Monday, December 21, 2015

Temporada de Yule en Le Pédant

¡Es temporada de Yule de nuevo y deseamos felicidad e indigestiones a todos los pedantes de buena voluntad!



It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown
Bill Melendez (1992)

Tuesday, December 01, 2015

Doge, doge everywhere

¿Cómo, que si juego mucho al Europa Universalis últimamente?


Esto... ¿Por qué lo preguntan?

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Las fantasmagorías de Monsieur Quemador - XXXIII



Hellboy: Sword of Storms
Phil Weinstein, Tad Stones (2006)

Las fantasmagorías de Monsieur Quemador - XXXII

You'll see him in your nightmares, you'll see him in your dreams
He'll appear out of nowhere but he ain't what he seems
You'll see him in your head, on the TV screen
And hey buddy, I'm warning you to turn it off
He's a ghost, he's a god, he's a man, he's a guru
You're one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan
Designed and directed by his red right hand



Hellboy: Blood and Iron
Victor Cook, Tad Stones (2007)

Las fantasmagorías de Monsieur Quemador - XXXI

"Landlord, ho!" The shout broke the lowering silence and reverberated through the black forest with sinister echoing.

"This place hath a forbidding aspect, meseemeth."

Two men stood in front of the forest tavern. The building was low, long and rambling, built of heavy logs. Its small windows were heavily barred and the door was closed. Above the door its sinister sign showed faintly--a cleft skull.

This door swung slowly open and a bearded face peered out. The owner of the face stepped back and motioned his guests to enter--with a grudging gesture it seemed. A candle gleamed on a table; a flame smoldered in the fireplace.

"Your names?"

"Solomon Kane," said the taller man briefly.

"Gaston l'Armon," the other spoke curtly. "But what is that to you?"

"Strangers are few in the Black Forest," grunted the host, "bandits many. Sit at yonder table and I will bring food."

The two men sat down, with the bearing of men who have traveled far. One was a tall gaunt man, clad in a featherless hat and somber black garments, which set off the dark pallor of his forbidding face. The other was of a different type entirely, bedecked with lace and plumes, although his finery was somewhat stained from travel. He was handsome in a bold way, and his restless eyes shifted from side to side, never still an instant.

The host brought wine and food to the rough-hewn table and then stood back in the shadows, like a somber image. His features, now receding into vagueness, now luridly etched in the firelight as it leaped and flickered, were masked in a beard which seemed almost animal-like in thickness. A great nose curved above this beard and two small red eyes stared unblinkingly at his guests.

"Who are you?" suddenly asked the younger man.

"I am the host of the Cleft Skull Tavern," sullenly replied the other. His tone seemed to challenge his questioner to ask further.

"Do you have many guests?" l'Armon pursued.

"Few come twice," the host grunted.

Kane started and glanced up straight into those small red eyes, as if he sought for some hidden meaning in the host's words. The flaming eyes seemed to dilate, then dropped sullenly before the Englishman's cold stare.

"I'm for bed," said Kane abruptly, bringing his meal to a close. "I must take up my journey by daylight."

"And I," added the Frenchman. "Host, show us to our chambers."

Black shadows wavered on the walls as the two followed their silent host down a long, dark hall. The stocky, broad body of their guide seemed to grow and expand in the light of the small candle which he carried, throwing a long, grim shadow behind him.

At a certain door he halted, indicating that they were to sleep there. They entered; the host lit a candle with the one he carried, then lurched back the way he had come.

In the chamber the two men glanced at each other. The only furnishings of the room were a couple of bunks, a chair or two and a heavy table.

"Let us see if there be any way to make fast the door," said Kane. "I like not the looks of mine host."

"There are racks on door and jamb for a bar," said Gaston, "but no bar."

"We might break up the table and use its pieces for a bar," mused Kane.

"_Mon Dieu_," said l'Armon, "you are timorous, _m'sieu_."

Kane scowled. "I like not being murdered in my sleep," he answered gruffly.

"My faith!" the Frenchman laughed. "We are chance met--until I overtook you on the forest road an hour before sunset, we had never seen each other."

"I have seen you somewhere before," answered Kane, "though I can not now recall where. As for the other, I assume every man is an honest fellow until he shows me he is a rogue; moreover, I am a light sleeper and slumber with a pistol at hand."

The Frenchman laughed again.

"I was wondering how _m'sieu_ could bring himself to sleep in the room with a stranger! Ha! Ha! All right, _m'sieu_ Englishman, let us go forth and take a bar from one of the other rooms."

Taking the candle with them, they went into the corridor. Utter silence reigned and the small candle twinkled redly and evilly in the thick darkness.

"Mine host hath neither guests nor servants," muttered Solomon Kane. "A strange tavern! What is the name, now? These German words come not easily to me--the Cleft Skull? A bloody name, i'faith."

They tried the rooms next to theirs, but no bar rewarded their search. At last they came to the last room at the end of the corridor. They entered. It was furnished like the rest, except that the door was provided with a small barred opening, and fastened from the outside with a heavy bolt, which was secured at one end to the door-jamb. They raised the bolt and looked in.

"There should be an outer window, but there is not," muttered Kane. "Look!"

The floor was stained darkly. The walls and the one bunk were hacked in places, great splinters having been torn away.

"Men have died in here," said Kane, somberly. "Is yonder not a bar fixed in the wall?"

"Aye, but 'tis made fast," said the Frenchman, tugging at it. "The--"

A section of the wall swung back and Gaston gave a quick exclamation. A small, secret room was revealed, and the two men bent over the grisly thing that lay upon its floor.

"The skeleton of a man!" said Gaston. "And behold, how his bony leg is shackled to the floor! He was imprisoned here and died."

"Nay," said Kane, "the skull is cleft--methinks mine host had a grim reason for the name of his hellish tavern. This man, like us, was no doubt a wanderer who fell into the fiend's hands."

"Likely," said Gaston without interest; he was engaged in idly working the great iron ring from the skeleton's leg bones. Failing in this, he drew his sword and with an exhibition of remarkable strength cut the chain which joined the ring on the leg to a ring set deep in the log floor.

"Why should he shackle a skeleton to the floor?" mused the Frenchman. "_Monbleu!_ 'Tis a waste of good chain. Now, _m'sieu_," he ironically addressed the white heap of bones, "I have freed you and you may go where you like!"

"Have done!" Kane's voice was deep. "No good will come of mocking the dead."

"The dead should defend themselves," laughed l'Armon. "Somehow, I will slay the man who kills me, though my corpse climb up forty fathoms of ocean to do it."

Kane turned toward the outer door, closing the door of the secret room behind him. He liked not this talk which smacked of demonry and witchcraft; and he was in haste to face the host with the charge of his guilt.

As he turned, with his back to the Frenchman, he felt the touch of cold steel against his neck and knew that a pistol muzzle was pressed close beneath the base of his brain.

"Move not, _m'sieu_!" The voice was low and silky. "Move not, or I will scatter your few brains over the room."

The Puritan, raging inwardly, stood with his hands in air while l'Armon slipped his pistols and sword from their sheaths.

"Now you can turn," said Gaston, stepping back.

Kane bent a grim eye on the dapper fellow, who stood bareheaded now, hat in one hand, the other hand leveling his long pistol.

"Gaston the Butcher!" said the Englishman somberly. "Fool that I was to trust a Frenchman! You range far, murderer! I remember you now, with that cursed great hat off--I saw you in Calais some years agone."

"Aye--and now you will see me never again. What was that?"

"Rats exploring yon skeleton," said Kane, watching the bandit like a hawk, waiting for a single slight wavering of that black gun muzzle. "The sound was of the rattle of bones."

"Like enough," returned the other. "Now, _M'sieu_ Kane, I know you carry considerable money on your person. I had thought to wait until you slept and then slay you, but the opportunity presented itself and I took it. You trick easily."

"I had little thought that I should fear a man with whom I had broken bread," said Kane, a deep timbre of slow fury sounding in his voice.

The bandit laughed cynically. His eyes narrowed as he began to back slowly toward the outer door. Kane's sinews tensed involuntarily; he gathered himself like a giant wolf about to launch himself in a death leap, but Gaston's hand was like a rock and the pistol never trembled.

"We will have no death plunges after the shot," said Gaston. "Stand still, _m'sieu_; I have seen men killed by dying men, and I wish to have distance enough between us to preclude that possibility. My faith--I will shoot, you will roar and charge, but you will die before you reach me with your bare hands. And mine host will have another skeleton in his secret niche. That is, if I do not kill him myself. The fool knows me not nor I him, moreover--"

The Frenchman was in the doorway now, sighting along the barrel. The candle, which had been stuck in a niche on the wall, shed a weird and flickering light which did not extend past the doorway. And with the suddenness of death, from the darkness behind Gaston's back, a broad, vague form rose up and a gleaming blade swept down. The Frenchman went to his knees like a butchered ox, his brains spilling from his cleft skull. Above him towered the figure of the host, a wild and terrible spectacle, still holding the hanger with which he had slain the bandit.

"Ho! ho!" he roared. "Back!"

Kane had leaped forward as Gaston fell, but the host thrust into his very face a long pistol which he held in his left hand.

"Back!" he repeated in a tigerish roar, and Kane retreated from the menacing weapon and the insanity in the red eyes.

The Englishman stood silent, his flesh crawling as he sensed a deeper and more hideous threat than the Frenchman had offered. There was something inhuman about this man, who now swayed to and fro like some great forest beast while his mirthless laughter boomed out again.

"Gaston the Butcher!" he shouted, kicking the corpse at his feet. "Ho! ho! My fine brigand will hunt no more! I had heard of this fool who roamed the Black Forest--he wished gold and he found death! Now your gold shall be mine; and more than gold--vengeance!"

"I am no foe of yours," Kane spoke calmly.

"All men are my foes! Look--the marks on my wrists! See--the marks on my ankles! And deep in my back--the kiss of the knout! And deep in my brain, the wounds of the years of the cold, silent cells where I lay as punishment for a crime I never committed!" The voice broke in a hideous, grotesque sob.

Kane made no answer. This man was not the first he had seen whose brain had shattered amid the horrors of the terrible Continental prisons.

"But I escaped!" the scream rose triumphantly. "And here I make war on all men ... What was that?"

Did Kane see a flash of fear in those hideous eyes?

"My sorcerer is rattling his bones!" whispered the host, then laughed wildly. "Dying, he swore his very bones would weave a net of death for me. I shackled his corpse to the floor, and now, deep in the night, I hear his bare skeleton clash and rattle as he seeks to be free, and I laugh, I laugh! Ho! ho! How he yearns to rise and stalk like old King Death along these dark corridors when I sleep, to slay me in my bed!"

Suddenly the insane eyes flared hideously: "You were in that secret room, you and this dead fool! Did he talk to you?"

Kane shuddered in spite of himself. Was it insanity or did he actually hear the faint rattle of bones, as if the skeleton had moved slightly? Kane shrugged his shoulders; rats will even tug at dusty bones.

The host was laughing again. He sidled around Kane, keeping the Englishman always covered, and with his free hand opened the door. All was darkness within, so that Kane could not even see the glimmer of the bones on the floor.

"All men are my foes!" mumbled the host, in the incoherent manner of the insane. "Why should I spare any man? Who lifted a hand to my aid when I lay for years in the vile dungeons of Karlsruhe--and for a deed never proven? Something happened to my brain, then. I became as a wolf--a brother to these of the Black Forest to which I fled when I escaped.

"They have feasted, my brothers, on all who lay in my tavern--all except this one who now clashes his bones, this magician from Russia. Lest he come stalking back through the black shadows when night is over the world, and slay me--for who may slay the dead?--I stripped his bones and shackled him. His sorcery was not powerful enough to save him from me, but all men know that a dead magician is more evil than a living one. Move not, Englishman! Your bones I shall leave in this secret room beside this one, to--"

The maniac was standing partly in the doorway of the secret room, now, his weapon still menacing Kane. Suddenly he seemed to topple backward, and vanished in the darkness; and at the same instant a vagrant gust of wind swept down the outer corridor and slammed the door shut behind him. The candle on the wall flickered and went out. Kane's groping hands, sweeping over the floor, found a pistol, and he straightened, facing the door where the maniac had vanished. He stood in the utter darkness, his blood freezing, while a hideous muffled screaming came from the secret room, intermingled with the dry, grisly rattle of fleshless bones. Then silence fell.

Kane found flint and steel and lighted the candle. Then, holding it in one hand and the pistol in the other, he opened the secret door.

"Great God!" he muttered as cold sweat formed on his body. "This thing is beyond all reason, yet with mine own eyes I see it! Two vows have here been kept, for Gaston the Butcher swore that even in death he would avenge his slaying, and his was the hand which set yon fleshless monster free. And he--"

The host of the Cleft Skull lay lifeless on the floor of the secret room, his bestial face set in lines of terrible fear; and deep in his broken neck were sunk the bare fingerbones of the sorcerer's skeleton.

Robert E.Howard - Rattle of Bones

Monday, October 26, 2015

Las fantasmagorías de Monsieur Quemador - XXX



Dawn of The Dead
George A.Romero (1978)

Las fantasmagorías de Monsieur Quemador - XXIX

West, in the midst of a severe battle, had reanimated Major Sir Eric Moreland Clapham-Lee, D.S.O., a fellow-physician who knew about his experiments and could have duplicated them. The head had been removed, so that the possibilities of quasi-intelligent life in the trunk might be investigated.


REC 3: Génesis
Paco Plaza (2012)

Friday, October 16, 2015

Las Joyas Vandálicas de Le Pédant XVII. No sólo gofres

Como tengo esto un poco abandonado he pensado en darle un poco de vidilla con un clásico local, tirando esta vez por la vertiente de nivelón de las Joyas Vandálicas de Le Pédant. En este caso Lord Henry Wotton, ese Miguel Strogoff sevillano, me ha hecho llegar desde Gante este bonito mural en el que un gato se tira a un pájaro ante la complacida mirada de lo que parece ser el padre de éste último.


¿Cómo? ¿Que no ven lo mismo que yo? Están fatal, de verdad.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Las Joyas Vandálicas de Le Pédant XVI. Ah, el amor.

El amor es una cosa muy complicada, unas veces bidireccional, otras monopolar y en ocasiones multibanda. Por este último motivo conviene, a la hora de declarar nuestro amor, hacer como la autora -o el autor- de la joya de hoy y, al menos, intentar dejar claro de quién viene la declaración.

"Andrés te quiero.
Sí, soy yo"

Aunque yo le recomendaría a la muchacha que fuese más específica o el pobre Andrés va a seguir sin saber quién le quiere.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Terrores de un planeta-planta

Abril agoniza, lo que implica que mayo está a punto de nacer. Si son de esos que se regodean con eso de que mayo es el mes de las flores piensen que si es el mes de las flores... ¡También es el mes de los trífidos!

¿Cómo? ¿No saben qué es un trífido? Pues me alegro, porque así ustedes morirán horripilantemente mientras yo escapo a un lugar seguro bien aprovisionado de defoliante, comida, alcoholazo y pornografía.



The Day of The Triffids
Steve Sekely (1962)



The Day of The Triffids
Nick Copus (2009)

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Muere, escoria alienígena, muere

Star Raiders II es, con una diferencia brutal, uno de mis juegos favoritos. Y ni siquiera hace falta añadir el factor nostálgico.

Los combates son emocionantes y hay pocas cosas que se puedan comparar a trazar una ruta de hiper-salto bajo el fuego enemigo con la posibilidad de meter la pata y escoñarse contra el sol. Por no hablar de ese gustirrinín genocida que proporciona llevar la guerra al espacio Zylon, arrasar sus ciudades con un bombardeo por saturación y convertir sus planetas en solares en los que construir chalés adosados y space-burgers.



Qué rayos, hasta las primeras versiones para Atari son emocionantes.



Y aunque la mecánica de juego no tiene ninguna relación aquí les dejo un enlace a un juego de reventar cosas en el espacio, que siempre viene bien.


Ale, a matar.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Una era de prodigios

Tengo que reconocer que cuando se lleva tanto tiempo jugando a videoujegos uno tiende a pensar que lo ha visto todo.
En ocasiones el temor a no volver a ser sorprendido me asalta con sus visiones de un futuro en el que todos los juegos son tan aburridos como el Tomb Raider o el Mario 64, pero por fortuna la genialidad -o puede que la anormalidad- del ser humano siempre está ahí para salir al paso con un tiranosaurio corredor, dos paredes láser y una rueda de la fortuna.


A que lo flipan, chavalotes.

Wednesday, April 08, 2015

Double feature featuring Gary Numan

Por estos lares somos muy de Gary Numan. También somos muy de todo lo que lleve al menos un cable y dé calambre, así que no nos explicamos cómo se nos pudo escapar esta campaña.



Mientras tanto, en Gigafantasma...

Friday, March 27, 2015

Tus orcos me suenan

Pues parece que hoy vuelve a tocar hablar de Warhammer aunque sea de refilón, y es que me he enterado -y me ha costado no morir de la risa- que Blizzard a demandado a otra compañía por fusilarle algunos diseños.
¿Que por qué me hace gracia? Pues...

Cualquier parecido es puramente intencionado.

Son muy distintos, los de abajo no llevan espada.

Inspirados en el majestuoso gamusino silvestre.

No, por nada.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Adeptus Helmantica

Llevo ya un puñado de años viviendo -aunque intermitentemente- en Salamanca y hay algo que siempre me ha llamado la atención: al acercarse la Semana Santa, en la Plaza Mayor se despliegan los estandartes de las cofradías y durante un par de semanas parece que la ciudad va a ser la sede de una convención de los Marines Espaciales.

En la lúgubre luminosidad del cercano presente
sólo hay obras públicas

Claro que la similitud no es casual, a fin de cuentas la estética góticonoircatóli-retropostapocaliptinquisitofuturista del Warhammer 40.000 no ha surgido de la nada.

Friday, March 20, 2015

La Aventura Interestelar

Como ya sabrán, aquí en Le Pédant somos muy fans de las aventuras conversacionales, ese entretenimiento levemente masoquista que convirtió a toda una generación de niños sin amigos en derviches del diccionario de sinónimos.
También somos muy fans de Interstellar, de sus robots sarcásticos, su astronauta tejano seco y, que porras, también somos muy fans de cuantificar el amor humanoide más allá de la cuarta dimensión. Por eso es una sorpresa que se nos haya escapado esto hasta ahora.


Ale, a teclear.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Stendhalazo

Los viernes entro a trabajar una hora antes, lo que en esta época del año implica que el camino hacia la oficina lo recorro en pleno amanecer. Estando a pocos metros de llegar a la Plaza Mayor me he fijado en que la luz estaba en ese punto en el que el cielo adquiere un color rosado intenso; esa luz se ha reflejado en las paredes de los edificios haciendo que la piedra de Villamayor abandonase su habitual tono dorado y mostrase un color asalmonado.
Pensé que era un efecto verdaderamente bonito que otros días no había podido apreciar. No le di mucha importancia hasta que llegué a la misma Plaza Mayor, cuando casi me lo hago encima debido a la combinación que formaban la simetría barroca y la luz salmón pastel que reflejaba la piedra franca.

Qué bonito es el mundo a veces ¿No?

La merde suprême

Estaba hoy preguntándome sin ningún motivo especial qué película es peor, The Dark Knight Rises o Avatar. Ambos son bodrios infumables de los que salí echando pestes, pero no sabía por cual decidirme.

Por un lado, DKR es una estupidez supina, mal escrita y aun peor dirigida, un cagarro que nos ha regalado escenas como estas.


¿Tu adversario está armado y cuenta con vehículos blindados y armamento pesado?
¡Teniendo en cuenta la puntería que demuestran, una carga frontal
por el medio de la calle lo solucionará todo!


Marion, luz de mi vida, amor de mis amores ¿Por qué?


Las acojonantes medidas de seguridad de La Cárcel Más Chunga del Mundo.
Por cierto, Brucie, cariño ¿Has lanzado una cuerda para ayudar
a los presos-morlock a salir al exterior porque...?


-Eres Batman. -No. -Que sí. -Que no. -Que sí, coño. -Bueno, vale.

Por otro lado, Avatar es otro mojón, un mojón tramposo que usó las tres dimensiones para aparentar ser más de lo que es: una piltrafa producto de la culpabilidad WASP que plagia mal otro montón de películas, fruto también de la culpabilidad WASP pero todas mejores que Avatar.

Veamos lo que este bodrio tiene que ofrecer.


Mirad, sucios salvajes, he capturado a la bestia que no sabíais capturar porque sois
primitivos y estúpidos y desconocéis el concepto de punto ciego.
Adoradme como el dios que soy ¿He mencionado que
en realidad soy un marine y además blanco?¿No?
Ah, vaya, que esto se carga todo el mensaje de la película. Uf.


No había visto esta misma escena en docenas de películas antes.
Nunca. Jamás. Lo juro. Joder, James, eres un visionario.


¿Ven esa cosa con la que se conecta al pajarraco?
Pues es con lo que luego se va a follar a la Zoe Saldaña azul.


Uuups, vídeo equivocado.

La cosa está difícil, son dos contendientes de nivel, aunque estos son los tres argumentos que me han ayudado a decidirme:
  • DKR es un punto y final. La película de Batman vs. Superman promete ser un horror pero al menos será otra cosa, mientras que las continuaciones -sí, en plural- de Avatar ya se están gestando.
  • Avatar tiene robotos gigantes, DKR no.
  • Con todo, me apetece volver a ver DKR, aunque sólo sea por la escena inicial y porque la voz de Bane me hace mucha gracia. No volvería a ver Avatar ni aunque estuviese en un autobús con destino a Vladivostok.
Dos contra uno a favor de DKR, está claro que Avatar consigue llevarse los honores de ser la más pestiño de las dos.

Monday, February 16, 2015

Las Joyas Vandálicas de Le Pédant XV. Ideas innatas.

La existencia de ideas innatas es una teoría que lleva bailando por los tablaos filosóficos desde tiempos de Platón. Puede que incluso desde antes. Me imagino que los neanderthales tenían sus debates acerca de si sabían que el meterle un porrazo en la cabeza a alguien es la causa de pérdidas graves de masa encefálica porque lo habían hecho antes o si ya el primer cachiporrazo craneal se propinó sabiendo que le abriría la cabeza al receptor.

Yo, personalmente, siempre he sido más de Hume y he defendido el empirismo a capa y espada, aunque debo admitir que a veces uno se encuentra con ideas tan primitivas, que anidan en lugares tan recónditos del alma humana, que uno se pregunta si vinieron de alguna parte o si siempre estuvieron ahí. Ideas como esta:


Las mates son El Mal, follar es bueno y da gustirrinín. Eso es así, y punto.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Perdidos

Ha querido la todopoderosa Coincidencia que, justo cuando he terminado de ver Perdidos de nuevo de una sentada brutal, ha surgido como una infección recurrente un artículo en el que alguien dice alguna parida acerca de la ausencia de sentido de la serie, la improvisación de los guiones, los cabos sueltos y bla bla bla. Aquí se lo dejo:


Podría decir que no quedaron tantos cabos sueltos y que no eran tan relevantes, o que es mejor dejar un cabo suelto que hacer una chapuza de nudo. De hecho, sólo he visto las dos primeras temporadas de Prison Break pero por lo que he oído las siguientes son pura diarrea.

Podría decir que, viendo la serie de golpe, resulta imposible que el nivel de improvisación en los guiones fuese mayor al de cualquier otra serie y que una historia tan consistente, especialmente una historia que incluye viajes en el tiempo, no se escribe a base de improvisar. Y si no miren las aberraciones que son las líneas temporales de la saga Terminator o de las películas de la Patrulla-X.

Podría decir que a mí me parece una serie redonda, que el final me gustó -¡Jack contra Locke en un acantilado que se cae a cachos!¡A quién cojones no le puede gustar eso!- y que, no, no me sentí estafado. Cabría subrayar, claro, que los que se quejan de que los estafaron se la bajaban de internet por la jeta.

Pero no diré eso, simplemente diré que las opiniones en contra de Perdidos me la sudan.





Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Salta por la ventana para vida extra

Puede que no lo sepan pero el objetivo secreto de este blog, más allá de formar y entretener, es conseguir que pierdan sus trabajos y hacer de sus vidas un infierno.
No me lo curro mucho, lo sé, pero por intentarlo que no quede. Aquí les dejo una majarada de juego con el que perder el tiempo y conseguir que sus jefes les den la patada.


Ala, a morir.