Sep. 8th, 2005

jack: (Default)
I went to games evening. It was fun. I met several old friends I haven't seen for a while (particularly Neil, but also Tom and others) and met new nice people. Ian swears he's seen me there before, but I don't *think* I've ever been.

We played a pattern-matching game which I was awful at. Visualise, where you have a score of dice with pictures/glyphs on and have to form phrases from them. I started badly but ended ok, with even a couple of puns.

And Apples to Apples. Last time I was hopeless, but here I got the highest score or nearly highest score, partly by ruthless psychological tactics such as physics arguments, blatant flirtation, and reverse psychology.

I have become a loud person. I used to be painfully shy. I remember at a ?MO event spending literally minutes trying to make myself speak to someone I didn't know. Now I talk a lot. But it's overcompensating, too much sarcasm and innuendo, and not enough interest, and not enough talking *to* other people. Can I change *again*?

Magic: The Gathering. I spied on several people's magic game. I'm always intrigued by it, but I think I don't want to wate time now learning. But it's still funny. And there actually *is* a "wrath of god" card: when Cryponomicon proposed cards like "ex-USSR nuclear arsenal" and "Yahweh" I thought it was *joking*. OTOH MD *did* explode a nuke in a roleplaying campaign, to not much effect, though if we'd been a bit more secretive about it it might well have been a marvellous kamikaze run.
jack: (Default)
There are some very good adaptions of books[1] (LOTR, Harry Potter, Titus Groan). Are there any canonical examples of films which were better, or different but good?[2]

I've heard suggested a number of Kubric, Stephen King, Philip K Dick examples, but none where I've experienced both. The Birds? Blade Runner? Total Recall? Shawshank Redeption? Carrie? I wouldn't know. Mostly I've seen and enjoyed the films, bar Carrie where I enjoyed the book.

Running Man, maybe. It was an acceptable but unexceptional but enjoyable action film, but changed beyond recognition from the book, which was a pretty good short story by King/Bachman.

Pirates of the Carribean won my award for "Most unlikely film that turned out to be pretty good", but I'm not sure an amusement park ride is a valid comparison.

I guess someone will bring up "Starship Troopers". I quite enjoyed the film in a mindless sort of way, but I'm assured by people who liked the books it's not so much different as directly antithetical propaganda, and I'm not sure if that counts.

Several people said "Clueless", but on the grounds of not liking Jane Austen at all.

Suggestions?

[1] Or comic strips, computer games, amusement park rides, etc.
[2] I'll spare your ears a description of, for instance, the fate in hell that awaits the adaptors of Wizard of Earthsea.

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