Cool Stuff Sunday: "Feast"

Some weeks, there's three entries in Cool Stuff Sunday. Other weeks, there's more than that. I can't count. Anyway, let's get down to business (to defeat the Huns)...

"Kara" is an unofficial Star Wars short film. 

31 days of Dark Souls art. 

The three-clue rule is a good way to run investigations in RPGs. And wandering adventures are underused. 

More Dark Souls III screens. 

Peter Capaldi is leaving Dr. Who.

A "more violent" Darth Vader could be cool...

Looking for some horror comics? Here's some. 

What We Do In the Shadows was great, and now it's getting a sequel. 

Ravenloft and Tarokka are coming back!

The voice of Ahsoka Tano makes a pretty good Ahsoka Tano... 

And Janet Varney seems to have a hard time separating herself from Avatar Korra... 

Rumors say that there's going to be an Obi-Wan Kenobi trilogy, and it might include Darth Maul... 

Oh, and J.K. Rowling has named some of the non-UK wizarding schools. 

Backlog Blitz: SNES, Week Fifteen, "Bad Aircraft, Good Spacecraft."

I quit eating candy recently. It's...not going smoothly. I really really really want candy right now. Do you have candy, mister? Seriously, though. Send me Skittles. I need them. In the mean time, let's talk about old games, mmkay?

Worm Fodder: Jantine Bas'Var

Jantine was a turning point in my RPG characters. I'm not saying Muster Chuff or Jimmy Fuentes were entirely my fault--Commissar Galt was a well-role-played character--since how I played them was partially influenced by the group, but there was still a fair amount of blame to be placed on me. Jantine, though, was for a small 2-player one-shot game, and if she had turned out poorly, it would have been 100% on me. Thankfully, she was fun to play, and made me realize that I could play characters that were "weird" but not WEIRD.

NAME: Jantine Bas'Var

SYSTEM: Star Wars D20 (Wizards of the Coast)

LIFESPAN: Survived campaign.

ABOUT: A shapeshifter, with a preferred  form of a Wookiee. In all forms, had filed teeth. For more social dealings, used the form of an orange-skinned humanoid. Rebel sympathizer and ne'er-do-well. Possessed a mercenary mindset, but abhorred slavery.

NOTABLE FEATS: Terrorizing too many cab drivers to count; preventing a Sith-influenced plot to destroy the great Dr'Gog Tree which bound a planet together; exposing a slavery ring; starting a turf war; attempting to lift someone in Geonosian form and failing miserably.

CAUSE OF DEATH: Survived campaign. Given Rebel sympathies and shapeshifting abilities, probably assisted Rebels. May have died during Rebellion.

Last Month's Games: "50/50. I'll Take It."

It's Friday night, so my only goals are getting this posted as quickly as possible, heating up some burritos, and playing video games. So let's talk about games I played in the last month. (Some, at least. I'm trying to build a backlog here). Then I can play random games off my Steam library. (Waiting for my budget to allow me to buy DarkMaus, which is basically mouse-themed top-down Dark Souls and thus the coolest thing ever).

OverAnalyzed: H.P. Lovecraft's Commonplace Book

Howard Phillips Lovecraft. He was a guy. He wrote things. Things that inspired generations of writers to follow. Also things about black cats with unfortunate names. He kept a commonplace book. If you're not familiar with the term, it's basically just a notebook you use to write down cool ideas. Nothing too fancy. Really, you could just call it a notebook and be done with it. Anyway, I have a (bootleg) copy of his commonplace book, and when I was leafing through, I noticed that some of the story ideas seemed...familiar. So, I went through and found anything that rang a little bell of memory, then cross-referenced his stories and poems to see what I could see. Namely, one-to-one correlations between numerous ideas and his written works, as well as the evolution of his ideas for stories. Here they are. If you'd like to follow along, a digital copy of Lovecraft's notebook can be found here. Obviously, there will be spoilers of 100-year-old stories. You've been warned.

Wandery Wednesday: "Diabolus In Musica"

What's the title mean? "The Devil in music," a term for a tritone, which is a music thing that I could explain if I wasn't lazy. It's also a Slayer album. SLAYER! How does it relate to today's topic? No clue. I'm going to be talking about music, but only tangentially. Aaaaanyhoooo.

I am a consumer. I mean that in both the literal sense of "I eat things" but also in the American Capitalist sense of  "sucker who buys our junk." I am also a bit of a pack rat. Not physically, thankfully, since my apartment is smallish and I like to have room. No, I am a digital pack rat. Wallpapers. I have thousands of desktop wallpapers from dozens of TV shows and games. Ebooks. I have thousands of them, some purchased, some public domain, an ever-decreasing number pirated. Movies. Same deal. TV shows. Same deal. Games. Same deal. I have all of this...stuff. And I don't know what to do with it.

Slowly, so slowly, I'm watching it, reading it, deleting it, whatever it takes. I used to have 200+ unwatched movies. Now I have 45. I read a book almost every day. Every second day, at least. I listen to 2-3 albums every night as I exercise. And I still can't bloody get ahead.

I want. I desire the act of collecting. It isn't the having, it's the finding, the purchasing, the illicit downloading... (This is beginning to sound vaguely fetishistic, so I'm not going to continue down that road.) Once a thing is in my possession, it's often weeks or months before I even consume it. In some cases (a massive torrent of public domain books), I haven't even BEGUN to chip away at them years later.

What's my point? I don't know. Isn't that the point?

Poem: "I Can't Call It 'Untitled' Because Then It Has a Title."

Crumpled soda-can eyes,
A compacted block of emotions,
Swirled together like half-melted crayons
Labeled Magic Mint or Outer Space--
The blue-green of unrequited love
Juxtaposed against the blue-black of despair.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

No clue what this means. If you do, please tell me so I can sound smrt. 

Music Roundup Monday: "Music Maketh the Game"

I love game soundtracks. Love 'em. They're an instrumental part of what makes great games memorable. Here are some (only some!) of my favorites from last week. 

Motoi Sakuraba - "Great Grey Wolf Sif" (Dark Souls)

Sam Hulick - "Leaving Earth" (Mass Effect 3)

Mike Morasky - "Cara Mia Addio" (Portal 2)

Darren Korb - "The Pantheon (Ain't Gonna Catch You)" (Bastion)

Kenji Yamamoto - "Metroid Prime Title Screen" (Metroid Prime)

Nobuo Uematsu - "You Can Hear the Cry of the Planet" (Final Fantasy VII)

Kazumi Totaka and Shinobu Tanaka - "Luigi's Mansion Theme" (Luigi's Mansion)

Cool Stuff Sunday: "DARK SOULS III HYPEEEEE"

Dark Souls III info has been leaking/being released lately. This makes me excited. Gothic fantasy RPG, third part of a stellar series? Count me in!

A very dedicated person has cut all three of the Hobbit movies into a single four-hour film. 

Ewoks are terrifying. Really terrifying. 

Dark Souls comic? YES. 

Changes to the magic system in Dark Souls III? YES. 

Making a dungeon to crawl? Here's what it should have. 

Leaked Dark Souls III concept art? YES. 

The evolution of British military gear. 

An old article about why "Death Magnetic" sounded so awful. 

This interview with Jar Jar Binks is kind of sad... 

What if Obi-Wan was Padme's lover? 

Gorgeous illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe's stories. 

Why aren't you playing Darkest Dungeon?

Bookstores are beautiful. 

Rey is Anakin? 0.o

And apparently the Addams Family living room was pink... 

Worm Fodder: Jimmy Fuentes

Yeah... For a while my best RPG character was my first. Thankfully Mister Fuentes here marks a turning point... But he contributed to the breaking of my first group's first DM, which led to me DMing for a time, which also led to me learning not to be That Guy.

NAME: James "Jimmy" Fuentes

SYSTEM: Hunter: The Vigil

LIFESPAN: About fifteen minutes.

ABOUT: A drug-addicted Best Buy employee. Lived out of his car after a particularly bad breakup.

NOTABLE FEATS: Surviving a werewolf attack on a bar; snorting werewolf blood.

CAUSE OF DEATH: Snorting werewolf blood.

Backlog Blitz: SNES, Week Fourteen, "Ninja Ogres Are Out of This World"

Only three games this week because I've been playing Dark Souls II again. 2 bosses a night, every night. Fear me and my ax!

Last Month's Books: "Witches, Wings, and...Ms. Marvel?"

I...didn't do a whole lot of reading in December, so this is a bit barren. Next month will be better, I promise. December was busy. And by busy, I mean I was playing Fallout for 8 hours a day. 

Ms. Marvel (2014 Version)

This is really really good. I've never been a Ms. Marvel fan. But this fresh start makes her way more relatable to me. Which is weird, because as some people have complained: Kamala Khan is Muslim, Blah blah blah blah SJW nonsense blah blah blah. Nope. She's kickass WHILE being Muslim, not "in spite of being Muslim" or "because of being Muslim." She's just a kickass girl who happens to be Ms. Marvel and Muslim. And that's pretty cool. Art style, writing, sense of humor, this is all top-notch.

Witches’ Hollow - H.P. Lovecraft

Color Out of Space 2.0, only way more obvious and not as good.

Winged Death - H.P. Lovecraft

Quite good. Actually pretty suspenseful and well-written, unlike Witches’ Hollow WHICH WAS A TRASHFIRE

Without a Thought - Fred Saberhagen

A really fascinating and suspenseful sci-fi short story about entropy, intelligence, and programming.

When You Care, When You Love - Theodore Sturgeon

Enthralling short story about wealth, love, power, fate, and humility, as well as the lengths people will go to save someone.

OverAnalyzed: "Lady or the Tiger"

We all read this story in high school, right? Mongol king finds out his daughter’s romancing a peasant (or vice-versa) and says THROW HIM TO THE TIGER! OR MAYBE IT’LL BE A LADY! MWUAHAHAHA! …Anyway, this always gets held up as an example of an ambivalent ending, because we don’t know what the princess would hate more—to see her beloved ripped apart by a tiger or to see him happy with another woman for the rest of their lives. But there is an answer, and it doesn’t rely on the princess at all. Instead, it all comes down to the king. 

Wandery Wednesday: "Uffda"

It has been a very long day. Everything started so beautifully. A nice slow morning, all the tickets in the queue getting resolved with alacrity... Then the bloody phone system went down. Suffice to say we were being underprovided with bandwidth for 250 people in the midst of our call center's busy season. Aaaaand guess who is the self-appointed phone maestro? Yep. Me. The idiot. 

Anyway! Outside of that it's been a good week. Finished up the second drafts of poems for a collection I've been working on -- "Abyss Blinked." It's in the hands of people who will call a spade a spade, unless it's a trowel. 

On Monday night I started combing through H.P. Lovecraft's commonplace book, trying to match up story ideas with his published stories, see if I can decipher anything about the thought process that went into which stories he ended up writing. It's quite fascinating so far. He didn't always pick the ideas I would have...

Oh, and tonight I cut 1.5 minutes of my mile time. Normally, a ten-minute mile is is around my comfort zone. I can go faster, but my knees and ankles start complaining. (On that note, skateboarding and snowboarding are terrible for your knees, ankles, and back, kids. Also they're a good source of concussions. What was I saying? Oh, right...) Anyway. Tonight I kicked out three 8.5-minute miles, with the same level of exertion. Which is...good? Right? 

Food's ready and the missing pieces of my Lego Millennium Falcon are here. Goodbye. 

Poem Tuesday: "Senfgas"

Come and kiss me:
I am poison.
Come and warm me:
I am death.
In the nighttime,
Hear me calling,
Lock your doors tight,
Fear my breath.
As the wind blows
Through the brambles
So do I pass
Through the world.
If you see me,
Tell nobody.
Choking death
Will be unfurled.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

I'll let you research what "senfgas" is on your own. Anyway, I really love Townes Van Zandt, and this is inspired by the structure of "Snake Song." Only, because I also really love WWI, it got kind of mixed up with that. So yeah. I'm very tired. Good night. 

Music Roundup Monday: "Eire, the Ancient Ways, and the Thin White Duke"

A couple years ago, I was in Ireland, in Ballyvaughan or Galway, homesick and yet at home. Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:   

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

David Bowie - "5.15 The Angels Have Gone"

The Young Dubliners - "Weila Waile"

Christy Moore and Shane MacGowan - "Spancil Hill"

Shane MacGowan and the Popes: "The Song With No Name"

The Dropkick Murphys - "Climbing a Chair to Bed"

The Bloody Irish Boys - "Streams of Whiskey"

Flogging Molly - "If I Ever Leave This World Alive"

The Pogues - "A Pair of Brown Eyes"

Bonus: The Pogues - "The Auld Triangle"

Cool Stuff Sunday: "Murder Hobo is a Legitimate Profession and Don't Let Your DM Tell You Otherwise."

Hello. It's Sunday, also known as my least-productive day of the week. Today, I will write this blog and then lapse into a vegetative coma until Monday morning. It will be a good day. Truly, life is good.

Polygon has a pretty good explanation of why no one remembers the Jedi. 

Lego bricks are now a better investment than shares or gold. I KNEW IT. 

Two articles on MMOs that should have died long ago but are still on life support. 

H.P. Lovecraft's commonplace book of ideas. 

Why rulers like murder hobos in RPGs. 

Rock Paper Shotgun's list of anime for people who don't like anime. Somewhat accurate. 

Backlog Blitz: SNES, Week Thirteen, "Mechs and Kombat and Vikings, Oh Myyyyyy..."

It was a long week. Now it's time to stay inside and stay warm as the temperatures drop below zero and keep dropping. Thank goodness for blankets and snacks and internet. Especially snacks and internet... 

Last Month's Movies: "Some of These Things Are Not Like the Others..."

It has been a long, tiring week, as is the case every week. I don't want to talk about it. I want to write this blog and go to bed. I've been up since 4AM. Anyway. Movies I watched last month. Some of them are not like the others. Which ones? How am I supposed to know? Gosh. 

Story: "Le Cochon Gris"

One night in winter a wolf came to the village of St. Louis-Pierre. He did not come howling, as a wilder wolf might. No, this wolf, this loup-garou, padded about on paws of cotton fluff. Behind animal instincts lurked a cunning earned from years of evading hunters. 

Snow slashed about the wolf. For weeks now, winter had smothered all the forest around, finally driving the wolf further afield in search of prey. This winter cut to the marrow, and the wolf was lean. 

Sniffing frozen air, the wolf approached a cottage at the village’s outskirts. No light glowed from within, though it was but early evening. Nor did any man-scent drift out into the night. Puzzled, the wolf moved on to another cottage, only to find a similar vacancy. One by one, each home proved empty. 

Growing bolder, the werewolf began entering the cottages, nosing open latches or bursting through thatch roofs. Not a soul did he find. More than vacant, the cottages were barren, with nary a side of bacon or wheel of cheese to be discovered. And not for lack of the werewolf’s trying. Even a crumb of bread or moldy carrot would have satiated the werewolf. 

But naught was found. So the wolf drifted ever closer to the village’s heart. There he found the inn. Alone of all the buildings, it gold-glowed with light and warmth. Food. The wolf smelt food within. With food, however, came the scent of humans.

Hunger outweighed caution and the wolf approached. Slinking beneath the eaves, the wolf heard a solemn voice within. This wolf was a clever one, and spoke the peasant tongue. And so it listened, and this is what it heard:

“Truly, my dear neighbours, it has been a long sad winter for all of us. Some have resorted to uncharitable acts in order to survive, breaking our neighbourly bond to sate their base desires. I am speaking of the theft and hoarding of food. Jean LeDuc, you have been judged guilty of such a crime. Your punishment is thus: You and your family shall replenish our communal foodstock. Such is our law.”

There were no screams; there was no time. The wolf snuffed blood. Once more, it padded off into the night. For there are men, and there are wolves, and then there are wolves in the guise of men. The village of St. Louis-Pierre lay quiet once again. In the night, a wolf howled a requiem. 

Wandery Wednesday: "Steamed"

I'm a bit grumpy. So while my (delicious) chicken and rice cooks, let me vent, yeh? Insurance. Insurance can go screw. The lady I talked to was very nice and helpful, so I hope I didn't yell at her. But when the insurance company fails to transfer my primary care provider to one within 100 miles of me, then when I get that sorted out tells me that it won't transfer until next month and that my old provider will have to write a referral for a biannual visit I need, and then when the old clinic calls and says that they're not listed as my primary provider because the insurance company transferred me already... Yeah... That makes me a bit grumpy.

And then when the two old dudes who like to hoard the only two ellipticals for 1-2 hours every night at the same time are hoarding the only two ellipticals AGAIN, that makes me a bit grumpy too. Seriously. They probably use the elliptical for the same reason I do--bad knees, bad back--but...an hour plus? That's a bit excessive, yeh? Yeh.

Anyway, at least last night was productive. Wrote a short story that's probably awful and finished a poem that isn't too bad and then went to sleep and wished I didn't have to get up for work. Yay me. I'm so freaking boring.

Also, Donald Trump sucks and Hilary Clinton sucks (or doesn't, if Monica is anything to go by...) and ISIS sucks and the rapey immigrants in Sweden & elsewhere suck and make life harder for their fellow immigrants & will probably trigger a swing to near-Fascism if things don't get better and run-on sentences suck and the world sucks and somehow life has never been better. What a day. What a LOVELY day.

At least I've been reading a lot. That counts for something, right?

Poem Tuesday: "He's No Lemmy"

I'm gonna live hard and die young.
By which I mean,
Eat junk food and die fat.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

And yet I still go on diets and work out and indulge in self-loathing.  I think I'd rather be fat... 

Music Roundup Monday: "The Red Right Hand Comes For Zorro and Cuchulain...And the Thin White Duke"

It hasn't been a good few weeks for great music. Lemmy's dead. Now Bowie's dead... I don't want to think about who will be next... I'd like to think of them both as defying death like Zorro does in one of last week's songs...

Blur - "Mirrorball"

John Williams - "Rey's Theme"

Alice Cooper - "Zorro's Ascent"

Heidevolk - "Vulgaris Magistralis"

The Decemberists - "The Tain"

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - "Red Right Hand"

Arctic Monkeys - "Red Right Hand"

Cool Stuff Sunday: "Harrison Ford Day"

Am I dead yet? I have a splitting headache and I'm starving, no matter how much food I shovel into my mouth. Is the weekend over? Please let me go back to work. Or at least talk about cool stuff...

Viking-themed AR-15. 

Want to kill a computer? The Etherkiller is your go-to. 

Jim Sterling wants to know how you ruin Tetris.

Want to break your heart? Read this Chewie/Ben Solo comic. 

Personally, I think that Obi-Wan's speech to Luke conveyed a sense of "I really don't want to tell you that your father was a mass murderer" just fine, but here's a re-edit. 

Kylo Ren is tougher than you think. 

A bunch of creepy acrylic paintings. 

Want to know if you've got too much time on your hands? Well, if you're calculating out how much time on the Holodeck Enterprise crew members got... 

Want to 3D-print Dungeons and Dragons monsters? This guy's got your back. 

Honestly, the Jedi kind of suck... 

Adam Savage is a little obsessed with Harrison Ford's gun in Blade Runner... 

Rumor has it the (unaltered) original trilogy of Star Wars might be coming to Blu-Ray... 

Worm Fodder: Muster Chuff

I'm...I'm not too proud of this one. I don't have any excuses, alright?

NAME: Muster Chuff

SYSTEM: Halo: ODST homebrew

LIFESPAN: Less than one hour.

ABOUT: An ODST trooper from the ODST equivalent of the short bus.

NOTABLE FEATS: Getting Flamin' Hot Cheetos in his eyes before a drop.

CAUSE OF DEATH: Choked on a Flamin' Hot Cheeto during a drop.

Backlog Blitz: SNES, Week Twelve, "Indiana Was the Pink Fluffball's Name..."

I never have been good at titles for these blogs... Are there classes on writing good titles? Is that a thing? It should be a thing. I would attend. Anyway. It has...it has been a long week. I say that every week. But this week... I'm barely awake right now and it's post-noon. I've been up for five hours. The only thing that's keeping me awake is the promise of the delicious-smelling Jamaican chicken soup on the stove... Anyway. Old games. Let's talk about them. 

Untimely Revue: "Crawl Out Through the Fallout (4)"

The following is an updated version of a collaborative review I did with some other former members of the GameInformer blogging community as a sort of anniversary blog. I have updated it with my thoughts on the late game, which remain pretty much the same as my thoughts about the early game, but still. Questions are not mine. Answers are. 

OverAnalyzed: "Historic on the Fury Road: A Timeline of Mad Max"

Let’s talk about Max Rockatansky. More specifically, the timeline of his life. This has not been researched in any sort of scholarly manner, being based solely on watching Fury Road and The Road Warrior an unhealthy number of times, as well as an ongoing playthrough of Mad Max (the game). Spoilers will abound, so ye be warned.

Wandery Wednesday: "Words, Words, Words..."

As a kid, I read an average of five books a day. In tech school, I read a book every night or two. In college, not counting assigned reading, I read a book every week or so. Up until recently, I wasn't reading books at all. What happened to me? Why did I slow down? 

Well... The books I read got longer, and the time I had to read them in got shorter. That's one major reason. Not only that, but I began reading books--for class, mostly, at first--which required me to think. You can't just dash through As I Lay Dying in a couple hours, as much as I wanted to at the time. (Side note: "A Rose For Emily" is the only piece of writing by Faulkner worth reading). The text expects that you think about what it contains, and professors expect that as well. So that slowed me down as well. Having to think will do that to you. I think... 

Poem: "Redundant"

Your room smells of champagne and sweat,

Mine of loneliness and beer.

In all my life, my one regret

Is that I'm not needed here. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Shockingly, this poem is not autobiographical. My apartment smells like loneliness and rum, thank you very much.

Music Roundup Monday: "Genre Whiplash In B Minor"

Oh hey. It's been a while since I've done one of these. Like two weeks? Or more? I can't count good. I can't word good either. Let's listen to music. 

Arcade Fire - "Crown of Love"

Ulver - "Utreise"

Atlantean Kodex - "Enthroned in Clouds and Fire (The Great Cleansing"

Chase Holfelder and Kurt Schneider - "All I Want For Christmas"

Motorhead - "Ace of Spades"

Cat Power - "Fate of the Human Carbine"

Andrew Bird - "Depression Pasillo"

Die Antwoord - "Wie Maak die Jol Vol"

Andrew Lloyd Weber - "Learn to Be Lonely"

Sikth - "Days Are Dreamed"

Rotor - "Oktogan"

Cool Stuff Sunday: "Star Wars and Some Other Junk I Guess"

Oh hey. It's the first Sunday of 2016, and I reckon I've got some cool stuff to shove in your gawping faces, you wonderful readers. (All seven [7] of you)! I'm trying to finally get my writing back on a schedule, so hopefully more work will be up here soon. Of course, I still reserve the right to post stuff as I feel fit, because we don't need no steenkin' schedules. Let's begin, shall we?

Fallout 4 tries very hard to railroad you into killing people, to the point that it pretty much breaks the game if you attempt a no-kill approach. Well, this guy beat the main quest without personally killing anyone. Pretty impressive, all things considered. 

Pokemon Go is looking to be pretty freaking awesome. Here's hoping!

Military commanders in WWI tried pretty hard to prevent a second Christmas Truce. New evidence suggests they failed. Good. War is hell, no need to strip every last vestige of humanity out of it. 

There's a new Berserk anime planned for this year. YESSSSSSSSS. Hopefully it's Golden Arc quality. 

Wondering how Boba Fett escaped the Sarlacc? Here's an interesting interpretation, in Lego. 

Apparently professional lightsaber designers are a thing now. A pretty good sign that geeks now rule the earth, or at the very least have too much money. 

In case you missed it, Steam had some serious security issues over Christmas. Sometimes I worry about Gaben's empire... 

The India-Pakistan border closing ceremony is impressive and utterly ridiculous. 

An interesting theory about Han Solo as an RPG character, or, failing forward. 

You know TR-8R? The "Traitor!" stormtrooper from The Force Awakens? He has a canon backstory. Ah, fandom. 

A really interesting piece about Irish hunger strikers. 

Soon, a Japanese-styled set of Star Wars figures will be appearing. Hmmmmmmm... Hmmm...