Kerry Allen

I’m spending an unholy amount of time playing Dragon Fable, an online RPG that runs in your browser using Flash. It’s continuously in development, so there are new quests and areas being added all the time.

The best part is, YOU CAN PLAY A GREAT DEAL OF IT FOR FREE to see if you like it, with no obligation to buy anything ever. There are a few areas you can’t access, some equipment you can’t use, and higher-level quests you can’t complete, but there’s still plenty to play with for free.

I finally had to upgrade because with the free version, you can make only one character, and my daughter really, really wanted to play, too. Plus, I really, really wanted to customize my dragon!

This is probably the first game ever in which I have not preferred warrior class. My mage is kickass (her name is Gnocchi, and her dragon, Dumpling, is fast becoming the scourge of the universe….), and my low-level rogue does more damage with those multi-hit attacks than my high-level warrior ever did. I’m still trying to level up my pirate armor to see what skills that gives me (so far, Scurvy, though not terribly useful, is my favorite, just because it amuses me), and I’m saving my munny for ninja class to try that out. The warrior is just lame, man. (I can’t believe I’m saying such a thing. I’m always Little Miss Hacks-with-Sword!)

The game has its flaws (I particularly wish party guests would level up—not that I don’t appreciate those 3 points of damage Level 2 Robina brings to the team), but like I said before, it’s a work in progress, and the developers factor user input into the upgrades, which is awesome.

Plus, it’s cool to go back and find something new to do on a regular basis, and the developers have a great sense of humor. They make fun of their own spelling errors, and there’s yellow snow in Falconreach right now, and the dumbass paladin exorcised the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future while they were helping you out…

It’s fun. Join me in the geekiness!

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen Blade Runner! It’s a classic! You gotta see it!”

I felt uncultured. Netflix to the rescue.

There’s two wasted hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Harrison Ford is usually a likable guy. Hell, I worship Indiana Jones and Han Solo. In Blade Runner?

1. Creepy forced seduction of a vulnerable, childlike woman.

2. The only “bad guys” he killed were women, one shot in the back as she was fleeing.

3. The “bad guys” kicked the crap out of him, and his response was to run away.

I wanted Rutger Hauer to rip his head off—like in the teen slasher flicks where the “good guys” are too stupid to live, so you cheer when they get shredded.

The “bad guy” performed the one heroic act in the movie.

And then he died.

The moral issue of creating replicants for use as slaves, giving them human emotions and a four-year self-destruct sequence, was not resolved—was barely addressed, in fact. Justice was not served. The only sympathetic character didn’t survive.

It’s pretty much an itemized list of things I don’t want to see in a movie. All it was missing was Tom Cruise.

I don’t need a happy ending in a movie. Braveheart, Gladiator, and 300 are in my Top 20, and not a happy ending among them. Closet Land and The Ring don’t have especially uplifting endings, either.

(How can you kill Martin Henderson, and in such an unattractive way? Yes, he has the worst actor name ever, but do you not see how cute he is, Lilo? And he’s a kiwi. Why is everything hot in Hollywood being imported from Down Under these days?)

The common redeeming factor is some form of triumph for the hero, even in failure, even if it’s only that he never submitted to the villain.

Now I need revenge movies for the guy who told me I had to watch Blade Runner. “Dude, you gotta see City of Angels!” Except I hated that movie, and I’d have a hard time selling it as a must-see.

Got anything that would sound cool to a guy but is really a painful viewing experience?

There is one certainty regarding any formal declaration I make regarding New Year’s goals: I WON’T DO THEM. There has never been a resolution to which I have adhered. For the past few years, I have opted not to set myself up for failure by not stating any aims, ambitious or otherwise, to be accomplished during the subsequent 12 months.

This year, I’ve decided to let the New Year’s jinx do the work for me. Here’s my list for 2008.

1. I will not lose weight.

2. I will not maintain at least minimum standards of household cleanliness.

3. I will not finish my rewrites of Gabe and Jaz’s book.

4. I will not write at least the first draft of Ty and Kendall’s book.

5. I will not come up with better titles.

6. I will not submit to every agent on my list or keep an eye on the ones that haven’t been accepting new clients.

Experience tells me I’ll fail at every one of these by the third week in January without even trying. Damn, but it’s going to be a busy month…

What do you intend to accomplish (or not accomplish) in 2008? Have you ever had any success with the whole NY’s resolution system, or, like me, do you find it merely an enumerated list of failings at the end of the year?