The Stochastic Game

Ramblings of General Geekery

Yesterday was the second Harry Potter movie at the Orpheum, with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra doing the soundtrack live. Spectacular as always, and very lively — it’s always fun having everybody cheer and boo at the screen!

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We are very sad that Manzano, one of the few good local bakeries, has now closed 😞 (not 100% sure but apparently from the owners retiring, not from financial trouble)

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Sinners was a great and beautifully shot movie about black people in 1930s Mississippi, a decent movie about the power of music as cultural tool, and a rather mediocre vampire movie. I found the ending pretty lame, but the epilogue is great. The “twins” VFX are amazing.

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Despite a premise that feels doomed to fail due to being too predictable and, like, just one chapter in a bigger book, “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” was actually a very enjoyable movie. It manages to be beautiful, creepy, and surprising at times. A nice addition to the Dracula movie canon IMO

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How come I had never heard of “Mind Hunters” before now?!!! A movie with a ridiculous premise, an even more ridiculous story, an absolutely ridiculous cast, and an outrageously ridiculous last couple lines of dialogue… Amazing.

The movie poster, with the tagline "For an elite team of FBI profilers, hunting a serial killer is a process of elimination... their own."
Val Kilmer explains some vague stuff about criminal profiling, so far from actual criminal profiling that this movie must be set in a parallel universe where the human brain works differently.
Christian Slater and Kathryn Morris are never actually doing any FBI stuff in this movie.
Kathryn Morris, John Lee Miller, and LL Cool J are standing outside under the snow with some guns in their hands. Shady stuff is happening.

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I am so happy to start the year with something I’ve wanted for years: a whole bunch of Ultima maps framed on my wall! (for now: 3-9 and SotA… still looking for 1-2 and U:O!)

Now I’ll be able to dream a little bit about Britannia every time I walk into the bedroom.

The maps on the wall, with some room on the bottom left for more frames. Top row includes maps from games 3 to 7. Bottom row has games 8 and 9 plus the Shroud of the Avatar map.
A view from the other side. Maps to game 7 and Shroud of the Avatar are in the foreground.
A front view featuring maps to games 5, 6, and 7.

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I only played a handful of new-to-me TTRPGs this year but except for a couple of convention one-shots, we opted to play them long enough (>10 sessions) to get a good taste, which I really prefer. Plus, continuing a few years-long campaigns, which is also awesome! Here’s to long plays.

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TTRPGs ran/played in 2025:

  • Call of Cthulhu
  • Delta Green
  • RuneQuest
  • Dragonbane
  • Pendragon
  • Warhammer
  • Spire
  • D&D
  • BRP
  • Questworlds
  • GURPS
  • 13th Age
  • Traveller
  • Weird Heroes of Public Access
  • Ronin
Covers of all the TTRPGs mentioned in the post's text.

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