Oh look, the greatest branching narrative of all time is under $4.00

The "game" of Alpha Protocol isn't terrible... it's just cheap as cheap can be. Same with the animation, it looks like guards are walking on conveyor belts. There's quality to the work, it's just really hard to appreciate. But the story is so good, it's honestly the best espionage story in gaming, that the actual game doesn't matter as much.

I can appreciate people who didn't like it and I can understand people that absolutely despise it. But it's under $4.00. It's worth the gamble. Tell Tale still has a lot to learn from it.

The Xcom 2 patch is out!

Come on.... come on.... this better f-in work.

*2 hours later*

Sh*t, SH*T!!! This is so much worse than before. My CPU is groaning like a gale force wind and the frame rate hasn't improved at all. Man... I am bummed out.

Everyone refuses to make eye contact in the new Daredevil poster.

This is a show that shouldn't be as good as it is. It isn't interested in converts. If super heroes (even grounded ones) turn you off... well this ain't Ibsen. But it's damn proud of what it is, which is a show with great action and design choices. I'm looking forward to it.

I decided against the poster.

I was gonna frame that Bioshock poster. I was gonna hang it above my bed. But I chickened out a bit. Gaming has always been something I didn't like wearing on my sleeve. I'm always cautious about any unspoken statement I could make. I'm a mumbler and people have a nasty habit of misunderstanding things I say.

But I love nerd sh*t! So much. I have a lovely claptrap figurine atop my PC tower right now. I have a shirt that's my favorite background gag of all time. A shirt that uses Bioshock to make fun of the Big Brothers-Big Sisters logo. A shirt that just looks like the Las Vegas sign.

Things that have an inherent beauty or sense of humor that most people could appreciate. Because if I make a statement with things I wear or carry around, I want the right message sent. I'll be a gaming cultural ambassador. Inviting, not off putting. Plus, I've found it's a great way to be able to talk about New Vegas!

So yes. Borderlands phone case today... poster I'll have to explain to future lady friends, later.

I don't usually post about posters I want...

Andrew Glazer!

But uh... yeah. I'd hang that above my bed. The real question is, should I?

I hope House of Cards is good this year...

ssssssssubtle.

It has it's ups and downs, but damn if I haven't seen all of it. All Netflix is to me this days is a subscription to Parks and Rec and American Dad. I kinda need one or the other to sleep if I don't have a book that's any good. It's hard to turn down Kevin Spacey at the worst of times. If the story isn't worth it, the performances usually are.

That's enough for me sometimes. An actor showcase.

Allright Chance, I'll see your Iron Sky...

I never knew about President Palin, I'm totally on board now.

...and raise you Southbound:

It's trying to get into the neo-horror anthology club, but quite frankly, it's a cut above those guys. It's way more Twilight Zone than Saw and I've already seen it twice. None of the segments dragged, at least for me, and there's a stone cold masterpiece in the middle of it. Plus my favorite comedian cameos as a middle aged satanist. It'll scratch your horror itch good.

Oscar Coverage? Nah. I'm good.

 

I'm just not feeling it this year. I don't have a real dog in this fight, in that I don't feel strongly about any best picture in the running. The Revenant was, at the very least, gorgeous and well acted. I'm pretty irked at the folks who say Di Caprio simply grunted his way to the Oscars. I've seen how people get when they're that cold. I'm actually not sure he was acting, I felt for him almost the entire time. That dream sequence in the ruin was some pretentious time filling garbage I Will. Give. Them. That.

Everything else is fine. It wasn't a really good year. But you want my butt in the seat you should have put Inside Out in the brass ring. That really was the best movie this year, and don't give me that look Anomolisa. I mean... where the hell was I supposed to watch you?! Though I do think it's pretty funny that Charlie Kaufman made this with Dan Harmon and Dino Stamatopoulos. I seem to recall that Community had the single greatest take down of Kaufman's work to date.

But yet again, the ballots are simply stuffed with safe bets. Just like last year. And also just like last year... I got better things to do.

You ever have one of those movies?

One of those movies that always gets you? I honestly don't know why anyone would try to make a superman movie after this. Brad Bird perfected it.

The Year of the Kraken.

V.E Schwab

This past month has not been kind, but I have since made considerable efforts towards kicking it's ass. I've stopped drinking, I'm running 30 minutes a day, switched to fish n' chicken, and! I've started writing that novel I'm working on.

And if that processes has taught me anything about my writing... it's that I need to start reading more. My pitifully small library has been an issue in the past. I mean, I hear my mom's voice right now being all "how can you write if you don't READ?!" I actually spend 2 hours a day reading. Though it's mostly cracked and news. Too much video game news, but still, I read.

But if it's a novel I want to write it is novels I will have to understand. But where to start? Something close to what I hope to write? That seemed like a solid plan. So I tried Johnathan Strange and I treated it like it was printed on sandpaper.

I'm glad I actually sat down and watched the whole mini series the BBC did (it's really good). Because it has egregious third act problems. The final act spends way too much time setting up a sequel that will apparently never happen and it ends on a semi-tragic note I felt it didn't earn. If I actually read the whole thing I might have been soured on writing for a couple more months. Even the show; which covered the Napoleonic war, a literary wizard feud, fairy folk, and sand horsies, felt like it was constantly starved for sh*t to do. So the lesson here is don't have 2 characters hate each other for the sake of drama if that drama isn't half as interesting as a friendship would be.

Imagine a scene where Johnathan tried to be Norrell's wing man at a dinner party? Imagine Norrell trying and failing to make a friend. Imagine that in the place of one of the hundred times he moans about how much he haaaates Jonathan Strange. 

Huh... I didn't sit down to review JS+MN. I'm actually here to talk about A Darker Shade of Magic. It's wonderful. It's a hokey premise (an 18th century wizard has a magic cloak that lets him travel to 4 alternate magical "Londons") and has fun with it. It's so much fun to read it's inspirational. Which is what I really needed from a book. Story structure and grammar improvements,(I'll need to ply my college editor friend with some serious liquor), were the practical goals. This is actually putting my mind at ease.

For so long, nearly my entire life, I've kept my favorite stories to myself. Because every time I sent a decoy out into the world, for a class or what have you, it was occasionally stamped into the dirt. Seriously, I once took an intro to play writing class that traumatized the ever living shit out of me. Here's my professor's IMDB page. On the first day of class I said I really liked state of grace, I'm a huge Mae Whitman fan to this day. She thought I was a kiss ass and never let me forget it.

I was the first person to finish their one act play, everyone else was either checked out or part of the theater nerd cabal. Thus my work was set upon by both pithy disgust and frozen indifference. For 2 weeks all that seemed to happen was a slow motion autopsy of my creative short comings.

Two. F***ING Weeks.

I've already droned on too long about ancient history, but I can tell you this... I'll never write an elevator scene for the stage again. Jesus, I guess I needed to get that off my chest. I've haven't brought that up in 5 years.  This must mean I'm subconsciously serious. I hope this means I'm going to write a high fantasy novel that's a satire of stagnant story telling with the tenor of a PG-13 Pixar movie.

*breaths deeply* Ok, let's do this!

I have a rule.

 If something makes me choke on my coffee, I have to post it:

I'm gonna need a Nathan Fillion one. I'm gonna need it.

The best part of Rogue Nation is the first 60 seconds.

Finally got a round to watching MI: Rogue Nation. It was just ok. I'd put it a teeeeeeeny bit above  Spectre in that RN manages to be slightly less incomprehensible. But I'm not here to talk about the actual movie. Today I'm all about the production credits!

Joe Kraemer is a man deeply in love with the Mission Impossible theme. That's a love I can understand. If it's not the greatest heroic theme ever written it's at least in the top 5. And since it took at least 4 companies to get that puppy in the air, he had a lot of room to build to it. By the time I learned China's answer to Amazon makes movies now, I was ready to love this movie.

Warming up a crowd is a thankless art and this man knows exactly what he's doing:

Admit it. You wanna see Ghost Protocol again now.

Crackpot Theory: Location+nonsensical noun=sexual poisition.

Ever done a Dallas Panini Press? What about a Polynesian Soup Spoon?