HERMIT PERMIT

08 February 2006

A strange thing has happened: I watched Kill Bill 1 and 2 this weekend with Mon, and for some reason I ended up liking the first better than the second, whereas the first time I saw them it was in reverse. When I first saw the movies this summer in my time in Germany in much the same fashion (both a day apart), I favoured the second Bill because it focussed more on dialogue and strong characterizations. I also adored the western influences.

But the movie didn't hold up to my expectations, or rather, memories the second time 'round. For some reason, it was less 'western' than I had in my mind, while the first movie was still just as much Samurai-slasher. Well, regardless, the movies are still fantastic entertainment that succeed in entertaining every second, with stellar performances of everyone.

Further on this time-scale of my life since the last rant; surprisingly little has happened. My adventurous life had a quaint little weekend followed by a nice start of the week where I continued work on a host of things. One thing, however, came upon my path and I've been thinking of nothing else, frankly.

It's The Kingdom of Loathing; a web-based (MMO)RPG that you can play for free. It's completely generated from stick-figures visually, with similar wanting art everywhere else, but that's part of its unmistakeable charm. It's comparable to other such enterprises as Neopets or some such (friends of mine play this, I never did), just so you know what to expect, if you know that one. It's playable in the browser, you needn't install anything, and it's very addictive.

You get a handful of adventure points every day which you can spend on (let's see if you can guess this) adventures. You've got a map with different sites and locales and towns, and there you can enter woods and sewers and defeat monsters for loot et al. So far it's pretty predictable, but one of KOL's charms is its sharp parody on RPG staples. The currency is MEAT, for example. Classes are named Accordeon Thief, Seal Clubber or Sauceror. Myself, I'm a Disco Bandit. When you start out the game, you get your first assignments from a little birdie on Mt. Noob called the toot oriole.

This is the sort of comedy you can expect. If that's your thing, I suggest you take a look.

Roderick.