Garbage, Ghost Hunting and Gods and Men

Many thanks to everyone who posted about the Troxy. It was indeed small enough that the station coped with the crowds and we got back to Waterloo for the last train but one.

Garbage were utterly awesome. They played for just under two hours, mainly their older hits but with a few tracks from their new album (three or four, I think). Shirley Manson was very good - both singing and addressing the audience. My favourites included Bad Boyfriend, Stupid Girl and Only Happy When It Rains. I think they played almost all their hits - The World Is Not Enough was included, although Bleed Like Me was not.

I have been very busy roleplaying of late:

• Ghost Hunting At The British Museum - My one-off game involved six characters being sent on a ghost hunting expedition in the British Museum by a mysterious corporation. The second run-through (the first was at KrysCon) has been completed and was successful. Best of all, the resulting game was very different. It is the most prep-intensive game I have ever run and I will probably not sink that much time into a game again, but I wanted to try it and I think it was worth it (plus I really enjoyed my research at the British Museum). It was a series of puzzles - namely how to get rid of individual ghosts - all building towards a larger puzzle (which, among other things, involved a vortex stretching between heaven and hell (the Dark Fall) and time travel). The concept was, very loosely, based on the computer game Dark Fall series, although playing those games would not have helped the players solve the plot. I felt that the six characters worked and were generally different to each other. There were three ghost hunters: the most experienced (quisalan / wildrogue), the one who was suspicious about the company (zandev / chrestomancy) and the one with their very own ghost (leathellin / TheHattedOne). There were also three others: the company employee (chrisvenus / ao_lai), the museum employee (smiorgan / lanfykins) and the student who could see ghosts everywhere since a road accident where a pedestrian died (huggyrei / bateleur). There were a number of amusing coincidences - for example, precisely one case got smashed in both games and it was the same case smashed by the same character (zandev / chrestomancy) for no reason I could understand. There were also an awful lot of differences; mainly resulting from the characters' reactions to the corporation, to the ghosts and to the time-travel element. ao_lai won the angst award in the second game, while huggyrei got it in the first. The first party all decided to take up the employment offer, while the second party were looking to Bring Down the Company as a lifetime goal. All-in-all, I really enjoyed both runs and many thanks to all the players.
• Meteor - There has been another pair of Meteor games and some interesting developments. This time, the party in the north had a comparatively quiet game which one of the party spent wondering whether they were the bad guys due to the circumstances and the weapon they had recently acquired (although there was also a God vs character single combat). Meanwhile, the party in the south spent most of the session trying to escape the battle/bloodbath which resulted in an impressive number of dead gods. I think it's safe to say that the Prayer to the Eight needs updating.
• Revolution - Incoming: one burning village. Enough said.

On my train journeys, I have read The Ring of Solomon (The Bartimaeus Sequence) by Jonathan Stroud (a prequel) and really enjoyed it. Having read it, I realise I have missed Bartimaeus and I am now re-reading the original trilogy. Ring of Solomon is nicely self-contained and I liked the unfolding of the story and the characters involved.

In the last month, we have seen two offerings from LoveFilms (13 Assassins and Of Gods and Men):

• 13 Assassins - I am not quite sure where this recommendation came from, possibly a work colleague. It is set in ancient Japan and is about how 13 Samurai (OK, 12 and a random) try to take out 200 guards and their VIP. It is an odd mixture of realism/horror (the early scenes) and cinematic fights/bloodbath (the later scenes). I quite liked it, but felt the meshing of styles did not quite work. The film received excellent ratings, but I do not quite agree.
• Of Gods and Men - This was Kermode's number two film of 2010 (I think). He heaped a great deal of praise upon it, so we watched it. What I had not appreciated was that it is a "true life" tale - a film type I do not really like. The result? Great acting, interesting setting but... that irritating lack of resolution that too many true story films have.

On the video game front, I finally went back to The Void and completed the hard ending - the nameless sister. I appreciate that no-one else on my friends list has played this, so I will just say I was very pleased to do it and I will now put the game down and not return to it. I next plan to play Dark Fall: Lost Souls.