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A small bit of super-humor to take our minds back to happier times…

by Aaron Williams on June 3, 2020 at 3:16 AM
Posted In: Sequential Artistry, The Internetonomicon

I think this needs to happen at every convention… once we have conventions again:

For those who’re not aware of the origin of this particular dance, it’s from this internet classic by Marlon Webb.

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Want to watch me cosplay as Ram-Man for almost three hours?

by Aaron Williams on May 20, 2020 at 2:03 AM
Posted In: Mystery Clip Theater, Stuff with magic and swords, Tabletop Gaming

And when I say “cosplay,” I really mean “wear a cake pan on my head while playing an RPG with the Dead Gentlemen.” We played a Masters of the Universe game, where I gained a new respect for the power of teamwork, friendship, and a cybernetic neck:

They’re streaming five nights a week over on Twitch, and who knows? I might be allowed back on the air as soon as the complaints stop.

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With apologies to Peter Jackson and probably Howard Shore…

by Aaron Williams on April 24, 2020 at 2:50 AM
Posted In: Cineplexia, You call that noise "music?"

This was something made a while ago, but I just ran across it. Even The Lord of the Rings somehow works when paired with ABBA’s “Mamma Mia”:

I wonder if the battle for Minas Tirith can be set to “Waterloo”?

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No offense to Stephen King, but people are citing the wrong apocalypse fiction.

by Aaron Williams on April 3, 2020 at 2:05 AM
Posted In: The Idiot Box

If you find post-apocalyptic fiction a little upsetting nowadays, feel free to skip this post.

For those out there who dig “what happened after” stories, you’ve probably seen comparisons of COVID-19 to the novel, “The Stand,” where a weaponized flu strain wipes out most of humanity. There’s also a Dean Koontz novel being brought up called “The Eyes of Darkness,” but it’s for a “prediction” in the text that’s not really a prediction. Anyway, these and other tales of humans vs. viruses don’t really parallel the current pandemic, in my opinion, and there’s an often-overlooked gem that was canceled too soon but is still worth watching, I think: Jeremiah.

Here’s the opening from the first season. It hasn’t aged very well, but you can get a feel for the aesthetic:

The setup for their humans-b-gone is called “The Big Death,” where a virus that can be transmitted by touch kills everyone over the age of puberty, leaving a world where kids had to raise themselves in the aftermath now run things. The main character, Jeremiah, thinks his father might still be alive, and in searching for him, he finds a brewing conflict between a group of survivors at a place called “Thunder Mountain” and those who want to take over the world by force. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but my main arguments for seeing it are:

• J. Michael Straczynski wrote it, so the plot is thought out, well-structured, and… sadly had to be rushed at the end.
• If you liked Samwise Gamgee from the Lord of the Rings movies, Sean Astin appears as an intriguing character named “Mr. Smith.” He talks to God, by the way.
• The world as presented in this show is one of the reasons I couldn’t ever get into Jericho, because I liked this one so much better.

The main issue with the show is that the suits at Showtime canceled it after only two seasons. They told JMS this around the middle of season 2, so he had to cram two to three seasons worth of plot into the shows remaining. Things move very fast, and while you get a sense of where the show was headed, it would’ve been nice to see it in its entirety.

So if this is something you might want to take in, it’s streaming on iTunes and Amazon Prime. And in a kind of weird parallel to our current obsession with toilet paper, there’s a scene where the chance to use a working toilet after years of roughing it is given cinematography and music normally reserved for romantic reunions. You gotta love that, right?

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Free games from itch.io (and one other)…

by Aaron Williams on March 18, 2020 at 1:13 PM
Posted In: Video Gaming

Itch.io has a large number of free games available for your self-isolation needs.

There’s also Goat of Duty on Steam, which is currently sans cost. It’s a multiplayer goat-based FPS where physics seem to be a bit optional and goats are outfitted with robot arms with which they can wield weapons.

It’s not the strangest game I’ve heard of, to be fair.

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A souvenir for the convention we’re all a part of…

by Aaron Williams on March 17, 2020 at 1:56 AM
Posted In: Om Nom Nom!, T-Shirts

So there’s an event coming to town that’s so big it’s literally closing everything else down that isn’t involved with the sale and transportation of toilet paper, and I thought it deserved a commemorative t-shirt:

Be sure to look at the back graphics at Offworld Designs for even more questionable humor.

While this is all in fun, please do follow the CDC’s guidelines and stay as safe as possible out there. We’re in somewhat uncharted territory, and while I like to satirize, I also plan to sanitize, and I hope everyone else can manage to do the same. And here’s hoping all of our conventions and game-gatherings are back in our nation’s many multi-purpose areas as soon as possible.

In my neck of the woods, school is postponed until April 3rd at least, which means my wife and I are trying to come up with a halfway decent simulation of 4th grade for our son while he looks longingly at the Xbox and PC. I’m not sure what I’m qualified to teach, though I’m sure I’ll be given several choices in short order. I just hope there’s not a quiz when it’s all said and done.

During this shut-in time, I’m also trying my hand at crafting some ginger beer, though I’m sure it’s far from the best, as I’ve been making do with boiled (then cooled) water rather than distilled. I’m leaving it in the bottles to get fizzy, so there’s a bit o’ alcohol in my beverage product along with authentic yeast-sludge at the bottom. I’m told by a professional taster of mixed drinks that I’ve maybe created a weak wine cooler, booze-wise. Still, my goal was carbonation and more ginger than the usual store-bought stuff, so I think I succeeded. Also, it appears to be difficult to give myself food poisoning with this method, so that’s a big thumbs up.

And while the experts say alcohol and ginger are unproven to help prevent disease, I’m going to pretend they do, especially as my favorite saucepan now smells like ginger snaps. At least I’ve got a t-shirt to remember this experience, in case I actually manage to make some kind of ginger-moonshine concoction that makes recalling the past a bit of a challenge. 🙂

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A new sci-fi YouTube series that’s got a homemade vibe.

by Aaron Williams on March 11, 2020 at 3:54 PM
Posted In: Articus Pharticus, It's got Robots and Lasers, Mystery Clip Theater

There’s a YouTube channel I’ve been meaning to feature here, and I think that time has come. It’s called “CreateSciFi,” and what I love about it is the many videos about building your own spaceships from common household items. It’s a testament to what was called “kit bashing” as well as the techniques that film studios once used to create their stellar vessels: You had someone in a model shop, and they got creative with existing model kits, hardware, and whatever was at hand.

Note: This is where I insert my pet theory that the Borg Cube was originally made from all the spare model kit trees that the people who built the miniature spaceships had lying around.

So anyway, the channel has launched a series called Zenith Run which is fun to look at given its retro-film aesthetic and all the handmade props:

Be warned, if you delve too deeply into their video archive, you might find yourself at your local Dollar Tree store picking up random objects with the intent of gluing them together.

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A long-overdue linkdump.

by Aaron Williams on January 24, 2020 at 2:06 AM
Posted In: It Came from the Internet, Science ahoy!, Tabletop Gaming, You call that noise "music?"

Because the song is a bit tarnished from Fallout 76, I vote that “Country Roads” be featured in the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077:

If the game bombs, we might have to consider the idea that John Denver has cursed his own music and haunting all projects that license it.

Moving on:

• Firstly, rest in peace to Monty Python alum, Sir Terry Jones. Apart from his work in one of the most famous comedy groups in the world, I’ll always remember him for his very enjoyable BBC series, Medieval Lives and Crusades. The “living paintings” in that latter one really stuck with me.

• From the Lovecraft story, “From Beyond,” here’s one propmaker’s version of the Tillinghast Device. It’s perfect for your next cult rave.

• And turning to actual issues of mental health, here’s an interesting look at a notebook from an asylum inmate in the 1930’s and the odd journey they took.

• Here’s some truly loaded dice for your next D&D session: They’ve got sapphires and a $300 price tag, so even if you roll a 1, you can claim it’s only the finest quality critical failure.

• Speaking of special-interest items of rare quality, if there’s a zombie in your life that turns up where its nose used to be at pedestrian gray matter, perhaps it would prefer to dine on a hunk of human brain that survived for 2600 years. That’s some well-aged nosh, there.

• Turning to the theater, start coming up with joke names for songs and see which ones actually show up in the upcoming Karate Kid musical. I can’t wait to see the “wax on, wax off” choreography along with a chorus line of people sweeping the leg.

• And our ending game is a bit like the one available on Steam called “Hidden Folks.” This one is Heartreasure, and your goal is to click on hearts to unlock new areas. Sometimes the unlock for one place is in another, so if you can’t find the trigger, move on to a different zone. Also, it helps to be able to tell where notes are on a treble scale.

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Do you own the original Skyrim? Need a time sink?

by Aaron Williams on December 23, 2019 at 7:12 PM
Posted In: Stuff with magic and swords, Video Gaming

You need to go get Enderal. I gave this a spin mostly out of spite, as I’ve had the original edition of Skyrim in my Steam library since it launched. I wanted to get the DLC for the game the same way I’d gotten it for Fallout 3: Wait for it to go on sale, get it cheap, then either play it or play the mods that used the new assets.

It never got down to the low prices of F3’s content, and soon after it should have, the special edition of Skyrim came out and all things involving the older version never went on sale and couldn’t be found via Steam’s search function.

Anyway, one of Steam’s new features is suggesting games based on ones you’ve played, and it suggested this free game called Enderal. It’s basically a total conversion mod for the original Elder Scrolls V game, no DLC required. If you only have the special edition, you might be able to get Enderal working, but the instructions are kind of extensive. Since I had the “antique” edition, I downloaded the game just to give my old version of Skyrim a way to thumb its nose at its younger, sexier replacement.

I took it for a spin for a few hours, and I haven’t seen anything that was in the trailer, except for one of the ninja-mask looking dudes, making me wonder just how huge this thing might be. So far it feels pretty massive, and it’s also pretty brutal if you’re used to other Bethesda-style games. I’d leveled up quite a bit, going for a lot of powers involving magical fire and electricity, and I’d still get murdered if more than two wolves came at me at once. Exploration is rewarding, but it’s also something you don’t do lightly. In this game, magic causes something called “Arcane Fever,” which will eventually turn you into a monster if you let it get too bad. It’s a bummer, therefore, that all the healing potions I came across caused my fever to increase.

The plot is intriguing thus far, and the perk tree seems to have something to do with all this talk of alternate realities, which is a pretty neat reason for how you can pick up powers out of thin air. You also learn skills via books, and there are books for every skill. It does seem a little strange that some of them are for skills you probably wouldn’t want others to have, but then again I found a merchant selling magic items that enhance werewolf powers, so maybe they’re a lot more fatalistic.

The mechanics from Skyrim are still present, so it’s not totally alien. Alchemy still works the same with you having to taste everything once in order to figure out its initial use. The combat AI isn’t the greatest, but I’m not complaining. If it wasn’t for bad pathfinding and enemies getting stuck on the terrain in places, I would’ve died even more. The magic skills seem beefier, and I went with them largely because your starting weapons aren’t very impressive. I suppose if I’d chosen the memories/skills that helped with archery or swordplay, that would’ve helped. Still, I found the electrical spells very satisfying, though keeping one’s mana high enough last multiple enemies is still a distant dream and why I kept a number of melee weapons in my inventory.

There are quite a few cutscenes in this game, especially early on. I should also say that not all the voice actors are pros; I suspect a lot of volunteer work was involved, but most of the ones I heard did a decent job. That said, some dialog exchanges can be pretty long, but you can discover quests, make friendships or strengthen relationships with NPCs, and can gain “knowledge points” that earn you XP as well as stat boosts, eventually. I guess what I’m pointing out is that this game is pretty story-rich, so don’t go in expecting that all you’ll need is a quest marker and more hit points than whoever it’s pointing you to.

So if you’ve got the setup, I recommend getting Enderal from Steam and trying it out. All you could possibly lose is all of your free time for the foreseeable future, so why not? 🙂

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Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut Digital Classic Edition is FREE from Good Old Games for a limited time.

by Aaron Williams on December 11, 2019 at 12:42 PM
Posted In: It's got Robots and Lasers, Video Gaming

And by “a limited time,” they mean just under two days as of this post. Here’s their store page for Wasteland 2, and I give it a recommend if you like party-based computer role-playing games. It’s got more polished in-game animation than the original Fallout games, but the “cutscenes” are a little slide-showy. It’s got some decisions for you to make, plot twists involving various party members, and a showdown at the end that can be made easier or more difficult depending on the actions you took getting there.

It’s worth playing, especially for free. I’m guessing it’s to generate buzz for the upcoming Wasteland 3, whose release date is “early 2020”:

I think the in-game lore is just that at some point, a military facility (pre- or post-war) decided that robotic arachnids was the key to ruling the battlefield and put them into mass production (even spilling over into Fallout New Vegas’ DLC, Old World Blues).

I may also have to add that trailer’s version of “Land of Confusion” to my playlist. If you want to hear it without all the explosions and narration, here it is.

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