Last Month's Movies: "Oh, You Vampire of the Soul..."

Just got back from my company's holiday party. Yes, our holiday party is in March. It makes sense, okay? Anyway, while I munch my Taco Bell cinnamon twists, here's some movies.

OverAnalyzed: Muffled Voices in Dark Souls

The Souls series does a lot of things right, including sound design. Someday I'll write a longer piece breaking down sound design in detail, but for now I want to focus on one element in particular. Voices. The voices of those who wear helmets. See, the thing about helms which cover the face is that they muffle the voice. It's easy to forget that. But FromSoft didn't. If a character, say Siegmeyer of Catarina, wears a helmet, their voice has a muffled and echoing quality to it. It's a small thing but it's so incredibly indicative of the work FromSoft put in. 

Wandery Wednesday: "Incandescence"

I am angry. Very. Sickeningly. Angry. Incandescent. At a lot of things. Events at my alma mater which have made me realize how truly screwed-up many things are in higher education, particularly in how sexual assault is handled. The political system and the fact that one of the two major parties has a frontrunner endorsed by the KKK while the other is split between an impractical socialist (whose ideals I respect nonetheless) and a career politician who embodies The System. My own failings as a human being. The horrible nature of the world. 

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

Your charnel mouth spews hatred
Like Satan's bile.

No. 

That's an affront to the father of lies,

To associate him with the foulness you spread in the name of faith.

Judas Iscariot is morally superior to you,

He who betrayed the Christ

For thirty pieces of silver. 

You'd sell the Christ

For thirty seconds of primetime. 

The woman at the well was more an authority on the sanctity of marriage

Than you who blatter about "family values” while indulging in perversion and abuse.

A millstone awaits,

You who shelter molesters because "they repented;"

You who destroy the earth because "the earth and all that is on it is ours;"

You who pick and choose which scriptures to interpret literally and which to ignore, stoning gays but wearing polyester;
You who sacrifice the young and impoverished upon an altar of your greed, an Abraham to a generation of Isaacs with no angel to intervene; 

For all your hypocrisies too numerous to name--
Jesus wept. 

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

And yet. The light is winning. The light will always win. It must. 

Poem: "For the South"

When the blood-gold
Piled on my lawn
Is swept away by white,
I turn to the south and shiver.

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

Oh, hey! I finished the cycle! Look at me go. 

Music Roundup Monday: "Death to My Hometown in No Man's Land"

Today was not a good day. 

Tyr - "Regin Smidur"

The Band - "The Weight"

Yma Sumac - "Gopher Mambo"

Billy Joel - "No Man's Land"

The Dead Kennedys - "California Uber Alles"

Bruce Springsteen - "Death to My Hometown"

Goatsnake - "Dog Catcher"

Cool Stuff Sunday: "Concept Art and Rifles?"

Woo! SUNDAY! I'm not on call, so guess what? I'm going to write and play video games! Because the apartment doesn't have to be cleaned more than once every few months, right? (I joke. I clean weekly because that's gross). Anywhoooooo... COOL STUFF! Also I saw Deadpool last night. It was Deadpool. 

Someone has completed Dark Souls without getting hit. That's...dedication. (Someone help the poor guy...) 

George Miller talks about Mad Max: Fury Road. 

The new Star Wars comics are great. (No major spoilers in link, but it's scans from a comic). 

Some lost J.R.R. Tolkien poems have been found. 

The making of Deadpool's suit. 

Every 90's commercial ever. 

I want an FG-42 German Paratrooper rifle. Buy me one. 

Punctuation in novels is weird. 

Youtube needs to fix its broken fair use/DMCA takedown system. Seriously. 

Don't ever ask hackers to hack you. 

Concept art for The Force Awakens implies it could have been a darker movie... 

Learn science from Dr. Dinosaur! 

Dark Souls III wallpapers for you. 

MORE Star Wars concept art!

So...Slashy Souls is a thing. Not sure how to feel about it.

Backlog Blitz: Master System, Week One, "Fun is Alien to These Games"

Another day, another old system's catalog of games to explore... Truly, the life of a bored twenty-something with a tendency towards reclusiveness is filled with excitement! Or maybe disappointment. Could go either way. Anyway! Sega Master System. It's a thing. The Genesis is better. And the NES/SNES are better still. Yeah, I said it. Fite me after skool.