shop, and backed up by several skeletons and zombies which he summoned from the ruined crypt below.

During the battle, Tuk’-Ja the wizard proved a danger to his own friends through his overenthusiastic use of area effect spells, but eventually the minions were dusted and Daggas, the vampyr Death Master was cornered and beheaded.

As the heroes licked their wounds, an arrow infused with electricity struck the floor nearby with a crash of thunder. Another vampyr hung upside down from a bell rope, firing his magic longbow.

Cynfael scurried up a ladder and jumped for the hanging rope, while the other characters discovered a hidden stair. They confronted the powerful vampyr on the ledge outside the bell tower.

This unnamed foe was especially tricky, enshrouding himself in a cloud of darkness. However, outnumbered and outmatched by the assembled characters, he volunteered to throw himself from the ledge, smashing to the ground below…then inexplicably vanishing!

As our heroes reach “second level” at last, they still don’t know the purpose of the strange sphere, nor the extent of the vampyrs’ influence in Boswin.

But that’s an adventure for another day…

Dave Games Dungeons & Dragons, Meepo, monsters, vampires

Two things about today’s Foxtrot:

1) This is pretty much the feeling I had when I was digging through my miniatures for Friday night’s D&D session and realized that I only had one vampire.

2) I would bet cash money that this is the first time the Sunday funnies have namechecked a Warhammer Khorne Bloodletter.

Dave Games Dungeons & Dragons, geek stuff, Warhammer

This political ad seems to be running every time I turn on the TV. It’s from Colleen Callahan, the Democratic candidate for Illinois’ 18th Congressional District.

And every time I see it, I want to say “Really? The ‘Daisy’ ad? You’re invoking perhaps the most infamous political commercial of all time to go after some schmoe who has about as much chance of starting a nuclear holocaust as I do of perfecting mind-over-matter?” I mean, I give her points for knowing her history, but surely there must be something more relevant to run on.

Dave News end of the world, marketing b.s., politics