The good news is that I’m no longer scared of hail.
The bad news is that hail and all the people who hide from it under the car ports at gas stations now piss me off.
— Ghost
I need to take a second to rep this blog, for what it’s worth, though few people read my blog.
This makes me smile. Why? Because sticking females in bikinis and stilettos in order to fight hordes of zombies or demons or whathaveyou is dumb. I understand the sex appeal of it for men and some women, but, frankly, if I’m going to play a game, I wanna look at my character and go “Oh, yeah, I would wear that on the battlefield” not “what, am I going to have sex with them until they die of… ecstasy?” I play a warrior, not a whore. Okay, stick the rogue or the diplomat in a skimpy outfit, but when you’ve got a badass chick out there swinging around a greatsword or a warhammer, she’s NOT gonna be wearing a bikini. She’ll be in full plate, or at least a chain shirt (depending on her dex mod and if she wants to keep it). Come on people.
And besides that, it’s possible to convey sexiness in a female character when she’s completely covered up. She doesn’t have to be practically naked for her to be attractive.
So, yeah. I like this blog. You might, too, if you’re anything like me.
— Ghost Girl
As much as I like metal…
…classical music will always be my love. It’s there, and it’s true, and it has more emotion than most anything else I ever listen to. Metal is that friend you hang out with on the weekends who likes to get into trouble and sometimes take you with him. Indie music is that friend who hangs out with you but not any of your other friends because he says he’s better than them, but in his mind he’s secretly afraid he’s not as good as them. Rock is there, but he gets boring after a while. Soft rock is nice, but only worth hanging out with when you’re in certain moods.
Classical, though, isn’t just a friend. Classical music is like a lover, with his ups and downs. He will sweep you off your feet and dance with you and fight with you and then make up with you and rub your feet and make you dinner and treat you like a queen.
Classical music will make you weep with joy, and, occasionally, with sorrow. Sometimes, when juxtaposed with the right imagery, it will make you laugh.
Classical music, I love you.
— Ghost Girl
I don’t know, what do you think?
It’s been suggested, various times, by various people, that I should start a blog of sorts in which I would teach folks about aspects of geekery. Y’know, decent comic books for those who’ve never read them before, where to start if you wanna get in on Doctor Who, what sort of people to watch out for at a con or in a gaming shop, etc.
I just… I don’t know, what do you think?
— Ghostie
I am slightly deaf.
I went to a concert last night. Volbeat, Megadeath, and Rob Zombie. Oh my god it was amazing. Metal concerts are always so fantastic. And I got to hang out with a friend of mine I haven’t seen in a few months. It was great.
What sucked was that it was a closed floor concert. I mean, no, there were no chairs on the floor, but you had to buy expensive tickets to get onto the floor. My tickets were free, but they were for the bowl. Next time I’ll have to make sure my mother knows I want floor tickets.
Metal is best enjoyed on your feet on the floor in a tightly-packed crowd where you can jump and scream and, if you aren’t as fragile as I am, push people around and be pushed around.
Still, in a seat you can headbang and enjoy the music. It’s just… better on the floor. instead of in the bowl.
Anyway, Megadeth and Rob Zombie moved onto Rocklahoma today, and I have a Whovian meetup in 2 and a half hours. I gotta get my hearing figured out before then.
— Ghostie
Hey all! It’s your friendly-neighborhood Matt Demers here with a bit of a giveaway to help jump-start my new bloggy-blogs. If you haven’t noticed lately, I’ve been trying to keep my site pumped with new reviews (almost) every day, from Korra to graphic novels to video games and music….
A Blank Sheet of Paper is the Most Intimidating and Empowering Thing in the World…
There’s so much to be done with a blank sheet of paper, but you have to start with nothing. You, as a writer, are a creator of worlds and of creatures and of people, and you have to create them from nothing. It scares you that you have to create something from nothing, and yet you have no limitations. You can do ANYTHING you want on that piece of paper.
It is so frightening, and so enabling, and so wonderful.
— Ghostie
DnD Playtest…
…Dare I?
— Ghostie
P.S. I dare.
OR NOT BECAUSE WIZARDS OF THE COAST SUCKS AND FORCES YOU TO CREATE AN ACCOUNT IF YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD THE PLAYTEST PACKET AND OF COURSE THEIR WEBSITE IS LAGGING LIKE NONE OTHER BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T THINK “OH, WE’RE RELEASING A PLAYTEST PACKET FOR MASS DOWNLOAD, MAYBE WE SHOULD THINK ABOUT SERVER OVERLOAD?”
There’s this fantastic anime I found…
…called Baccano! and I just wanted to share a little bit about it with you, as well as a little bit about my current relationship with anime.
I have not actively watched anime for a couple years now. I used to love it, from elementary school through about… Oh, junior year of high school. I just kinda… grew out of it. I’m not saying anime is just for kids, just that my interests changed over time and I became less attached to eastern comics and cartoons. The long-running animes like Bleach and Naruto are over-rated, in my opinion, and the short-running series like Deathnote and Gurren Lagann were just that, short-running. After about the first season of a series, I got tired of it. This is why I’m no longer as into anime as I used to be, and also why it’s interesting and surprising that Baccano! caught my eye at all.
Baccano is an anime about 18th century alchemists who somehow get stuck in Prohibition-era USA. It has to do with a demon and immortality and it’s pretty crazy. The opening credits are what caught my eye, though. The music is great, yeah, but I’ve heard similar music slapped onto an anime before, so that wasn’t so unique about it. The opening credits start with a coinflip and two characters dressing up as the headless horseman and Santa Claus, and then robbing a store of all its candy. Next is a poker scene involving other characters. A preacher pouring out a bottle of alcohol because prohibition. Champagne delivered to a traincar. An assassin pulling a dagger out of a wall. An explosion. An old-timey camera and the picture it took. A little girl closing a book, and a man drowning. Another little girl holding a hand of cards. The little boy that is evidently playing cards with her. And then the little girl pulls a card from the boy’s hand and points the face toward the “camera” and we see that’s it’s a joker, and on it are… the two characters from the beginning of the opening credits dressed in joker outfits.
The anime seems silly, but less than 10 minutes in you have an outright shooting. This anime is simultaneously ridiculous and extravagantly violent. It’s written well, and it’s witty. There are a lot of main characters, so it can get a little confusing, but I’d say it’s well worth it. It’s on Netflix, and I think also on Hulu. Netflix tags it with “Goofy, Exciting, Gritty, Quirky.” Normally gritty doesn’t go with goofy or quirky, but in Baccano! it does, and it works. If you’ve got the time, give it a shot.
— Ghostie
