Games, Music and LEGO.

My birthday on Monday was a good one. We ate tons and tons of food and Mrs. Mosley got me two fine presents:


Ticket to Ride was a board game we had our eye on for quite awhile (I first heard about it on Defective Yeti). It has been great fun playing it, though Mrs. Mosley has warned me that if I continue to defeat her time and time again, her interest will quickly lapse. Point taken.


The second was a long standing item on my Amazon wish list. It's a great CD, and it helps build the Jazz collection I want little C.C. to have access to when she gets older.



Finally, I purchased a gift for myself. Having determined to get a LEGO set, I was surprised at how underwhelmed I was at the choices available. Nothing seemed to really spark my interest until I revisited their Power Miners series. Perhaps it's that great color scheme. Perhaps it's the incredibly cool wheels. At any rate, I'm seriously thinking of pursuing this line further.

And it doesn't hurt that the two sets I now own in this line have a combined set instructions on the LEGO site.

Nice present.

The trailer comes out on Monday, my birthday. Pixar, how did you know?!?!

A pair of mustache twirlers if ever there were some.

It seems that I'm coming across a number of stories lately with one common element: out-and-out villains. You know; People who you are naturally inclined to boo and hiss at.

First there was Tim Langdell, who I wrote about earlier this week. Here is a guy who copyright a simple company name two decades ago and then decided to torment dozens of folks in his industry instead of, you know, actually making something useful. On that final note, a small update: Some bloggers decided to call his bluff on a recent claim to have created a new video game (and all it took was twenty-five bucks).

The latest bit of outrage falls in my own bailiwick, as it were. Boing Boing and Metafilter both highlighted today the story of Constantine "Connie" Xinos, who states proudly that two of his chief hatreds in life are poor people and libraries. I'll let Boing Boing sum up:

He dislikes being near poor people (he successfully blocked a permit for a senior's home, stating, "I don't want to live next to poor people. I don't want poor people in my town"). He reportedly worked to elect an Oak Brook village council who would shut down the town library, which he also campaigned against. When local kids showed up at town meetings to ask that their library be left open, he is quoted as saying, "I don't care that you guys miss the librarian, and she was nice, and she helped you find books;" and to the library staff to "stop whining."

Words fail, folks. But there is justice in this world. Just as Electronic Arts will likely hand Langdell's ass to him on a platter, so too will "Connie" get his just desserts at the hands of the Teamsters Union. It may not be spiritually healthy, but sometimes Schadenfreude can't be beat.

Stealing from... well, not the best, certainly.

Speaking of DVD cover ripoffs, I came across the TV movie Crusader in the bargain bin the other day. Look familiar?


Another piece of advice for those who would rip off DVD artwork: If you're going to steal a movie's art, at least steal it from a good movie.

They went thadaway!

If you look at enough video covers (as I do), you start to detect patterns. "Patterns" is a nicer way to phrase it. "Rip-offs" is probably more accurate (as I illustrated in a previous post):


But I can appreciate more subtle forms of the art that doesn't just scream "Rip off". Take, for example, a semi-obscure James Coburn movie from 1966 titled Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round. For film buffs, the movie was primarily notable for featuring the first film appearance of Harrison Ford (at the tender age of 23). That's too bad, as the movie is a serviceable caper film all on its own. When I looked it up on the IMDb, however, I was taken by the DVD cover art it displayed:


I did some quick searching and found that, like the DVD covers of most older films, this was new art manufactured from original ads. Two of the original posters are below, the second being where they got the image of Coburn for the DVD cover:


So the thing that interested me most was those arrows pointing left and right. Where did that stylistic choice come from? Well, let's look at the plot. The main character is a con-man and thief who assumes multiple identities and travels back and forth across the United States in the course of the film. All the while, the authorities are in pursuit and doing things like staking out airports to try and apprehend him. Does that plot sound familiar? It should:


It would appear I'm not the first to notice this. DVD Savant beat me to it (smart little bugger that he is), but I can still admire the effort. The DVD of Dead Heat was released only a four months after the DVD for Catch Me If You Can. The release dates are not quite close enough to capitalize on the film's popularity, and the artwork is too subtle to fool people into confusing one for another. No, this is more a subliminal work, and one that I applaud. If only more DVD cover art had such finesse.

Forgive me Kirk Christiansen, for I have sinned.

Well, sinned may be too strong a word, but I am having some regrets for my inaction. Let me explain.

Two weeks ago I was in Target with little C.C. strapped to my chest. I was killing some time while Mrs. Mosley went shopping. As is my habit, I proceeded to hit two sections: LEGO and DVD's. LEGO came first, and as I turned into the aisle, I found a mother, father and son there looking at the sets. Their verbal exchange was a familiar one: Son wants a set and mother is telling him they aren't buying him one today. What wasn't familiar was the reasoning the mother gave. I'm paraphrasing here, but this is the gist of what she told her son:

"I'm not buying you another set. You never build the kits anymore. You build them once and then use the pieces to build something different. You don't need any more bricks."

As I stood there looking at sets of my own, a part of my brain said "Did I just hear that right?". I didn't say anything to the child or either parent. Most of this was because of an already established rule I have formed for such situations. Although I might think it would be cool to discuss LEGO with a kid and show that you can be grown up and love LEGO too, there are two possible reactions from the parents: Either they will think you are a child molester, or they will become irritated by a complete stranger interfering with the "I'm not buying you that set" argument by seeming to take the kid's side.

These aren't the only two possible reactions, of course, but they're likely enough to give one pause before jumping into the conversation. Still, the utter nonsense of the mother's argument should have spurred me to do something.

While doing all of this eavedropping, I didn't look directly at them. Therefore, I didn't see the kid's face to see if there was genuine dissapointment there when his mother made this argument. The mother was, for all intents and purposes, arguing against creativity itself. On the other hand, the kid might have just completely ignored his clueless mom after possibly hearing this inane argument before.

I comfort myself with the likelyhood that it was the later. Shortly after the exchange, they left the aisle after agreeing that the new Space Police line was "stupid" (speak for yourself, kid). He'll probably be fine, and it's a reminder for me to be understanding of such things with little C.C. Don't worry, little girl. I got the Duplos all ready for you.