Superstar Tag Team Et-Cetera

     I have a confession to make.  I love a very specific type of film.  When Internet reviewers/commenters try to frame their reviews with a fictional plot and homemade costumes and such, I love it!  I find it fascinating and, if done well, really fun to watch.

     As such, I am a big fan of Bob "Moviebob" Chipmans 'The Game Overthinker' series.  Gaming commentary with a narrative framework that can be charitably described as low budget.  Its creative as hell and really fun!  But he's not my only Internet video secret crush.

     I may have mentioned once...  Or twice...  Or a dozen times... Whatever, it's come up.  I may have mentioned that I am a BIG fan of the guys at www.loadingreadyrun.com because they have been producing quality web video content for more than a decade now (among their many MANY projects). Everything they do is pretty much golden!

     Then there's ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.

     I like The Nostalgia Critic, and I think the site is very well done, with a team of reviewers and an interlocking continuity of fiction that frames all their reviews.  It's all entertaining and fun, especially when they do their annual "specials" like 'Kickassia' or 'To Boldy Flee'.  But my favorite part of the site HAS to be Lewis 'Linkara' Lovehog (forgive me if I'm spelling his name wrong, it's late and I'm doing this from my phone).  My start with ThatGuyWithTheGlasses was with Linkara's 'History of Power Rangers'videos.

     Brief aside:  Linkara is a MASSIVE fan of all forms of The Power Rangers, and his History of Power Rangers videos are an EXHAUSTIVE history of every season of the show.  It's an absolutely astonishing level of detail and it is deservedly popular.

     Anyway, I got into 'TGWTG' because of Linkara's 'HoPR' videos, but I've been slowly drawn in by everything else.  I'll admit that beyond Linkara and The Nostalgia Critic I haven't watched much of the stuff on the site, but it's all definately on my list.  That's not why I brought them up, though.  I mention Linkara (and his continuity driven fictional framework) to tell you about his OTHER show on TGWTG.  Atop The Fourth Wall.

     Atop The Fourth Wall (Where bad comics burn!) is a review show for bad comic books.  And it's also where most of the fictional framework takes place (at least for Linkara).  It's entertaining, often hilarious, occasionally moving, and just downright well put together!  I can't really recommend it enough, especially if you (like me) are a fan of Comics but don't really have the time of finances to read them regularly anymore.

     Anyway.  I brought all THAT up to beg for something that I would REALLY love to see happen.

     Moviebob?  Linkara?  Listen up for a second.  Both of you are great amateur filmmakers.  Both of you do review and commentary shows as an outlet for your (very entertaining) respective fictions.  Also, in BOTH of your narratives, you have introduced the concept of a Multiverse and Dimension Hopping.  Do you see where I am going with this?

     Let's get a CRAZY AWESOME TAG TEAM SUPERSTAR TEAMUP thing happening!  I'm talking a crossover!  I would LOVE to see The Game Overthinker and Ivan (the fairy intern) show up in Linkaras world just in time to help defeat Dr Insano.  Or have Comicron One (Linkara's spaceship) pop over to the Overthinker-verse to do battle with The Anti-Thinker.  Wouldn't it be AWESOME!?

     I think it would be.

     Anyway, goodnight, lovelies!

Reaper of Free Time, more like!

     Warning, if you don't play Diablo III (and, to a lesser extent, it's 'Reaper of Souls' expansion) then you won't have any idea what I'm talking about.  The following assumes at least a basic knowledge of the game from here on out.  You have been warned.

 - - - - -

     Holy crap Diablo 3 is fun!  I've been having such a blast playing in adventure mode with my Barbarian that I haven't even really started my crusader, yet.  I found some cool stuff, and one item that has me laughing even now, several hours later.

     I found a legendary potion.  I swear to god I am not making this up:

     - Bottomless Potion of Kulle Aid It replaces your potions in your hotbar.  It restores 60% of your life (exactly like a regular potion), it has a 30 second cooldown (exactly like a regular potion), and it's reusable!  Like, you don't have to have more than one.  Normally you carry a stack of health potions, somewhere between 50 and 99 of them, so you can pop one when you need some emergency health. But this legendary potion is INFINATELY REUSABLE!

     I will never have to buy another potion again!

     Oh, and as awesome as that is already, there's more!

     The item also says: You can break through the walls created by 'waller' elites for 5 seconds after drinking from this potion.

     So.  It's the same benefit as a regular potion, has the same cooldown as the regular potion, and doesn't require a stack to work...

     That would be awesome even if it DIDN'T turn me into the Kool Aid man!

     Oh, YEEEAAHHH!

Freedom Ringing In My Ears.

     Yaay!  Update time!

     So, as most of you know, I'm in school.  I'm actually taking an Intro to The New Testament class and boy, I really shouldn't have.

     You see, this class is turning into a thinly veiled sermon from the pastor that is teaching it.  The class is billed as a historical look at the culture and writings of The Biblical New Testament.  But it's not.  It's a Christian-centric dose of college level Sunday school about the divinity of Jesus and one mans interpretation of scripture.  

     Now, don't get me wrong.  My teacher is a really nice guy.  He's just really set in his ways.  And, unfortunately for the neutrality of the classroom, his ways are those of an old Protestant pastor.

     As my friends will be not-at-all-surprised to hear, I have a few problems with this class.

     You see, I don't consider myself a Christian.  I'm not an atheist, and I am a very spiritual person.  My faith is personal and very important to me.  I'm not going to go into detail on a blog, but if you ask me directly (through email or even comments) I'll tell you anything you want to know.

     On top of my not being a Christian, I still have some issues with the way Christianity is followed today.  Not the least of which is my previously mentioned stance on Homosexual Marriage which, as you will recall, is nearly VIOLENTLY at odds with the stance of most organized churches.

     Also, you will be absolutely SHOCKED to hear, I can be an opinionated jackass sometimes.  I know!  Unthinkable, right?

     It's been...  Interesting, to say the least.

     But today was particularly so.  You see, I basically called my professor a liar to his face.

     Ok, here's the story:

     He was talking about the 10 commandments, and in passing he said this:  "Now, there's something powerful about the 10 commandments, they can warp your mind!  That's why they aren't allowed in schools or courthouses, because it might make people crazy, you see."

     "That's not true!" I blurted out before I could stop myself.  Brought the whole class to a halt.  He just looked at me and I decided I might as well go all in on this one.

     I talked about the separation of church and state, and the constitution, and about the large number of non Christians who might be offended by Christian doctrine/paraphernalia adorning a public building paid for by the taxpayers.

     He responded by asking this:  "Separation of church and state, huh?  Well let me ask you something.  Where in the constitution does it say that?  It doesn't!"

     Without missing a beat, I came back with "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

     He had the nerve to tell the class that that had nothing to do with the separation of church and state, that was about not establishing a state-religion.  He was (and still is) wrong.

     That quote is from the constitution of the united states of america.  The highest law in the most powerful country on the planet.  And it says "...no law RESPECTING an establishment of religion..." (emphasis mine).  That line forms the legal basis for the whole idea of the separation of church and state.

     Congress is prohibited (and thus, the government as a whole is prohibited by implication) from passing laws that recognize any religion over any other.  That's why Ten Commandments and Crucifixes aren't allowed in public buildings, allowing Christian iconography in the public spaces could be seen as favoritism of Christianity over other religions.  And that is precicely what is prohibited by the wording of the constitution.

     Anyway.  I'm going to bed before this turns into an all night rant.  Goodnight, lovelies!

It's not just for my health!

     Good evening, lovelies!  It is Thursday, March 27 and it's time for the update.

     It's been a long day.  My moped decided that today was a great day to throw the spring on its Kickstarter, making a godawful grinding noise.  I want bore you with the details, but long story short:  I had my mom drop me off at the gate to the Air Force Base where I go to school, and I rode my actual bicycle the three miles to the school building.

     It has been in the 30s and 40s all week.  So it's been really cold, add sweating from exertion and you have a recipe for the flu.

     I guess I just have to keep repeating to myself:

     ImnotsickImnotsickImnotsickimnotsickimnotsickACHOOimnotsickimnotsick!

     Anyway *SNIFF*  Goodnight Folks, I'll see you tomorrow!

Time management... Not my strong suit.

     Here's the update for today, Wednesday.  That wishful rant about superhero movies was for yesterday.

 - - - - -

     So.  I had half a semester off and did I use it to really crunch down and get some design work done?  No.  I plays a bunch of Diablo and Minecraft.

     So.  Now that school is back in and I have some serious studying to do, am I hitting the books?

     Ummm...  Have we met?  No, of course I haven't been studying.  I've been bitten by the game design bug again.  It's like I'm at my most creative when I'm SUPPOSED to be doing something else.  It's weird.

     The good news is that I am well on the way to having another working prototype game to playtest.  I'm kinda on fire for this one.

     Wish me luck, nonexistent peeps!

 - - - - -

     What?  Yes.  I am studying.  Don't worry about that.  I'll be fine in school.

     Goodnite, lovelies!

A MARVELOUS Idea

     Ha Haaaaaa!  

     I'm beginning to think I'm bad at this...

     So.  Here's the update for Tuesday, March 25th:

- - - - -

     You know what would be awesome?  If the folks at Sony or Fox secretly struck a deal with Disney/Marvel and had either Spider-Man or some X-Men (respectively) show up in or around Avengers 2.

     It won't happen, of course.  At least, definately not with Sony.  That's why they rushed out the godawful Amazing Spider-Man reboot, so they could hold on to the liscences and not have a very popular character revert back to Marvel.

     But.  And don't get me wrong, this is completely based off of my assumptions and we all know what assuming does.  But.  We MAY see some leeway on the x-men issue with fox.

     Already announced for Avengers 2 are two characters named Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch.  Canonically, in the comics, these two are the son and daughter (respectively) of Magneto, the main villain from most of the X-Men stuff.  Which would make them mutants, and Mutants are SQUARELY in the Fox wheelhouse.  Now, Disney could easily hand wave the two's origin as "We were born this way, don't ask questions."  Or they could rewrite it from the ground up, but I'm hoping they don't.

     I'm hoping that somewhere in the back rooms of the movie business, a deal was struck between the house of mouse and the murdochskateers for some continuity.  Wouldn't it be just AWESOME if the after credits shot from Captain America 2 was Steve Rogers runs into an old ww2 buddy?  Nobody sees who Rogers is looking at, but he just looks startled and says "Logan?" before a fade to black.

     It would be almost as big a 'HOLY SHIT' moment as the very first "Avengers Initiative" after credits teaser in Iron Man 1, and it would go a LONG way towards recreating the buzz about a feature of the Marvel movies that has kinda become expected at this point.

     A man can dream, can't he?

     See you later today, lovelies.

Doctor Diablo, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Game Addiction

     So, I'm tired.  I used a LOT of mental energy today working on a game design project, and a lot of physical energy driving my moped to school and back in 35 degree weather.  I was planning on staying up until midnight to get my first look at the Diablo III expansion, Reaper of Souls (which I have had on pre-order).

     You see, this is the first time an expansion has been released for a game that I am heavily invested in that isn't Magic: The Gathering, which is kinda a different beast altogether.  I've been spending a lot of time playing Diablo III in the last few weeks, I've been working hard to get my characters ready, and I got one of each class to max level.  That's a major accomplishment for me.  It's the first time I've EVER been so deep in an online game that i can experience endgame content.  It's a new experience for me!

     I mean, I was pretty heavily into Everquest for a while.  Back when it was newish, and between it's first expansion and second, I spent an unhealthy amount of time playing it, but I wasn't focused on getting to max level or anything, I was just completely lost in this living online world!  I literally skipped school for a week, just to play Everquest for 16-20 hours a day.  No lie.  I would get up with my mom, get dressed (I used to walk to school) leave and walk around the block until my mom left for work ten minutes later, then I'd let myself back in and play Everquest all day.  She came home around 5 and I would make up some bullshit about homework or whatever and just keep playing the game.

     I had a problem.

     I eventually got caught.  I think the school called her, but it may have been my buddy's mom, but by that time I had spent six days in a row playing hooky to play Everquest.  I got into a lot of trouble.  Any my mom cut me off from the game.  I was PISSED!  I raged and yelled and threw stuff and threatened her and all kinds of things, but she was the adult.  I was Seventeen and thought I knew everything.

     But, today I thank her for that.  I've seen what game addiction can do to people.  You see, online games like Everquest (or e more contemporary World of Warcraft) don't end.  And it's possible to play the game so much that your drive to live, your very drive to succeed at life gets transferred to the game.  Normally you want to finish school so you can get this job and make that money or buy this other car.  But when you get addicted to one of these games, your life becomes about wanting to reach this level so you can beat that boss and get this other item.  You put so much of yourself into the game that your actual life crumbles around you.

     It almost happened to me.  And it DID happen to my buddy.  For a while he played MMORPG's (like Everquest or WoW) literally from the time he woke up to the time he passed out that night.  He had no friends outside the game other than me, and even then he was always trying to get me to play with him.  The game became his life.  Now, it's a different story for him, he had some family issues (that have now mostly cleared up, thankfully) and some health issues (that he is getting under control) that made his real life absolutely miserable, and the game was his escape.  So nobody really blames him for losing himself in a world where he wasn't sick or lonely.

     He's doing much better now.  He still games, but now it's more of a hobby than a life replacement. But for a while, games made his unbearable life tolerable.  They got him through some rough times, and for that I will always be grateful.

     I don't know how this went from talking excitedly about diablo III to talking earnestly about game addiction...

     I tend to ramble when I get tired...

     Anywho, that's all I have to say for today.  Good night everybody!

Study Is A Four Letter Word...

     So.  As some of you know, I've been trying to design and publish a tabletop game in my spare time for a few years now.  I've got some interesting designs, and even a couple of prototypes to playtest with.  I've even had some success with a simple card game that Graham Stark of Loading Ready Run fame told me was 'Great' and 'Awesome' and 'Really Fun'.

     Needless to say, praise from one of my heroes has done wonders for my self confidence.

     Well, with school back up and running, I've been searching for something to waste valuable study time with besides video games.  You see, I purposefully got a laptop for school that won't run any newer games, no Diablo III (my current time-sink of choice) at school for me.  Heck, my laptop has trouble running minecraft when I have the settings all the way up.  And Minecraft runs in a browser window!

     Anyway, long story short, I've taken a rekindling to game design, which is my real passion, and I've been working on some of my designs.  I'm really only telling you this to ask you a question.  If I posted a .PDF of a Free-Print-And-Play version of one of my games, would you guys be interested in playing it and letting me kow what you think?

     Let me know in the comments if you might be willing to help out.  Or you can always email me (magicpokey@gmail.com).  Until tomorrow, lovelies!

/b Is Dead. Long Live /b

     I'm getting this out of the way early today because I made promises, and I intend to be busy until after midnight playing Diablo III.  Once again, forgive the font, I'm copy-pasting from my iPad notes app again.

 - - - - -

     I used to frequent /b.  A random topic forum on a website that I won't give you the address to, because finding it for yourself is part of it.  I recently decided to leave said website and it's community, and this is my heartfelt goodbye.

     Everybody keeps saying /b has changed so much and that /b sucks now and that all the new stuff is 'cancer' that is 'killing our boards'.  Well, everybody is wrong.

     The problem isn't with /b it's with us.

     You see, the people we think of as oldfriends, the people who have been around since near the beginning of /b, are growing up. 

     /b started as a reactionary board to what was perceived as a lack of freedom on the net and in our daily lives.  We were shunned in modern society, and even on most of the web, so we congregated in a place where we wouldn't be judged for our interests.

     The inherent anonymity of the Internet was taken to an extreme, as we all experimented with stuff that wouldn't be tolerated in our normal lives.  Gore, loli, wincest, even overt racism and sexism became the norm here simply because there was no individual identity and thus no accountability.  And this so called 'objectionable content' served to keep out the very people who would monitor and keep /b in check.

     The thing is, in making a haven for the degenerate within ourselves, we made a haven for the actual degenerates, and /b's downward spiral continued.

     Fast forward several years and the oldfriends of /b have grown up.  Many of us have moved on, no longer needing to feel rebellious by reading/posting on a place like /b.  but you know who hasn't grown up?  Our children.

     We grew up when the Internet was still fresh and new.  This wonderful, magical place in which we were the pioneers of exploration.  But our successors, the next generation of us, grew up with the Internet as just another facet of their daily lives. Well, information on the Internet has always been free, which means it's easier to find the same 'objectionable content' that /b was founded as a haven for.  Which in turn means such content, by it's very ubiquity, is no longer as 'objectionable'.

     What used to thrill us as teenagers and young adults for its illicit nature has become mundane for the next generation of kids.  This is a normal and natural part of the evolution of society in the internet age.  But a byproduct of all this growth is that the things we used to rely on for keeping people off of /b no longer serve as any kind of deterrent.  Thus we have been overrun by information-flooded teenagers who are looking for the same rebellion against us as we did against our parents back when /b was founded.

     There's nothing we can do to bring back the old /b without irrevocably changing it's heart.  And what's more, we don't really want that.  What we all want is a return to a younger time when WE were the ones rebelling against society, before we grew up and became that very society ourselves.  And that's something we can never have.

     It's because of all this that I decided to leave.  This place has ceased to be the sanctuary for me that is once was, and though this is natural, it is still sad.  It's time for me to move on.

     So.  To my old /b/rothers I have this to say to you:  Leave.  You've grown up, and /b isnt for you anymore.  If you just can't give /b up, then embrace the new /b.  No matter how much we may dislike the change, there is nothing we can do to stop it short of destroying the very thing we are trying to save.

     And to my new /b/rothers:  Enjoy this place, which your fathers have created, as a haven for all the bad feelings and thoughts you have to keep locked away from the rest of the world.  /b is for you.  Be good stewards.

 - - - - -

     There you have it.  Goodnight, lovelies

Middle Ages

     Nothing to say, much, today, lovelies.  I'm officially 31 now, and this was the first full day of me being Middle Aged.

     I'm kinda depressed about that.

     But, you know what?

     I'm still awesome.  And now I'm officially not a kid anymore, so I can be RESPECTED for being awesome.

 - - - - -

     That's all.  Just some food for thought.

     Goodnite, lovelies.