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2013-06-18 02:08:44 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 3 +1s)

Argh.

I saw this rumor a couple of days ago, but I didn't pass it on because it was still in the 'anonymous source with no confirmation' category.

But darn, it would have been glorious.

2013-06-17 16:38:20 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Well, with this latest batch, I'm over 20,000 people who have voluntarily signed up to read my nonsense. No wonder bondage romance novels do so well, there are apparently a lot of masochists out there.

I can only once again apologize for the horrors and inanities I'll be subjecting you to on a daily basis. Sometimes simultaneously.

In any case, Welcome Aboard. (And I'm more the Uncle Arthur of the neighborhood, rather than the Mrs. Kravitz.)

2013-06-17 13:41:29 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

So I've been playing WoW again for a couple of hours a night for a week.

They have smoothed things out considerably. It is pretty much impossible to make a bad build. Some are just a little less good at some things than others.

And leveling is silly. It's almost a farce. Pick a flower? Level. Mine a little copper ore? Level. Find a new area? Level? Actually hit something? Level twice.

Seriously, with under 10 hours played, my character is up 28. I'm thinking of starting an alt just so I don't over-level the dungeon content for low-levels with my main.

Also money flows like water. Now that I have an idea of which low-level items sell at the best prices (herbs and cloth), I'm making about a hundred GP a day. That's chicken feed, of course, but back when I was last playing regularly, it was a fortune.

Also, the game is richer and... more »

2013-06-17 12:40:10 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 26 +1s)

Found on Joemygod.com.

Childish? Yes.
Hilariously awesome? YES.

2013-06-15 16:12:03 (73 comments, 0 reshares, 16 +1s)

Since +Amy Harris asked, even though it's a bit dated, here's my opinion of why the protagonists of The Matrix were, in fact, the villains. Or another set of villains.

Even if you leave out the bit about killing the Agents' stooges left and right, let's look at what happens when they win.

Billions of people get released into a world that can't sustain them. The vast majority of them die of starvation, dehydration, radiation poisoning and other nasty things fairly quickly. The ones who are left get to live a hardscrabble, post-apocalyptic feudal life.

But hey, homeless people rave/orgies, so that's something.

The standard argument I hear about this revolves around such intangibles as 'free will' and 'truth', both of which are about as illusionary as the world most of humanity in the movies inhabit. And morally, killing... more »

2013-06-15 04:31:48 (19 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Something on one of +Filamena Young 's threads made me realize how long I've been playing MMO games of one sort or another. Back before the public in general was using the Internet, in fact.

I remember coming across a story about an amazing zork-like game played by connecting to a special BBS. The only problem was that BBS was in Silicon Valley.

I was so determined (and so isolated from physical gaming at the time) that I tracked down a service offered by AT&T that allowed remote computer connections across the county for only a small monthly fee.

And thus I discovered Atlantis and Teleplay. (And god, they were fun.)

From there it was Gemstone when Compuserve and Genie opened up the Internet. The Shadows of Yserbius and Neverwinter Nights, Garou Mush, A Moment in Tyme, Empire MUD and then finally, Everquest, ushering in the modern age.
... more »

2013-06-15 00:51:18 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Is the smell of ink, self-promotion and fading relevance sexy?

2013-06-14 22:29:11 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Why do I love living in the 21st century? Because K-Pop Hip Hop Artist girl is a thing. And I get to share the pain. :p

2013-06-14 21:44:47 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

Actual pies respond to +Jerome Comeau 's lack of pie chart love.

What kind of monster depresses baked goods?

2013-06-14 21:08:20 (17 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

So more WoW nattering:

The culture shock is intense. This is more like Wow 2. A more sophisticated, streamlined version. Also, there has been an upgrade to the visuals, subtly or my video card is much better than the last time I played.

Everything is still cartoonish, but there is a constant sense of motion to the game now. Leaves move, flames leap, critters move through the brush, gathering nodes sparkle, everywhere, always. It's actually a bit visually exhausting, compared to Guild Wars 2, Nevewinter or the composed, almost cinematic visuals of SWTOR.

The economy continues to be bjorked beyond belief, but thanks to +Jean Bees  I switched out leather working and skinning for mining and herbalism and the money problem seems to be quite successfully removed. I made my first 120 gold overnight(!) at level 16, which, if you're an old school player like me, might sound... more »

2013-06-13 15:42:50 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

http://blogs.sacurrent.com/index.php/racist-internet-trolls-attack-10-year-old-spurs-national-anthem-singer/comment-page-1/

You know, I try to keep a certain sense of humor and ironic reserve about social and political issues. To preserve my sanity and not be 'that guy' if nothing else.

But this one ... Well, I was aghast when +Prince Wonder linked it yesterday and I've been getting more angry about it as the comments continue and I see conservative types on various sites rushing to defend the people involved as 'good people who are fed up'.

Here's the thing: That's a kid. A kid having an awesome once in a lifetime moment. If you can't turn off being a douche bag for the four minutes it takes to let him have that moment? YOU are more of a net loss for your country than any of the 'illegals' you're railing against. Especially since... more »

2013-06-13 02:26:32 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)

  Interesting stuff. I'm reading the late Roger Ebert's The Great Movies and his essay on Gone With The Wind finally helped me realize a couple of things about my cinematic tastes.

I already knew a lot of my favorite movies were in Technicolor, The '38 Robin Hood, The Wizard of Oz, The Boy With Green Hair, Black Narcissus, The Three Musketeers and many others.

And I knew that I particularly loathe a lot of the cinema of the 70s, the height of the 'realist' school of American film-making.

But it never occurred to me, until reading Ebert's essay, that what I love about those Technicolor movies is that they represent a jewel-toned, supersaturated meta-reality. The way the colors were handled in those films primes your brain for wonder and spectacle.

By contrast, the dull, dim and muted tones of movies like Serpico and... more »

2013-06-12 12:09:54 (11 comments, 1 reshares, 17 +1s)

Hmm. Hummus for breakfast. I feel so decadent. In other news, the new North African/Mediterranean place nearby is damned good and the portion sizes are insane.

But seriously, toasted cumin and spicy mint, high grade olive oil and fresh lemon juice? I am seriously thinking about getting a second order of it next time and making something latke-ish with the leftovers.

2013-06-12 01:58:28 (55 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

Two thoughts on returning to WOW:

1) I am paralyzed by the choices. I want to start off from level 1 again, because I've basically forgotten how to play the game and there are game skills you only develop by doing that. But I'm frozen on what to play first! I'm leaning towards Druid, because I vaguely remember loving cat form.

2) That opening sold me on Mists of Panderia. Really sold me. I'm making room in the fun budget for it ASAP. :D

2013-06-11 13:35:11 (24 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

My sleep schedule has been more and more erratic of late, so to fight that, even though I've had bad experiences, I used melatonin again last night.

Cue an evening of not quite nightmares. I woke up a few times during the night but never truly awakened, and each period of sleep had a distinct dream to it. The others were disturbing but a touch personal but the winner of the night had to be 'the Glitter Men'.

In the dream, I was walking with a young boy who is a baby in real life, but for the purposes of the dream was about 4-5 years old. He was skipping along, giggling and apparently pretending to play tag with somebody as we enjoyed the crisp air and autumn leaves of the trees scattered along the walks of a local park.

I asked him what he was doing and he said, "Teasing the Glitter Men".

Wondering where he picked that up, I asked,... more »

2013-06-10 23:41:25 (42 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

(Sigh) Gamers.

I play on an RP server in SWTOR. Which is usually fun but occasionally ... awkward.

Having purchased the Digital Deluxe version of SWTOR back in the day, I have access to the VIP area on the central space stations for both sides. This is a great convenience because it has vendors for selling, access to personal and guild banks and an auction house terminal, all without crowding or noise, usually.

I was in that area, doing some crafting, when I was approached by a character with a name that suggested the player was bad at Latin and the character was a woman proficient with oral sex. And, of course, she was dressed in one of the many, many, many cheesecake outfits for women.

Her (in character): My lord appears to be elegant and and a man of means. May I offer my services? I am part of (guild X) and we comfort and please the Sith.

Me:... more »

2013-06-10 18:19:23 (24 comments, 0 reshares, 22 +1s)

I swear, seeing people freak out about a game setting where the default assumption for characters is female makes me sad I have no talent for game design. Because it also makes me want to write up a Shaman game that is based on real-life shamanic traditions where the speaker to spirits and gods is usually queer, trans or some combination thereof.

2013-06-10 16:20:08 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Hm. Another year, another lack of significant LGBT headway with the major SF/F publishers. Ah well, maybe next year. 

2013-06-10 16:00:35 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

The path of true love is always rocky, even when it's pixelated. One (presumably) gay man's epic story of getting his viking housekeeper/bodyguard to marry his character in Skyrim.

2013-06-10 10:13:01 (8 comments, 5 reshares, 14 +1s)

Yeah, this is going to be taken down as soon as somebody from the Tony Awards wakes up from her hangover and starts policing YouTube.

All I can say is ... WOW! This is how you put on a show.

2013-06-10 04:04:09 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Ah ... Well. Wow. That last scene of this season's Game of Thrones. 

As a die-hard liberal with a bit of a social conscience and a smattering of history under my belt, that image was ... wince-inducing.

2013-06-08 00:23:18 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

http://www.axegiantmovie.com/

That's it. We're done here. All of civilization is downhill from here.

2013-06-07 04:25:24 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

You know, this PRISM information bothers me. But it also brings out my more perverse side. So here's my suggestion: Slash.

That's right. Slash fiction. One part has to be spy or terrorism related, so the sweeper software that reads your mail forwards it to a living NSA/CIA/FBI analyst. The other part, go nuts, I'm thinking 24 and Supernatural, personally. Every day, I'm going to write a few hundred words of Jack Bauer and Dean Winchester polishing each other's pistols while trying to stop fanatic werewolf Jihadists and email it to myself.

And some poor bastard is going to have to read every line. Every day. Until I end up in secret jail or get bored. That's my blow for civil disobedience. Well ... Blows. Amongst other things.

If you feel like it, join me. Let's make them pay for our civil liberties with horrors that no amount of brain bleach... more »

2013-06-06 23:02:21 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

I first started going to gay clubs and bars a few years before it was technically legal for me to so. I went, not just because I was a horny teenager (though, you know, teenager), but because I honestly thought I'd go insane if I didn't have some outlet and community where I could go to be myself. 

Well, mostly myself. Gay nerds weren't a thing way back then.

But that community was a very careful one, for all the smiles and 'Hey, Mary!' and laughter. The club I usually went to had a man trap installed (which isn't as fun as it sounds). A bullet-proof glass and steel enclosure where you stopped to pay the cover charge and the drag queen behind the counter could give you a once-over look to make sure you were safe. And theoretically check for ID. Only once you'd been given a pretty good scrutiny were you allowed inside.

Over the years I was a... more »

2013-06-06 17:49:19 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Jerome's awesome review of Remember Me. I'm adding this one to the 'play soon' list.

2013-06-06 16:14:43 (14 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

It's been a while since I did a themed movie weekend, so I'm lining up films a bit early, so I can start tomorrow night. This weekend, I have a quartet of George Pal movies ready to go.

Pal was the father of the sci-fi spectacular. He was a man who loved his Technicolor. And under his direction and production, some of the most gorgeous, jewel-toned fantasies of the fantastic to ever be filmed were created. 

I've seen all of these before, but they are all worth rewatching and all highly recommended. An oft-overlooked gem, Dr. Lao is both brilliant and sinister, with Tony Randal as a trickster demigod who destroys the sense of superiority, control and mundanity that both shelters and enslaves a small mid-century American town.

2013-06-06 14:58:04 (24 comments, 0 reshares, 17 +1s)

I am going to say two things that are geek heresy:

Posit #1: George RR Martin is not a very good writer.
Posit #2: His 'hardcore fans' need to shut up and let him enjoy being famous.

For the vast majority of his career, Martin has enjoyed a lot more 'success', with success being a very, very, very relative term in his case as an anthologist and editor. Mainly because his writing is, well... he's a very good anthologist.

Now that he has a fluke hit, probably the most recognition he's going to get, professionally, in his whole life, after working in the trenches of the mid-shelf writing world for the last 40 years or so, people need to shut the hell up and let him bask in the glory of it all.

Because the mid-shelf will never stop being there, and when the fad of grimdark fantasy fades away, that will be where he is again. (Albeit... more »

2013-06-06 12:16:36 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

On one hand, Misha Collins has both a habit of speaking out of turn and a perverse sense of humor, so it's wise to take his comments with a grain of salt. On the other, Felicia Day also took a sideswipe at the show not too long ago, talking about how nice it would be to have genre shows where the female characters could be strong without being lesbians. (As her character is in Supernatural.)

Now, as for the substance of the comment, I can see it both ways. The Winchester brothers are absolutely hell on the women in their lives. But that's because the characters are amazingly dysfunctional and bound together in an unhealthy, obsessive fraternal relationship and a mutual death wish, more or less, given that they just refuse to walk away and let somebody else do 'the job'.

I'm not so sure that is the show's culture of writers, directors and producers being sexist... more »

2013-06-06 02:19:54 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Warning: Super-Star Wars-RPG-Nerdery ahead. 

Don't say I didn't warn you if you read this and wonder what the heck I'm on about.

So ... I'm playing SWTOR again and my Sith Warrior is on Taris. Taris, for those who don't play the game, is a ruined swampy world once covered by a single enormous city-state with towers that were miles high. If you've played Knights of the Old Republic, you kinda, sorta do stuff that leads to the horrible destruction of tens of billions of racist jerkwads and more innocent aliens. Ooops.

Taris is a long haul for either side. Lots of grinding quests, lots of running through swamps killing mutants. As such, it tends to become almost a meditation aid for me. I just put the brain on autopilot, do the quests and the imagination roams free.

Since I was playing Star Wars and the Venture Brothers season premiere... more »

2013-06-06 01:17:36 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Damn! I really want this now!

2013-06-05 15:24:36 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

So, Darius Rucker, formerly totally not 'Hootie' of 'Hootie and the Blowfish*' is now a country artist. And, because rednecks are nothing if not classy, this has caused some racist backlash.

My objection to Rucker's country music has nothing to do with his race. It has to do with him producing music in which he tries to sell himself as under-educated and overworked. His new album has songs that stress a lot of 'Aint', 'I done' and other lyrics that work for somebody raised in a hillbilly bar in the backwoods of Virginia, but not so much for a well-raised former U of SC student.

Actually, that's my objection to most mainstream country right now. This weird anti-intellectual fetishism. Smart used to be a virtue, even in country music. These days, it's suspicious to be polysyllabic or possess reasoning skills, to judge by popular country... more »

2013-06-05 15:07:35 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Totally Crazy from technological perspective

2013-06-05 14:47:21 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

"This isn't about you or your issues."

Yeah, that kind of sums up the DNC's stance on LGBTQ folks most of the time. They usually do make exceptions when taking our money, though.

2013-06-05 11:13:53 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Random confession of the day:

I can't hear the phrase Sotto Voce without picturing and even doing mental game stats for a very soft spoken but emphatic Batman villain.

2013-06-04 01:47:40 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Ouch. I'm watching the season finale of Grimm Season 1 now. Since it was a year ago, I'm going to be a little spoilery here.

...

...

...

I'm watching the scene wherein Nick finally confesses all to his girlfriend/finance Juliette. The actress does a distressingly good job of conveying, without words, that she thinks her loved one is now dangerously insane. All that horror and pain and sadness and the urge to just bolt and run away conveyed before she even speaks a word.

It's shockingly real and adult and brutal for a genre show like this.

2013-06-04 01:00:29 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

I am both amused and a little sad that the best 'Generation Ship Mutants' story I've ever seen on television was the Venture Brothers season 5 premiere. 

2013-06-03 18:13:31 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Oh Tyler. Sweetie. Hush. No. No. Don't speak. It's better that way.

2013-06-03 13:00:26 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

http://www.immersiononline.net/film/Top-Ten-Comic-Book-Villain-Performances/slide/Top-Ten-Comic-Book-Villain-Performances

2013-06-03 10:46:39 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Gah. Nothing like waking up to find pictures in your stream of the kind of violence you don't even want to explain because it's so trigger-laden and horrid for most sane people.

What the hell is wrong with people?

2013-06-03 01:23:53 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

I think this is as close as Whedon can come to saying 'Jeez, let it go people!'

2013-06-03 00:25:22 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I've been watching the first season of Grimm and I'm towards the end of the season now.

There are thoughts perking in my head about David Greenwalt's involvement and his work on Buffy, Angel and Grimm being part of a single continuum of expression about fantasy worlds and how they impact our lives.

Also, comparing and contrasting Grimm and Supernatural  is interesting, in terms of theme and tone and each being the obverse of the other. (Yes, it's a two-headed coin. I cheat.)

2013-06-02 22:59:40 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

So, #Superman . 

+Curt Thompson already did a really excellent article on Threat or Menace about it; I suggest you check it out if you haven't read it yet. I'm mostly going to be covering the same ground, but there's a point I wanted to make to some of the current fans of Superman who seem to think that "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" is the only version fo Superman that has ever existed or ever should exist; a massive alien boyscout/cheerleader who has great power but refrains from using it because reasons.

Here's the point: Superman should be terrifying. He is literally an illegal alien undocumented immigrant. His "midwestern" ideals of respect, equality, and justice are a code he lives by, not a hinted suggestion that might be an ideal to which he fails to live up (like most if not all of those actual midwesterners and almost all of ther... more »

2013-06-01 23:12:36 (8 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Matt Smith will quit Doctor Who this Christmas

http://www.geeknative.com/40116/matt-smith-quits-doctor-who/

The news was under embargo, this blog wasn't included but the British newspaper has broken ranks and the embargo .

2013-06-01 20:13:17 (22 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

No. Just ... no. 

I am not a 'X retroactively ruined my love of Y' kind of guy. But when you attempt to follow up on what is not just one of the best SF movies of all time, but one of the best movies of all time, you have to make a good faith effort to live up to that.

And having watched the Green Lantern movie ... yeah. Hiring that writer is not putting in a good faith effort.

2013-06-01 20:00:20 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Best. Headline. Ever.

Far-Right Extremists Chased Through London by Women Dressed as Badgers

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/473597/20130601/bnp-edl-hate-fascist-badgers.htm

2013-05-31 22:32:25 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Whenever anybody who has lived out of their parents house or a comfy, safe campus housing situation tells me they are an anarchist, I tend to assume there is some form of chemical or organic impairment involved.

In Harrelson's case, I think it's pretty much a given.

2013-05-31 21:55:17 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

I have to admit, that retro late 50s, early 60s 'girl pop' sound and look are kind of fun. I wouldn't want a steady diet of it, but as a bubbly little treat now and then ... not bad!

2013-05-31 21:06:50 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

+Morgan Crooks Any discussion of an objectively 'cool' Walrus begins and ends with Gruntos, the bardiche and battleaxe-wielding combat Walrus from Battle Beasts.

2013-05-31 12:29:20 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 13 +1s)

This whole ideological purity test of never being able to even express frustration with the US or our culture bugs the living hell out of me. It's contrary to all the things we're supposed to believe in, if we are to believe our own national mythology.

Levine's frustrated comment was perfectly understandable, given that he lost two remarkably talented performers from the competition show because the audience voted for manifestly less talented performers who happened to be younger, thinner and/or whiter than the ones who were axed.

Acting as though it's somehow wrong or unacceptable to say 'I hate this country' is stupid. Levine has a right to say that. Or to put it in Fox News form: Why do we Americans hate our freedoms?

2013-05-31 03:01:35 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Wait ... what? That ... you can't ... how ... WHY?!

(Crap, why'd it have to be such a catchy abomination?)