Movie Review: The Princess Bride

I have always loved Princess Bride. I cannot remember the first time I saw it, probably because I was too young to remember, but it stuck in my mind for years afterwards and I have watched it many times in the last few years.

So why do I love it so much? Well, it has everything that you need in a movie – romance, comedy, action and adventure – and it does them all so well. Even though it was made in the 80s and the effects are absolutely terrible, the storyline makes up for it.

The movie starts off with a young boy sick at home playing videogames. His grandfather comes to pay him a visit and brings with a book (The Princess Bride) that his father used to read to him when he was sick. Begrudgingly the boy agrees to listen, complaining at points about how it sounds like just a gushy romance. But before long, the boy is captivated by the story and so is the audience. The story is about a beautiful woman and the farmboy who she falls in love with. The farmboy, Wesley, leaves to find his fortune early on and is kidnapped and killed by the dread pirate Roberts. The woman, Buttercup, pines over him for five years before agreeing to marry the prince of the country, Prince Humperdink. A few days before the wedding, she is kidnapped by a group of ruffians who want to start a war between two countries. What they don’t realise is that the dread pirate Roberts is on their tail and wants Buttercup for himself.

A few weeks ago we realised that two of our friends (Mike and Vicky) had never seen the movie, and so we invited them and Tom and Danika around to watch. Being the adults that we all are, we also decided to make the movie a little more fun by adding a drinking game to it. The rules of the game (similar to the rules of any other movie drinking game) are that when a character in the movie says a specific line, you need to drink. Some of the lines for Princess Bride include (but are not limited to) the following:

Buttercup
Farmboy
As you wish
Humperdink (the prince)
Boo
Inconceivable
Man in Black
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
True Love
Rodents of Unusual Size

You will find yourself drinking a lot in the beginning and at certain points throughout the movie (at some point, a witch says boo something like 15 times in quick succession). Of course, it’s up to you how much you drink and when, but these are just some guidelines if you feel like watching the movie with a group of friends and playing along.

Either way, drunk or sober, I give the Princess Bride 5/5 as a movie. It has got everything that you need and, even though it is a little bit dated, it is still a lot of fun to watch.

My World of WoW

Just because I am doing my 30 day book challenge doesn't mean that I am going to forget about my other blogging duties. Today, I thought I would talk about something that has been taking up a lot of my time and that has been on my mind a lot lately. And what else would that thing be but... World of Warcraft.

Yes, that is right. I am indeed a little more geeky than many people realise. I am an avid WoW player. This wasn't always the case. It all started when Grant got into the game back in 2008. He created a character, and most of his time was spent playing said character at nights and on weekends while I sat in the background reading books, taking naps and watching series. Life went on in this manner for quite some time until I started complaining that Grant was spending more time playing the game than he was spending with me.
What was his solution to this problem?
Creating me a character.
And so Risuna, my human warrior, was born. At first I didn't get what all the hype was about. And then I started getting really into the game. And then I took over Grant's computer because all I wanted to do was play the game.
What was his solution to this problem?
Create me my own account.
Of course, that wasn't really a solution to my addiction, but it allowed him to indulge in his addiction while I indulged in mine. There was a minor problem with this solution, however, and that was that transferring of characters between accounts was not only costly, but also not particularly timely. And so, while I saved up my pennies and counted down the hours, I created myself a new character to level while I waited. And so Khalla, my night-elf druid, was born.

I had tons of fun playing with Khalla and decided that I far preferred having a druid to having a warrior. They were a lot more fun to play with because they could shapeshift and, compared to my warrior who could only DPS, had a lot of options to play around with. I could DPS or tank or heal as I liked, and being able to change between the forms meant that I never really got bored. Before I knew it, I was level 80 with Risuna, who had by this time already been transferred to my account, lagging behind at level 65.

I could have continued to play on with Khalla forever, venturing into dungeons and raids to my heart's content. But unfortunately, Grant got bored with the game, as he inevitably does, and decided to cancel his account. Though he did offer to keep mine going, playing with him was part of the reason I had so much fun playing the game. Without him, it just didn't seem worth it anymore. And so, towards the middle of 2009, we both cancelled our accounts and the joy that I'd had playing WoW faded into the back of my memory.

By September 2010, I had just about forgotten about my days of WoW playing. They seemed like a distant dream, until they were refreshed by a friend of mine who became obsessed with levelling his character in time for the release of the Cataclysm expansion. Watching him play brought back all the good times I'd had levelling my own characters, and I begged Grant to reconsider opening our accounts once again. After some hmming and haaing, it was decided. We were going to try again. But on the European server this time around. This meant that we would have to start fresh, creating new characters. Because all of Grant's friends were playing Horde characters, it also meant a changing of sides, something that I wasn't particularly looking forward to. I had always been the good guy (or gal). I had always been the one keeping people in line rather than the one toeing the line myself. But there wasn't much choice in the matter - if I was going to play again, and if I was going to play with Grant, I was going to have to switch sides and become the bad guy (or gal).

And so Keillan, my tauren hunter, was born. Her name was a bit of a tribute to Khalla, the lost druid that I had loved so much. The tauren race, being one of the original few that could become druids, are not well known hunters, but I wanted to try something new. I didn't particularly like the look of any of the other characters (besides the blood elves, whose choices in profession were few), and so I decided to stick with my tauren and become a hunter. And I have found that I quite enjoy it. If I cannot become another animal, at least I can have them as pets.

I recently managed to level Keillan up to 85, the highest that Cataclysm will allow you to go, and am currently running her through heroic dungeons to gain justice points and try to gear her up for raiding. And so, this is what I have been spending my time doing. As geeky as it is, I am a WoW player, and I am proud of it.

So my question for today: What is your strangest/geekiest/most embarrassing pastime?