Evil architecture

 My name is njål and welcome one and all.

Evil architecture has a long and sordid past and place in my heart, for both good and bad. Be it the original prince of Persia, Tomb raider, Resident Evil, or any other video game setting. I will not talk about anti homeless this d time around so worry not about having to Ollie that magic bum.

The noble adventurer caught by the evil vizier and dumped into the dungeons below the palace, now has to escape an absolutely insane labyrinth. One filled with ancient deadly death traps, creepy spooky skeletons, and a couple of clearly lost palace guards out for blood. 

Lara Croft is also living in a completely bonkers world that might just be caught up in the same sinister machinations. Though she is deliberately seeking out these elaborate death traps, they are not simply relegated to odd relics of the past. Even modern architecture suffers from other cruel machinations of a sinister shadow cabal.

Anyone familiar with the demented locations every Resident Evil protagonist have to slog through. Will know that there is something in the drinking water and I am not talking about a zombie virus. Because all of these worlds could be one and the same and are all made by someone absolutely insane. Not Spain in the fourth game took the architecture up to eleven and broke the knob clean off.

 I do believe that in this case the freemasons actually exist as an ever present secret society of cruel architects. People that have from time immemorial shaped the land around us. Who else would spend so much time making the Spencer mansion such a hellhole to travel though, designing traps that never stop, and crazy puzzles. The kind that takes strength and insane acrobatics to traverse. 

That a secret society is behind the scenes and shaping the land around us is indeed nothing but a silly conspiracy, that one fool with a phone can actually ruin. To me the very idea had some merits and is the perfect antagonist, or plot for any kind of setting. Picture this if you will. The hero has gone off the deep end, because the jewel key to the bathroom was hidden behind a one eyed tiger statue. Said figurine can only be accessed through an air duct that must be broken open with a rusty spork. Due to several such series of events the protagonist is now seeking out the source of his misery. The rabbit hole leads to a series of escalating events and some quirky characters scheming against the brick and mortar council. Just something to think about and consider.

Njål signing out #zaceron

Halo episode one rambling review.

 A gaggle of ratty teenagers goes into the dark dreary desert they live in, to get high, despite being told not to do such a thing. Then they spot evil religious alien. Signal flaring the camp of useless ragtag freedom fighters, only to watch the elites kill them all. Then to have the Spartans come to clean up the alien invaders. Who's more concerned with killing useless humans, despite being madsacred by the demon. Who uses about the same kind of caliber rounds the poorly disguised aka 47 uses. Needless to say, normal squishy human guns does no damage to shields, but master chef bullets do. Why he doesn't grab the plasma guns and deplete enemy shields is anyone's guess. The silver lining is that this sequence looks like Halo, complete with shield recharge sounds, first person moments and the elite laugh. With reckless disregard for anyone but his orders, the chief walks away with his squad, leaving the girl and several hundred dead behind. Because chasing down the enemy ship is more important. This is where things go downhill faster than a chipmunk on speed in a gerbil ball. The dark dry cave the junkies found contains a mysterious prothean beacon that undo decades of brainwashing. An alien is watching, ready to sucker punch the government tool. Instead it runs away and survives the squad of three highly trained super soldiers, turns invisible, and knocks over the bloody survivor who followed after them. Then proceed to flee away in a flying craft. We then switch to exposition, a lot of pointless prattling. One with some sketchy scientist that records everything and the evil maniacal government stooges planning to murder the girl with the bad haircut. The also drain the air out of the skip they conveniently control. The magic alien mcguffin have him humanity back and now he wants to help the teenager instead. Oh and a long necked covenant leader has adapted a human female only to give her a horrible collar costume and chastise her for reading human smut.

For some odd reason the two other people in master chumps party made it back before him on a separate ship, this makes no sense logistically at all. He refuse to murder the civilian, takes off his helmet and then proceed to get shot out of the air onece the auto pilot is shot to hell. But before several hundred maybes can breach the door. Matter mcguffin activates the artifact which restores the ship and disables everything else in the base. Nothing screams bad writing like a good old deus ex machina.

This all screams of paint by numbers, Chekhov's checklist and a reckless disregard for the source material. Hollywood is incapable of adapting it seems.

Njål signing out

Spillhuset i Bergen

I en smal Bergensgate kalt Veiten 3, i nærheten av den Nasjonale Scene. Et meget stort teater i sentrum, Der ligger det gamle Gestapo huset. Man går inn en fin tredør med noen markante lamper, og opp et par trapper til tredje etasje, og der finner man en inngang til et lokale med liv, litt leven og lys. 

Dette er Spillhuset, et nyåpnet hus dedikert til mange typer underholdning, alt fra tradisjonelle brettspill, til konsoll, samt en mengde LAN tilgjengelig datamaskiner. 

Lokalet er delt opp i mange tematisk rom. Et er dedikert til fortid, et skal bli utsmykket til nåtid, og et blir tildelt fremtid, så mer tematisk utsmykking er forventet. 

I hoved salen er en rustikk bar installert, en som kommer komplett med kafe, te, og en catmaid, samt en ganske okei scene. Så det er kanskje muligheter for at cosplay interesserte tenåringer slår seg ned i et rom også. 

Dagen da jeg var innom, ble jeg vel mottatt i døren, og fikk en omvisnings runde.

I alle rom var det liv. Spesielt i rommet med datamaskiner. Plassen tildelt konsoller kommer med en masse saccosekker og et teppe der man må gå uten sko. Stedet er yndig til å spille Super Smash Bros. Noen satt også å puslet med fargerike perler. Skulle man holde på med miniatyr modeller er det nok av bordplass til det, kom over noen som ble introdusert til et nytt spill på vegne av en organisasjon kalt Bubba. Ellers er jo mulig å bare henge på stedet og snakke med forskjellige folk.

Sånn ellers er det en stor haug med brettspill som jeg har, og har ikke hørt om. Lokale er oppe fra 16 til 20 bortimot hver dag, faktiske pånings tider finner man på hjemmesiden dies uanset. Stedet er godt tilgjengelig for rullestolbrukere og har en heis hele veien opp de tre etasjene det er snakk om, og det er nok også mulig å leie stedet for å arrangere et passende arrangement. Til slutt må jeg jo nevene at steded har gratis inngang.

Hilsen Njål

https://goo.gl/maps/UdLnDps49oCkkc8R8

https://www.spillhus.no

Naruto took spirals too far

Puns and wordplays are fun and I dare say so. A memorable character name with some sort of theme is that as well. However it is possible to take it a tad too far. One series that goes absolutely overboard with the meaning convention is Naruto, the titular main character of the series. He sports an orange jumpsuit and bright blonde hair, yet he is supposed to be a sneaky ninja. However this is not an anime review, just a rant. His full name is Naruto Uzumaki. The first name is taken from a spiral shaped ramen topping called narutomaki. This noodle broth is also his favorite food. The last name means spiral, which could also be a vortex, or a maelstrom. On his forehead he wears a protector with an iron plate, engraved with a stylized leaf with a spiral in it. There is more to the thematic madness though, because he eventually learns a technique that revolves around using energy to make a spiraling ball. Which leaves a similar shaped indentation in his victims. The rasengan roughly translates into strong whirlwind, naturally his main element is wind. 

Spin me around like a record baby, the very concept of the character spiraled out of control, see you next rant

Njål signing out

Solheim Chapel

Religion sure made some big, lavish, and very ornate buildings. Norway has a plethora of churches all over the place. From small local gathering halls, a fairly famous cathedral, and a lot of ugly modern monstrosities. Architects adore concrete far too much for my liking. Anyhow, the other day I visited this marvelous old stone building surrounded by a sloped cemetery here in Bergen.

The old chapel is practically ancient, yet well kept. Despite my misgivings about fanatic fools, there is just so much to see and notice on this old lump of stone. 

The structure itself is built on an elevated platform with stairs on both sides and several arches in the middle. The arches themselves are covered with old and sturdy metal doors that have weathered a lot it seems. Inside said entrypoint there are rows of dusty shelves used to store burial urns. 

There is nothing there now and the sign is clearly lying about visiting hours. I crank that up to it being an old sign.  Like all traditional grave sites, there is a tarnished and wobbly fence around the lot to keep spirits of the dead inside and to provide some solitude. The architect went into painful detail to make the building symmetrical.

Information indicates the chapel was built in 1920 by Sigurd Lunde. A very active same prolific fellow in the Bergen area during the 1900. He sure implemented some nice round arches into the construction, making the church both traditional looking, while being fairly minimalistic.

Njål signing out