Rune

I succumbed to temptation and bought Rune. (Phantom of the Attic only had one copy, which was somewhat bent and had some miscut pages. Jeff sold it to me for 20% off, which is more or less fair.)

- It is a fun read. It is very witty and self-aware. There are lots of quotable bits, and enough self-awareness to make the lowbrow higher-brow.

- It does have support for novices. There's a random encounter generation mechanism, and a sample adventure with enough encounters for a game. I think it would work for a group that only had one copy of the book.

- There are a lot of errors! I noticed typos, formatting errors, mathematical errors, and errors of references being off. Since my copy of the book is not primo quality as it is, I think I'll write the corrections from the errata page into the book. (Though I think I'll use pencil, in case they change.)

So, anyone want to play a game of Rune some Saturday afternoon? (Saturday, February 9 has particular appeal, since David will be in town.)

The Bread, My Sweet

Lori and I and her parents saw this film tonight.

Wow. I cannot remember ever being so touched by a movie. I had tears running down my cheeks for the last forty minutes, and I'm usually pretty emotionally controlled. But while I felt very sad, I felt calm with that sadness--I wouldn't describe it as "tear-jerking" or "gut-wrenching".

I don't want to say too much more about that aspect for fear of spoilers.

All the characters seemed really human and real. Even the retarded brother was real and human.

In the same vein, the film was very grounded in Pittsburgh--it wasn't a film about some abstract city, it was clearly a film about Pittsburgh, the Strip, Enrico's Biscotti.

I strongly encourage all of you to go see it. (It's playing at the Regent Square theater through February 7.)

And now I'm going to go be quiet with my feelings for a while.
Superficially: it