I stopped by the local Super Target around 9:30 this morning, to pick up a couple of things. The place was crowded wall-to-wall with moms and young children. Every aisle in the grocery section had at least two moms shopping. I picked up some milk and bread for home, and then I walked to the opposite side of the store to look at the toys; moms and babies from one end to the other.

I saw one man, and he, too, had a young child with him. I think I might have been the only customer in the store without a kid along.

Not only was the place full of women, but it was like a social gathering for some. I saw several pairs talking, with their carts parked next to each other, while their children munched on Goldfish.

The situation is probably good for the store, as they were doing a brisk business. It looked like the week before Christmas in there. You just don’t normally think of 9:30 a.m. on a Tuesday to be a big shopping time, but for a very specific demographic, it apparently is.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Viewed: DVD

The people calling themselves and each other “ninjas” seem more like samurai than any kind of stealthy spies or assassins. The only thing particularly “ninja-esque” was the leaping from tree to tree. And there was no scroll at all in the movie. It was a good movie, but why do so many Japanese animation movies have names that seem so unrelated to the story or characters?

The story surprised me by being a political plot as much as anything. There’s plenty of fighting, supernatural powers and stunts, and all the normal badass attitude typical of anime. And there’s also two graphic rape scenes which I didn’t expect.

The animation is decent, but not great. The story gets a little complicated, but not too much so. The action and gore is often over-the-top, but that’s what one expects from an animated film, especially Japanese animation—the medium allows for it, so the story-tellers and artists use it, fully.

Fortunately the dialogue is dubbed so you don’t miss the action trying to read the banter. I know some people dislike dubbed anime, but I prefer it; it’s hard to read and watch at the same time, and I go to and get movies to watch, not to read.

Overall, Ninja Scroll is a good flick. If you’ve never seen anime, this is a good one to start with. It has all the typical and expected aspects of anime, so you’ll get a good feel for what the genre is like by watching this movie.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Here’s a copy of my oldest Dungeons & Dragons character sheet.

This isn’t my first D&D character, just the oldest stat sheet I still have.

This is a Basic D&D character from around 1981. The stats were rolled up with 3d6, in order, and thieves had d4 hit points in BD&D.

Rarkon adventured through the Basic D&D adventure B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, where he made third level, and then the Advanced D&D adventure U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh where the campaign fell apart for reasons I don’t remember.

The DM for that campaign was really wild (read: “psycho”), and the whole experience was too crazy and weird to relate. I’m just showing this old character sheet for the nostalgic warm fuzzy it gives me.

Notice how optimistic I was with writing out the whole range of thieves’ abilities all the way up to level 10.

I had neat handwriting at age 14.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

At the breakfast table this morning, the boys got on a roll of telling silly and nonsense jokes. Here’s how it went:

6 year old: “Why did the rubber duck cross the road?”

3 year old: “Why?”

6 year old: “He wanted to stretch his legs!”

All laugh.

3YO: “Why did dhe wubba duck ross dhe woad?”

6YO: “I don’t know. Why?”

3YO: mumblemumblemumbleMUMBLE! Laugh!

All laugh.

6YO: “Why did the chicken cross the road?”

3YO: “Why?”

6YO: “Because his underwear was falling.”

All laugh.

6YO: “Knock knock.”

3YO: “Who’s dere?”

6YO: “Theodore.”

3YO: “mumbledore who?”

6YO: “Open the door and let me in!”

All laugh.

3YO: “Knock knock.”

6YO: “Who’s there?”

3YO: [looks around the room] “Daddy is at dhe door.”

All laugh.

On and on and on and on and on and on and. . .

Most of the jokes made no sense at all, but they made the boys laugh hysterically. I laughed, too, because of the complete silliness of it all. There were a lot of punchlines involving underwear.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com