Da Dominion: Home of DOMINIONCAST!

Like Batman being remade from zero, so too is 007, and thankfully so. Brosnan may well be my favorite non-Connery Bond but his snarky Remington Steele style no longer fit’s these times of economic recessions and salient global threats - as opposed to diamond smuggling, nuclear Russian satellites and Grace Jones sex. An old franchise can only benefit from a fresh perspective and while Casino Royale brought that to Bond’s franchise, Quantum of Solace is nice continuation on this learning how to be an international badass amidst a Truly messed up world. It’s time for a fresh start.

Ironically, the beginning credits sequence of QS was my least favorite in a long time. “Another way to Die” was sung by Alicia Keys - whose voice doesn’t sound right singing rock - and Jack White whom to many can’t really sing despite being a good writer. Yet, White’s title and lyrics don’t really seem to go with the movies themes that much. Another way to die: shot, stabbed, drowned in oil, or making out with a giant dude with metal teeth; confirmed, there are a lot of ways to die in a Bond flick - the fuck else is new?

Chris Cornell’s “You know my Name” was perfect for Casino Royale - describing and animating the world of kill or be killed a new double 0 agent runs and guns through like a house of cards while killing poorly detailed goons along the way. My favorite of all the credit sequences being Cheryl Crow’s “Tomorrow never Dies”, which I’ll pop in the DVD just to hear and repeat several times. Still, points to Quantum’s opening for brining back the tastefully shadowed naked chicks.

Some have found the new Daniel Craig Jimmy B a bit too moody and perhaps even feminized. They may have a point since the super macho philanderous smirking killer Bond of the past being made into a determined man that’s still able to feel the job’s cost in terms of his own humanity is indeed feminine by comparison - the way a Walther PPK is girly compared to a Smith and Wessun 500. Notice though that the PPK will still kill you. It‘s not like James is keeping a tear-stained journal of his grievous sins and calling back the exotic chicks he shakes and stirs. Actually, he‘s more into the serious relationship - until the chick betrays your love for a world class asshole then dies from her own plotting and you‘ve got to make a second movie to come to terms with it (see Casino Royale).

Ok, he’s not keeping a diary, but his martini’s are being diluted with British tears - just don’t show me, please. He’s still learning how to seduce innocent women and inadvertently get them killed for the love of his big seven (one down so far in Solace).

The vicariously entertaining playboy of yester year is mostly gone. Bond is simply more realistic now, less dashing and more out cold. Villains are not inexplicably rich crackpots with crazy super devices of world destruction/domination. They’re businessmen taking advantage of culturally relevant catch phrases to seize power globally under the guise of helping the planet. I haven’t seen a fancy gadget in two movies now, and nor do I really miss them since we are in the Jack Bauer high skill needs little hardware paradigm of foreign policy. If Roger Moore would be tasked with hunting down Bin Lade, Craig’s Bond would be going after the head of Haliburton and maybe even a certain villainous Vice President of a former British colony - and I’m not talking about former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada A. Anne McLellan either, I said former colony.

Despite all this post-modernization, we still have enough good old-fashioned action in the Quantum of Solace. I think there’s a chase scene involving every mode of travel except skateboard and Chocobo - there was this Emu ranch scene … nah, I wish. The fight choreography was directed with the Jason Bourne style of Rapid fu and scenery was well implemented in the tension of the scenes. Fights on narrow Italian mountain roads, boat chases through high traffic ports, scaffolding duels - moody or not this is the most athletic stunt saturated Bond we’ve seen in a while. Also, like any great action movie the talky dialogue parts are sharp with enough gravitas to give weight to the central conflicts, therefore raising the stakes for the action.

See Quantum of Solace even if you have to trek across a desert to view it in a burning hotel.

Alien - the juxtaposition of that which is “normal” with the abnormal. Specifically those beings originating from far stars and filling our movies and TV with coolness. Listen as Hunin, Omari, Heaven, your Dominus - and sometimes Rib - wax geeky on those creatures not of this world.

All statments and specualtion made about whether real life celebrites are alien - or just gay - are intended as satirical humor and nothing more. Suck it litigants!

Dominion Cast 13 download (67 mins, 61MB)

Music from Walk’in on Neptune by ADC Level
Rib’s Siesta of Interest
What’s an Alien: Little Wayne, Michael Jackson, Sam Casssel
Cal-el the alien?
Da Borg
Lucas the Great Integrationist
Tracker Paul
Taken with Taken
Suck-Fi Channel
4400
2000-yawn
The Human Perspective of Spielberg
Big mouth, Little mouth

Had I a video clip of what you were imagining, I’d sell it to the media and retire. I don’t, so the writing continues.

The match up is conservative columnist blogger (the title on her seems to devalue us all) Michelle Malkin and progressive news host Rachel Maddow. Donning the banner of amateur journalist, I freely admit my bias before judgment: Michelle Malkin is hot as fuck!

Before you liberal lady readers hit the browser back button and move to delete this page from your favorites, remember that this is not an opinion as you understand it and forgive me - much the way you would excuse your dog for curiously sniffing at garbage. It is simple Y chromosome hardwiring that says that a tan-skinned big mouthed Filipina possess more suitable genes for mating than the lesbian host of the MSNBC show I love so much.

Here comes the gender redeeming magic:

Eeew. Plain ugly. (ASIDE: I Freudian typed “Palin ugly” here in a feat of associative serendipity) See, it doesn’t pay to be polite on Fox. Dr. Hill’s little comment on him being a hero promptly brought on Malkin’s patented eye flare. Jarring enough to give her man McCain flashbacks of his own trial of heroism, the same expression a snake makes when spotting a fat mouse, this an expression of annoyance at being taken off stride - notice she stammers a bit before returning to her preprogrammed Fox News attack kata.

Calling it a “kata” isn’t racist, since that’s a Japanese term and she is not. This is racist:

Vietnamese joke? Nope. The voice is that of a World War II Filipino dance hall girl - READ YOUR HISTORY! Malkin did, and is a supporter of the Japanese-American internment of that time. That was for my Nipponese citizens, Do itashi mashite.

She tried to conflate Brook’s valid observance into hatred of the troops and Hill picked it up easy and batted it down by pointing out “That’s spin! This is the No Spin Zone!” This shut her down and she could only make that uber-patriotic platitude but the cold look on her face after uttering thanks to Dr. Hill said to me, “Next time, mafucka. Next time.” It was hard to find a more recent clip of Malkin gnawing at someone elses dignity. Perhaps because Fox recently leaves her to be only consulted by their other talking heads - the eye flair is murder for ratings. Ever see her and Ann Coulter on the same show? Could she be Coulter in a woman suit?

Exhibit B: a guest accusing her of fluff journalism essentially ambushes Rachel Maddow. David Frum is former speech writ … word-maker for Bush II; and though the Texan fumbled through them, their author is no rhetorical lightweight.

“False equivalence”, the elegant edge she threatened him with for more than half the exchange, Frum knew her snarky remarks about Palin and McCain couldn’t be equated to “BOMB OBAMA!” from anti-elitists. He excused McCain of guilt but she stuck with the ipoint that as supposed party leader he had the responsibility to raise level of the discussion with his followers.

He rallies to ask why Rachel doesn’t have conservatives on to speak for themselves. Her paraphrased response: “Because they’re chicken shit!” All Frum could do was politely nod after failing to trigger a Fox response: shouting you’re a liar, cutting your mic, threatening you with a luffa. Maddow took the elitist progressive liberal high ground reply of simply admitting her disagreement.

From this, we conclude in opposition to our built in masculine objectification with a statement Maddow and Malkin may equally find sexist: Rachel Maddow is one sexy bitch.

Ever since the creation of D&D, players have been struggling to get the game out of that disgusting fantasy garbage setting and style. Swords, orcs and halflings - what about terrorists and mafia goons? Too vulgar for Tolkein I’m sure, the elitist!

Traveler took players to the stars; Vampire let them play monsters and Paranoia featured ways to backstab your friends in creative but suddenly inevitable betrayals. D20 Modern came out as a way to demonstrate the flexibility of the new D20 system, when other games had been modeling contemporary action in far more interesting styles for years.

I’m changing my D20 Future campaign to the 4th edition D20 rule set, for the most part. Why? I like the simplistic design of 4e. If you prefer 3.X D20, that’s fine. Here, have a seat next to the second and first edition players in the RPG nursing home. Diner is at 3:00 and if you don’t poop yourself I’ve got a nice bowl of rice pudding for you, ok buddy? For the rest of you trendsetters, let’s start at the basics: character design.

Classes
The essential table for all Modern classes is you get a talent at first level and bonus feat the next, with the pattern repeating. This is all right. Experience progression as is I can live with. Bonus feat every third level, sure. Plus one to and ability every four levels, ok. Reputation as a stat I dislike. It should be left to Knowledge skill rolls with difficulty that decreases the more awesome a character is.

What I mostly dislike are the different crucial stats that vary per class, the varying rates of advancement in different areas. I like the one time bonus that scales with level. Strongs get +1 to Fortitude and Reflex, Fasts get +2 to Reflex, Toughs +2 to Fort, Smart get +1 Willpower and Reflex, Dedicated stalwarts have +2 Will and +1 Fort, those Charismatic bastards have +1 Will and Reflex. The Defense stat is replaced by the Reflex defense - a small nod to Saga Star Wars - armor replaces the half level modifier when worn. The versatile ability modifier, Strength or Constitution - Dexterity or Intelligence - Wisdom or Charisma, will be in this version as well. Dump stats, schmump stats.

Multi-classing doesn’t exist in 4e, bit is essential to the Modern character: I’m a blogger/GM/pimp for example - yeah, some fantasy elements remain. I’m thinking the bonuses add up for classes, but don’t stack: a Strong/Fast would have +2 Fort, +1 Reflex and +1 Defense; getting a Tough level on top of these yields nothing extra.

Feats will in general work as written in the Modern core rulebook, in general. Certain attacks will translate into At-Will abilities and others will target abilities (now half your character level plus modifier) and defenses. Proficiency will grant +2 to relevant weapons ability rolls, instead negating the -4. Talents will pretty much remain as written and take the niche of powers in the new D&D. Modern characters don’t have awesome powers unless the go into advanced/prestige classes or have racial abilities or deals with Satan/lobbyists. I have expanded the Talent options for classes to make things interesting.

The formula for your skill points determines the amount of trained skills you get at first level. Just don’t multiply to get those old skill points. Following the 4e trend ability requirement lightening, Intelligence or Wisdom can be used to determine extra skills. Since I’ve consolidated some of the skills - the number of skills you can be trained at have to be altered: Strong 3+ Int or Wis modifier, Fast 3+, Tough 3+, Smart 7+, Dedicated 5+ and Charismatic 5+. The consolidated skill list looks like this.

Trained skills modifiers equal half your level plus 5 plus ability modifier; untrained skills are basically just ability checks. Whenever you gain a new class you gain you’re Intelligence or Wisdom modifier in new trained skills from the new class that are under modified by the classes core ability. Strong character with a 14 Wisdom (+2 modifier) that gains a level of Fast can chose two new trained skills from the Fast list that are modified by Dexterity.

Hit points are the maximum for first level added to your Constitution score. I still like a some chaos in my HP advancement, save some tapioca for me, I’m going to replace the flat hit die though with these rolls for PCs to prevent fate rape: 1d6, roll 2+1d4; 1d8, roll 2+1d6; 1d10, roll 4+1d6. More detail will be given in following articles on this.

I think this is a good start, or a horribly unbalanced waste of three hours akin to the mental equivalent of masturbation to a woman later revealed to be a dude. Next up I’ll go into combat updates and then those damn FX powers. How’s it looking so far?

Last night I’m yanking out chest hairs with a pair of tweezers to stay up (see last Decree) long enough to see the debate. The hairless patch is shaped like two overlapping capital D’s, like Daredevil’s symbol but mine could stand for Da Dominus! At the rate I grow body hair, it might as well be a tattoo - so consider it meaning “Devoted Digg”. I did it for you citizens and secret readers.

SPECIAL ANOUNCEMENT: Effective immediately - after the completion of this article - I will be suspending all jokes made at the expense of Republican Arizona Senator John Sidney “Damn those gooks” McCain III out of respect for the death of his presidential candidacy, and perhaps political career. Really at this point piling on McCain is like beating a dead elephant, but I draw the line at defleshing his bones for their precious ivory value. This is very tempting though since commodities are now worth more than their ounce weight in shares of Google stock, but the man was a vet damn it!!

For those of you that missed the debate for richer sources of entertainment, let me sum it up this way: Obama came off like Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, composed with reasonable humility, and McCain, with his attempts at humor andfolksy platitudes, came off like a cross examined Reverend Brady in Inherit the Wind. I guess Tom Brokaw was Spencer Tracy in either film, though Obama didn’t fuck his daughter - at least during the debate.

I don’t know why the senior citizen senator wanted a town hall format. Was he counting on Barack being unable to field basic questions, like a governor or something, or did he want the sympathy points of being seen stiffly limping around the stage swinging wild rhetorical haymakers as his oppoenent calmly and measuredly kicked his cane out from under him? All while he spoke the junior senator sat there with a look on his face of mixed patience and admiration like you’d watch grandpa steadying himself to cut the Thanksgiving turkey. The elder Republican’s points received from the audience the reception one would expect of mangled chunks of breast meat.

To be fair, both candidates did some evasions and convenient attacks. I refer you to Fox News for Obama’s closet-terrorist egg headed faux passes (I ain’t French) and to MSNBC for McCain’s crotchety jingoism. I’m no journalist - real writer nor comedian for that matter - form your own opinions. I, myself and on behalf of those citizens whom have surrendered their will to me, believe it’s effectively curtains for everyone’s former favorite lone wolf Republican badass. Then again, this could be the Barack O’Bradley effect in action - or so the pundits muse to keep us interested.

What say you? Comment below