Renn Faire 2011: An Ongoing Car Ride

So, here I am in the backseat of my friend Jenn’s car. In the front are, of course, Jenn driving and in the passenger seat is Mae, a longtime friend of ours and fellow gamer. Currently, we’re stopped in traffic on I-64 in Chesapeake, Virginia on our way to our yearly visit to a renaissance faire in North Carolina.

Jenn and Mae are eating their Subway meals that we acquired prior to our excursion onto the interstate. I, however, chose not to purchase anything.

“Deploy the lasers. Why haven’t the lasers been deployed?” I asked, viewing the ridiculous amounts of traffic before us.

 “They haven’t been affixed to this car yet,” Jenn replied in typical deadpan Jenn fashion. When Jenn replies with this tone, it’s difficult to determine if she’s actually joking or not if you don’t know her well enough.

I pull out my laptop and begin writing this entry as the girls begin chatting about various topics, bouncing to and fro in their discussion about nothing in particular. We pass by two cars pulled off to the side, trapped by the sea of barely-moving vehicles.

“I wonder if they’re trying to get off,” Mae inquired as we passed by the motorists.

“If they are, they’re SOL,” Jenn replied.

“Yeah, ‘We’re going to just cross the five lanes of packed traffic to get off at the Battlefield exit!’ Wait, you can’t GET to the Battlefield exit from this side of the interstate. Well, they’re fucked.”

“Yup,” Jenn concurred.

The girls asked me what I was doing in the back, laptop out and the tippity-tap of my typing evident of some sort of activity. My writing ceased momentarily as I grinned up at them from my backseat haven.

“Writing fan fiction. ‘Ron slowly crawled into Harry’s bed. Neville was awoken by the sound of Ron’s…’ I think I’ll stop there.”

The girls chuckled at my admittedly immature joke, my joke that segued their talk into a discussion about the most recent, and last, Harry Potter movie. This, in turn, led into a broader discussion about Harry Potter in general between the two of them.

I continued to remain silently detached from the talking.

“I hate Katy Perry so much,” I stated simply, hearing Firework start playing on Jenn’s radio, "Get ready to hear this song every fucking 4th of July."

 “I don’t mind her so much,” Jenn said.

“Have you ever heard her sing live?”

“Oh, I know that many artists are so studio altered that they sound nothing like they do in real life, and, in actuality, can’t carry a tune onstage. That doesn’t stop me from having their songs on my iPod if I like them.”

Admittedly, I like Perry’s E.T. for god knows what reason.

Then the conversation turned to Glee. Being an out-of-the-closet fan of the show, and Mae being an openly enthusiastic fan of the show, her and I kept talking about our favorite songs, mash-ups, lines, characters, moments, and so on. Even Jenn, who hadn’t seen much of the show, added to the conversation every once in a while.

This lasted for a good 30-40 minutes of nothing but Glee-related talk. This is what happens when you get diehard geek fans together. 

 Jenn, feeling inspired by the talk of show choirs, decided to turn the course of the discussion to the Evil Dead Musical, the music of which she happened to have on her iPod and wanted to share. We obliged her, Mae and I having never seen or heard the songs before.

I have to say that the one about every man one of the female characters had known was killed by a Sandaran demon was pretty funny.

And, as inevitably must happen between three hardcore gamers that had once gamed together in a memorable campaign, the conversation turned to Dungeons and Dragons.

To be fair, Jenn had told me a week or so beforehand that she was trying to work on putting a timeline of the game she had run a few years ago together. She was having difficulty remembering several of the parts and required the assistance of Mae and I during the car ride to try and fill in the missing bits. However, these talks always start out under innocent pretenses like “filling in the missing bits” and somehow always devolve into laughing and reminiscing about the old games and characters and on and on.

We continued to talk about D&D for the next few hours. 

 Then we picked up Tim. Tim is one of those few whose intelligence is something I admire and envy. He was my DM once upon a time. I cannot express how terribly he traumatized me during the two games we played in together.

So, obviously, we continued to talk about D&D for the rest of the car ride.

What can I say? Geek pride lives on in the proud.

Blog Update - 10/5/2011

All right, loyal readers, I finally got off my lazy ass and finished the article and video sections of my blog. Now, all of my wonderfully-written and wonderfully-shot articles and videos are in easy-to-find and easy-to-navigate pages right there at the top of my page.

If you're blind and find yourself unable to locate such link buttons at the top there, allow me to provide you with direct links here:

Article List
Video List

No longer will you have to dredge through dozens of back pages just to find that ONE poignant article I may have written or stolen from someone else! Be sure to use these features to share my work with your friends, otherwise I will have spent hours of my life organizing and linking it all for...well....nothing.

Excelsior!

MonsterFest - Red Knight by Justin Cristelli

And we're back. For the next installment of our local talent spotlight that I encountered at MonsterFest, I'd like to introduce you to the newest hero on the block...Red Knight!

Red Knight is a comic written by Justin Cristelli, drawn by JC Grande, and published by Primal Paper Comics. All three are local to the area and I was fortunate enough to meet Justin at MonsterFest, talk with him briefly, and buy the first two issues of Red Knight.

Having finally read them, I can honestly say that I'll make a concerted effort in attempting to buy the future issues (issue #3 should be coming out sometime in the near future). 

One of the things I really enjoy about this comic, thus far, both in and out of the storyline, is the local flavor of the whole experience. As I stated previously, the comic itself is produced by the local Cristelli and Grande and published by the local Primal Paper Comics. Currently, it's circulation includes all local comic stores that have a brain. If you have a local Hampton Roads comic store that doesn't carry Red Knight, you should definitely inform them of their error. 

Within the story, however, is where the real magic happens. The setting itself is local Norfolk, Virginia. I have to admit that it's a VERY cool feeling to be reading a comic where the heroes are stomping around your own area. On top of that, the experience isn't the same as it is for, say, New York City citizens with the many comics being set there, considering that Norfolk and Hampton Roads are small enough that it makes the experience much more...personal for local readers.

The setting of Norfolk also plays a role within the plot. Many of the characters reference how Norfolk, being a much smaller city than the more major ones in the country, doesn't seem worth having its own superhero/villain. Several characters even mention how super criminals that get trashed in Washington D.C. only show up to Norfolk to lick their wounds. 

The entire premise revolves around the two parties involved, the superhero trio (including Red Knight, of course) and the super villains basically proclaiming that, since Norfolk has not warranted its own super-community yet, that they'll take it as theirs, whether for good or ill.

This brings an entirely different bend on the superhero angle considering many readers of mainstream comics forget that small towns DO exist in the world of superheroes despite the fact that the heroes themselves are stationed in the major metropolises.

 

Anyway, the story revolves around Todd McClain, the titular Red Knight, who only wants to be a superhero and fight crime. However, he lives in a world where vigilantism is not only illegal, but a serious offense, and superheroes have to register to do any sort of do-gooding. Ignoring these, however, he does his best to fend off drug dealers and thieves with the help of his two friends, Fireball and Nonstop. 

I won't go into too much detail about the initial story, considering it's only two issues long and telling you ANYTHING would ruin the better bits, but I highly recommend finding it and picking it up for yourself. Cristelli was telling me how Red Knight has a good mixture of Batman and Spider-Man in him, and it shows in the humor and nature of the character.

All in all, a very enjoyable read thus far. I DEFINITELY will be picking up issue three when it comes out and you should check all of them out if you haven't yet.

Oh, did I also mention you can get a chibi Red Knight plushie too?

MonsterFest - Dr. Madblood: Scientific Master of the Horror Film!!

Recently, I attended a local yearly event that I had been putting off for quite some time. Having, at one time, been involved with the areas resident Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast, I had known one of the long-time-associated individuals by the name of Rob Floyd. Rob is one of the coordinators of the event in question and every year he got up on that Rocky Horror stage and promoted the hell out of it.

What is that event, you ask?

Well, it's MonsterFest.

MonsterFest is a somewhat small, local convention that specializes in current horror and older horror films, along with a splash of fantasy and science fiction thrown in. Located at the Chesapeake Central Library in the Great Bridge division of Chesapeake, MonsterFest isn't widely known, but IS widely loved by its loyal attendees.

This past Saturday was, in all honesty, my first time going to MonsterFest. Ever. I had been aware of it for quite some time and never made the effort to go. While it doesn't have the glamour and scale of other large conventions in the area (Nekocon comes to mind...), it certainly makes up for it in heart and local talent.

So! Now that I've concluded my introductory stretch for this article, I'll get into the reason for this series.

One of the charms of MonsterFest is all the local talent that shows up to showcase and share their work with the public, hopefully gaining some new fans. I will highlight several of these artists/entertainers here in my blog in hopes that I can generate at least a LITTLE more fanbase for them.

Today, I'm here to talk about Doctor Madblood.

Pictured here: SCIENCE!

Doctor Madblood is a horror movie showcase program that began in 1975. Trying to differentiate himself from the other horror show hosts at the time (who were all vampires...I guess it was the "thing" to do), Jerry Harrel created the titular Doctor Madblood to be the host of a Halloween special.

With the special having a resounding amount of success, the show has, since then, been aired weekly after Saturday Night Live,  been moved around to various other time slots, been taken off the air for a few years, and eventually returned with a resurgence in televised and online media.

During it's 36 year, on-and-off tenure, Doctor Madblood has introduced a variety of characters and storylines into the Madblood universe. These stories and characters have ranged from the comedic and one-shot to the serious/scary and recurring, showing the extensive creativity that Harrel and his team still continue to draw upon even after more than three decades of doing it.

One notable cast member, a personal acquaintance of mine, is one Craig T. Adams.

Pictured here: TIME TRAVELING SCIENCE!

Involved with a local childrens theater troupe in the area, Craig also portrays Uncle Felonious, Brain, and several other recurring characters on the program.

Now, as of the posting of this article, I've only watched a few of the complete episodes, "The Goodbye Button" and "Wonderman" that I found on Youtube, and the special sneak preview of their upcoming movie at MonsterFest, and I have to admit that the team involved is talented and funny. Personally, I'm going to look for more episodes and try to catch their show more often.

I recommend all of you do the same too!

Long days and pleasant nights, readers.

Doctor Who Series 6 Finale

"The first question! The question that must never be answered! Hidden in plain sight! The question you've been running from all your life! Doctor...who? Doctor WHO? DOCTOR WHO?"

Madman with a box

And that, my dear readers, was the closing line of this series finale of Doctor Who. Recently, I've been rewatching a lot of Tennant's last season and Smith's first season and it becomes apparent whenever you encounter a Stephen Moffat episode that he's been building up to this for quite some time.

Madman with a Doctor

It seems that this storyline has always been on Moffat's mind and he's finally able to bring it ot he forefront in the Whoniverse. Personally, I believe he's gearing up for the 50th anniversary of the show in 2013 where the Doctor's name, the question that every fan has ever had, the question that the show's own title is based on will finally be answered. What could be a more fitting way to celebrate five decades of Doctor Who than to do something spectacular and give the fans.

And, honestly, I think it's a brilliant idea. And brilliantly executed. I had my suspicions that "the Question" always being referenced in the show would, in fact, pertain to the Doctor's identity. I did have my suspicions that it might be about other things, but my mind kept occasionally coming back to the Doctor's identity.

"No, no, no," I would say to myself, in a fleeting moment of insanity, "That would be TOO obvious."

I swear you've been taking your meds

But the way in which it was presented...the method the writers used to execute the revalation of the Question, I realized that it was ever the only question that could be asked. For 50 years, viewers have watched this program, fallen in love with the many incarnations of the mad Doctor, all without every knowing the "madman with a box"'s name.

As I read in another article addressing recent Doctor Who storylines, Moffat has been building up to this since he before he was head writer, writing individual episodes for Tennant seasons. Now, being the man in control of the Doctor's destiny, so-to-speak, he finally is bringing his grand scheme to the forefront.

My personal belief is that Smith will stay on at least through the 50th anniversary and the 50th anniversary will be centered around the Dotor's name and everything hinted at in this series' finale. If my assumptions are correct, the world will know "Doctor who?" at long last. And if this turns out to be the case, allow me to say what a better man has said before me:

Fantastic! Allons-y! Geronimo!

Holy Shit It's From the Past!

While doing the thing normal bored people do, Googling myself, I came across an old page that was thought to be lost. Behold, my old Rocky Horror Picture Show cast member profile page!


Fishnet Inc. Cast Profile: Jason

Why Nobody Can (re: should) Take Game Stores Seriously

My friend Dan, who can be a pretty funny guy when he doesn't have his head up his ass, posted this. I thought I'd share.
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Game stores are weird places as an outsider. You develop preconceived notions about what "gamers" are like, and in turn try to shy away or enter only with those stereotypes. Or, at least, I thought they were stereotypes. However, when I started to step back and try to just observe things, I noticed just how pathetic gamers are--myself included--when you get us in to "our stores." Don't believe me? Let's break down the many major flavors of gamer. No subgroups, all generalizations. It's for science, people. ....Well, if "science" suddenly means "making fun of ourselves."

Miniatures Gamers
For many, these are the first guys you notice in a store because they--and their shit--are freaking everywhere. They take up massive amounts of table (and sometimes floor) space, they converse and play loudly, and half the time they're pulling so many miniatures out of their massive "army carriers" (They're purses, guys. Purses.) that all you can think is "Well, no wonder he drives a shitty car. He's spent more money on plastic than the entire Las Vegas stripper industry." Well, Ok, a lot of the "good" miniatures are metal, but I stick with my previous joke. Once their mini fridge-sized bags have been emptied and left on otherwise perfectly good tables, they get down to actual game play. Long, arduous, argument-filled game play where they seem to take nearly an hour to resolve a battle that would actually take about three minutes in real, flowing combat. It's as if they've never heard of, oh, say, Heroes of Might and Magic, which does all the calculation for them. It's almost as bad as D&D, but we'll get to that later. The strangest part of this behavior is they seem to want to take up as much space and time as they can without being astrophysicists. Somehow to them, the more freaking space they take up and the longer they hold down a table, the more prestigious they feel. As such, they will always be there, lurking in the....well...wherever they can put their crap.

Yu-Gi-Oh Players
Because Pokemon kids apparently grow up--but only slightly--the Yu-Gi-Oh craze spreads like wildfire. I'll admit I have no problem with the game itself. It actually seems fascinating mechanically. However, the goddamn players make me want to remove all things Yu-Go-To-Hell from the face of the planet. I thought it was just the players at my shop, but no, apparently all over it's the same behavior Come in large groups; buy little to nothing new; seat way too many people at a table, even blocking aisles; scream and yell like every card played is either a gunshot to the nuts or the greatest triumph of Man. Oh, and don't get me started on the hygiene. Apparently they're so busy looking like they're headed to a rave afterward (or a Justin Bieber look-alike contest) that they forget to shower. It goes beyond swamp ass, my friends. If they smell like a Red Lobster and you're not in a seafood joint, it's sort of a clue they are not fans of soap. Still, even with their loud, rude, and stinky behavior, you will always see them in a game store. Why? Because game stores are there to make money, and on the fateful days when new cards come out, these kids spend their parents' money like sailors on shore leave in Thailand. Complain about them all you want, but so long as they keep making large purchases (after lulls of no purchases at all), they will never be driven off. Capitalism assures that.

Magic: The Gathering Players ("My people.")
While many of us would like to think we're "the upper echelon of card games players," we're really no better than the Yu-Gi-Oh kids. Sad but true. Sure, many of us are far more courteous and clean-smelling, but we're no less space-consuming and annoying to the people around us. The fun part is that many of our "little" cabal don't even seem to register how much we annoy other people, Magic players or non-Magic players alike. We just seem to go about our business, babbling on about cards and tactics (and "RTFC" moments), hoping to get in a "good" game or two, but gauging our interpretations of "good" and "bad" not based on how much fun we had but rather on whether we won or lost. Well, some of us. I'm more of a "have fun" guy, but all around me people seem to be driven solely to win. This drive spreads like a plague until suddenly it seems to be all we think about, scouring through boxes upon boxes of cards, bugging people for their trade binders, checking web sites fervently, chomping at the bit to get in as many games as possible in hopes that "this deck" is the one that brings ultimate victory. Not fun. Victory. And as such, when we're so focused on winning, we all really just become a large collection of losers. In many ways.

Tabletop Roleplayers
"Tabletop," "PnP," "old-fashioned," call it what you will. I'm talking the D&D players; the Amber players; the Whatthefuckever players. Sure, I've played many of these games, but frankly they will always look bad in game shops. Why? Because of the players in game shops. Either you have the guys who get waaaay to in to their game, becoming oblivious to the world around them until they "are interrupted" and become belligerent, or you get the guys who want to turn a roleplaying game in to a miniatures game and just don't admit it. I've witnessed both. There's the parties so focused on their stories they become oblivious to everyone around them until something nearly pulls them away from their game, at which point they become cranky as all hell. In the other corner, there's the guys with so many books, charts, and reference sheets strewn about that you'd think it was a product demo and not an actual game session. You know "those guys." The ones who jump from combat encounter to combat encounter, taking hours to drop a guy in "twenty seconds," and call nearly every game "best session ever." All the while, both of these varieties should nearly be pitied because "it's so loud in here"...although they're usually the ones yelling, making everyone else yell over them in some sort of decibel arms race. Still, they come night after night, play their games, and wind up having the most fun out of everyone. Why? Because they realize no matter how they play it they're still just playing a game.

Board-Gamers
Despite the fact that game shops still sell the games they play and enjoy, this is actually a rare breed around here except on rare occasions. Perhaps it's because they need a smaller number of people to play their games and thus take up less space. Perhaps they go to stores at different times from the other gamers. Who knows? Still, this small caste of gamer seems to make appearances on my radar very rarely. So rarely, in fact, that I have little to work with about them, unless we group them in with the fair-weather...

Late-Nighters
Yeah, you've seen these guys. The ones who seem to only make appearances when stores are either open until the wee hours of the morning or holding special all-night events. Nobody really knows why they come. Maybe they work late jobs. Maybe their parents/roommates/spouses just want them to shut up so they can sleep. Still they come in with their friends and home-brought games in tow, waltzing right in like regulars while nobody (sometimes even the store staff) has any clue who the hell they are. Still, they're nice enough if you can get past the clique-based behavior. They are more than happy to keep to themselves if they are not approached, and sometimes they even bring their own food and drinks, pissing off the merchants while also making the bold statement "Yeah, I'm gonna be here a while." Still, the nagging thought remains in your head of "Who are these guys?" while they swear up and down that they "come in here all the time." Sure. Sure you do. Weirdos. Ummm...welcome?

Video Gamers
It's pretty uncommon for a traditional game shop to have a place to play video and computer games, but as "my" shop does, I cannot help but view the cyber cafe as an entirely different planet. On this planet, its denizens keep to the shadows, avoiding any source of light other than the glows of their screens as if it would instantly kill them. They stew in their own butt sweat, stinking up the place as they sit for hours on end contracting the ever-fatal Onemorelevelitis, or the even more detrimental Onemoreroundiswear Syndrome. Both of these diseases seem to stem from a pre-existing condition we can observe all too well, however: stupidity. After all, when these beings spend 4 to 5 days on the surface of their world and spend anywhere from $5 to $10 per day to do as such, one cannot help but wonder why they do not just keep the estimated $1,000 to $2,500 a year and buy themselves nice computers/consoles & TVs as well as the games to play on them, and then stay at home and save their money. Truly an odd group of beings.

"The Penultimate Gamer"
Every game shop has at least one guy like this, and if you can't spot him, chances are you are him. Still, you know this guy when you see him. He's the one who always comes in bragging that he "plays everything" and boasts about heightened skill in almost every form of game you can think of, but yet when you play with him (or even watch him play) it becomes quickly apparent that he's full of shit. His skills are usually so mediocre you wonder if he's even played the game before, and you find yourself very quickly excusing yourself so you can go laugh at him elsewhere rather than hurting his feelings by doing so in his face. He is by all means the ultimate joke of the store, and he doesn't even know it. In fact, he is so delusional that he never will. Still, it's good to see the Jack of All Trades alive and well, because at least you know you'll always have someone to play with....and beat.

So yeah, these are the groups I observe at their most general interpretations. When you sit back and read this--and then think about it for yourselves--I'm sure a lot of this is what you've seen before. If not, chances are now you'll start seeing it because you are aware. Either way, I only hope you can laugh as much as I can, because honestly they're just games.