Bad movies and boxer shorts

Father's Day, and I'm truly touched. My family loves and appreciates me, of that there is no doubt. How did they choose to show that this year? Well, my wife asked me what I'd like, and I replied that I wanted some new boxer shorts. Please excuse my vulgarity, but that was my answer. That, and I also let her know that I would be ordering a new roleplaying game in the coming days (see below).

From my sons, I received the following:

• the second expansion to Munchkin Cthulhu
• Little Debbie's version of Twinkies
• two decks of Yu-Gi-Oh cards
• two really awesome greeting cards about farts

Now, the details:

1. Munchkin Cthulhu 3: Unspeakable Vaults - This purchase means that there are only three fragments of the Munchkin franchise that we do not own: Munchkin 6: Demented Dungeons, Munchkin 7: More Good Cards and the one my wife & I really want, The Good, The Bad, and the Munchkin (western themed game). We are marketable that way. Hmm. I never noticed the similarity of "marketable" and "mark" before. We even have the new 'boosters' "Fairy Dust" and "Waiting for Santa", although the boys don't know it yet!
2. Little Debbie snack cakes - This was a very thoughtful gift from my oldest, but the story behind it pisses me off; see my supplemental post on the subject.
3. Yu-Gi-Oh - My sons each selected a pre-built YuGiOh Structure Deck for me from their vast collections. This way, I have two decks with which to practice my combat gaming. I'm up against two experts here, so this gift is a very gracious gesture on their parts. They want to make it easy for me to join in their hobby; I love it.

For me, Father's Day wouldn't be complete without a couple of bad horror movies. I treated myself to the newest episodes of Doctor Who, which, this season, is falling deeply into the abyss of suck. I also took in the scifi time warp movie Triangle. It was better than I expected, once you accept the fact that it's about a temporal anomaly, and therefore not likely to stand up to plot scrutiny. I also watched American Psycho 2, but I really don't want to talk about it.

My other Father's Day pursuit is the new RPG, Icons, by Steve Kenson, published by Adamant Entertainment. Kenson created this game to fill a void in the current array of superhero roleplaying games. While there are several great game systems out there for supers roleplaying (namely, Mutants & Masterminds), there weren't any games out there to address the need for "pick up" gaming - being able to roll in with friends and spontaneously play a superhero RPG.

Icons fixes this. Steve Kenson based this game on elements that he liked from all the various older games from the 80's and 90's. The thing I like best are random character generation and roleplaying Aspects (taken from the FATE system). I'll probably wax more poetically on this in the future, after I have a hard copy of the new game.

Now reading & drinking: Bimbos of the Death Sun and Legend Brewery's Brown Ale