Not Exactly 'Revelation' type stuff but...

Over the weekend, while I was out enjoying time with my family at an unusually slow pace, I found out that a sequel to a game that I really liked was coming out. Despite my real lack of time to get too deep in any one game I went ahead and put a deposit for both the game and the strategy guide. Before I make the "big reveal" I wanted to ponder the similarities in interests I seem to have. Fair reader, perhaps you can help me figure out why? If not, maybe you will enjoy similar things... Way back in High School I had a tradition of spending New Years Eve with a friend of mine nicknamed 'Tynie". We were both social misfits in our school so we enjoyed each other's company. One year we watched "Damnation Alley" as one of many movies we watched. I remember this movie in particular because while we were watching it my foot brushed an orange peel on the floor while we were watching the "Salt Lake City" scene, and I vaulted over the ottoman I was leaning against and landed on the coach behind it. LOL But these were the years when I was really getting into movies. Other movies I really got into where "Mad Max" and "The Road Warrior". What I did not realize was that it was becoming a defining moments, and a trend in my likes and dislikes of genres. But the movie I 'loved' the most was "The Terminator". I remember my friends and I walking over six miles each way, in the summer heat to go and watch this movie. I was captivated by the future scenes of John Connor running through the post apocalyptic wastes of some city in the future. Dodging evil robots, and trying to defend what was left of human civilization. Even back then I remember wanting a 'Terminator' movie set in the future, and it looks like my hope of such a thing will finally come to be realized next May. "Terminator: Salvation", starring Christian Bale, will finally hit the theaters next year. I doubt it will be as good as I want it to be, but I will watch it nonetheless. Both the 'teaser' and the first promotional trailer can be found at IMDB. Of the three movies that have been released so far, "Rise of the Machines" (3) is my favorite. Last year's Fox's "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" was an awesome (IMO) series and I am really looking forward to the upcoming season. So far I've not established a pattern so much as just an affinity for certain style of movie so I shall move on. Starting in my High School years I also got into a table top war game called "Warhammer 40,000". By this time in my life I was getting bored with Dungeons & Dragons and I had recently joined the Army National Guard. Having been exposed to several other Bookshelf games (i.e. Tactics II, Napoleon, Air War, and Squad Leader), I liked the idea of having a three dimensional representation with the pieces. But what really caught my eye was when a 'rule set' for a game called 'Confrontation' came out circa 1990. This game eventually became 'Necromunda'. This game is a 'squad level' skirmish game set in a future world where cities have grown into the skies and are now called 'hives'. Where the game takes place is in the 'lawless zones' of the 'underhive' where things are not kept up and decay is the rule in regards to resources. When a supplemental rule article came out for the "Ash Wastes" it immediately caught my eye. The "Wastes" in this 'world' are a place where millennium upon millennium of industrial waste has ruined and made toxic the entire planet surface not covered by the massive hive-cities. Yet there are those who carve out a living outside the walls. These are the backdrops of my short stories (both inside, and out of the cities). I was interested enough to help proof read, and write some specific stories, for a rewrite of the 'Ash Wastes' rules supplement about a year or so back. My interests in this area is not limited to movies and board/tabletop games. On my recent vacation I had run out of reading material so I was perusing one of the overpriced bookstores in the Dallas airport and came across a book in a series by William Johnstone (the title escapes me right now). But there are about a dozen or so books - all based on a post-apocalyptic America. I have read only three chapters and I have put it down because I want to start the series from the beginning! I'm not sure how much I will really like, but it's caught my attention. So, finally back to my original comment about this game I want to get - even though I do not have all that much time to actually play it... The game is called Fallout 3 (the video above is the promotional deal from the company). I got hooked on the first one in the series back when I was on active duty. It was already an old game then, but I ate it up anyway. I also picked up the second in the series, but I never finished it. Now I hear that there is yet another Fallout game that is a turn based tactical game as well. I will probably go ahead and get the game, even though it will probably take me years to finish it. What prompted this blog entry today is I realized yesterday this 'theme', if you will, of my interest in movies, books, games, etc. I wonder if there is an underlying reason. I mean, I was even drawn to the part in "Mere Christianity" where the 'hero' is seeing a writers vision of what hell might be like. I don't have delusions of grandeur that I would somehow survive such events, let alone be some kind of hero in such a setting. Quite the opposite. I'm pretty sure I'd be killed off pretty quick. Why is it that I am drawn to such a genre. I am not repulsed by my interests... just interested in my interest. If that makes sense. Other movies that I like, "The Postman", and "Blast From the Past". There was a lot more that came to mind while I was typing this up, but I couldn't keep it all straight. Besides, I think I've gotten across what I was thinking. Verse for today: Revelation 6 : 12-17, ESV When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave [5] and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”