Cool Beans 5/6

Yes consoles are like the Globe Theater and Games are Shakespearean plays.
(Not everyone is a Sess fan but I am so bugger off.)


Whoever had this idea may be the new Don Draper.


And now lets take a look at the successor to Eternal Darkness.
(Though it's not finished I am still a bit giddy.)


Happy belated May the 4th.

It takes a village to raise yourself a geek.

So this past weekend several members of the cast, our close friends, and significant others got together to celebrate our geekdom together in what I would call a Mini-Con; this was only compounded by the fact that it was also May The 4th Be With You weekend and the imbibing of much booze. So what does a group of no-good-nik nerds like us do when we gather en mass? Well exactly what you would expect; we played tabletops, video games, talked about the things we love, shared the ones we thought other should know, and argued the ones that people just don't appreciate.

This sense of community is one that I am sure many hobbyists or enthusiasts share, but the level of diversity of people and their passions at these kind of gatherings or even Cons is what is always most impressive. Half of the things that I have learned to love were taught to me by my fellow geek in passing. One of the first times I met other role-players outside my circle of friends, they introduced me to LAN parties and taught me the joys of PC gaming along with a new edition of D&D to boot. The first time I got hooked on an MMO was by a acquaintance at a Mini-Con. This past weekend I was introduced to X-Wing minis, and my girlfriend to Ticket to Ride (she loved it so much that I stopped and bought her a copy of on the way home from this very Mini-Con), both of which are great. The finest thing you can do is share your passions with others of the same mindset, but more importantly with someone that wouldn't normally have the chance.

I encourage any of you to do the same. No, you don't need to have a three day long geek-a-palooza in your house or back yard (though you should because it is AWESOME), but just the regular gaming night with friends where someone brings a game to teach everyone else. Also check out your local gaming or comic shop - they always know what's up from Friday Night Magic, to local D&D games, and more. Last is the most obvious place, the internet. With sites like MeetUp I have gotten the chance to roleplay with whole new casts of characters, or just found new places to hang out and meet fellow gamers.

The lesson here? Make yourself a village.

A Beginner's Guide to Star Trek Part I

In the most recent episode of LDC, Dubs and I took our phillistine co-casters on a journey into SPPPPAAAACEEEEE.  Functionally, we just barraged them with reasons that Star Trek is awesome, and they left convinced that maybe this is something worth checking out.  Yet, the problem persists: where does the proto-Star Trek fan, poised to take it's first awkward flipper-steps on land, eyeing the water's edge nervously (as if a giant oil monster might burst forth and kill it unexpectedly and somewhat meaninglessly), begin?

Fear not, gentle reader.  Dubs and I have taken time from our busy schedules of debating other equally meaningless topics for the express purpose of assembling a guided introduction to the best Star Trek has to offer.  We felt this list necessary because a guided viewing allows the reader to ignore the warts of late 80s/early 90s television production. There isn't a single series of Star Trek that didn't take time to find its voice.  There's a lot of rewarding stuff in those lesser episodes, but they took place in a different era of television.  Additionally, there are some episodes that require a certain prior knowledge of the universe, and thus, although tremendously rewarding, can be inscrutable to a new viewer. We're here to provide a modern filter; a hammer to crack the tough, mollusk-like, seemingly impenetrable shell of things like the below image, so you can get to the juicy, life sustaining inner meat of what truly makes Star Trek great.

We're as confused as you, buddy.

We have built the list in a specific order, not necessarily chronological, but with the episodic nature of Trek (versus the serialized TV of the post-LOST DVR era) chronological arrangement is not a requirement.  The idea is to gradually introduce concepts.  Some concepts build upon each other (Deep Space 9, the height of Trek on TV, is a spinoff series).  Our hope is that once you have completed this list you will have grasped what is great about Star Trek, and can then look past the warts, grease make up, and man skirts, to enjoy what we have been talking about this whole time.

Neil Gaiman walks into a bar and meets HBO, everyone cheers.

When some people think of the coolest person that is possible, they may imagine a leather jacket wearing, scruffy headed, writer of novels and comics, who treats reading like a lovely drug, is bringing a rock star to bed nightly, travels the world writing and reading in a never ending bender, and has been involved with everything from one of the first graphic novels to be critically acclaimed by the New York Times to writing a episode of Dr. Who, and having miniseries, movies, and plays created out of their work.

That person exists, Neil Gaiman is that person, and one of that person's novels will now be a Television Series.

HBO and Playtone will be presenting to the world the novel American Gods (Nebula award winner) which is the story of a man who is an Ex-con, and much more, named only Shadow, the old gods (comprised of a con man calling himself Mr. Wednesday, A charming old man who is a spider god, an Irfit driving a cab, and Anubis running a funeral parlor in Illinois) with the new gods (Comprised of The Technical boy, Media, and the many Men In Black.)

HBO has been honing the act of remaining true to the source material while adapting books to screen with shows like "True Blood" (Southern Vampire Mysteries), "Game Of Thrones", "Boardwalk Empire" and "Band of Brothers."

Playtone, as a production company, has been giving out some amazing looking media for years. Worried that the grittyness of American Gods won't be evident? Playtone made "Band Of Brothers" and "The Pacific", two series that have showed some pulse pounding violence. Picture a fight between gods new and old being produced by a company that made those spellbinding and realistic battles from World War II.

Grand Heist Auto V

The art of the heist seems to be making it's way into video games in a serious way which is freaking awesome.  Just recently we had the release of Monaco a top down co-op heist game on Steam, and this Autumn Grand Theft Auto V is will be stealing the show.

There are some major changes coming to this franchise with this next installment.  The most obvious thing that people will have noticed (if they watched the trailer) is that you will be playing as a trio.  We have Franklin who is looking to leave the thug life for bigger and better spoils; Micheal a man in the midst of a mid life crisis, but looking to mix things up; then the bottom of the trio  is occupied by Trevor who seems to be the insane shotgun toting redneck wildcard.  You will get the chance to freely swap from one character to another. Meanwhile AI will take over the idle members to keep them active in their own stories.  This will also be a big part of how the whole group will tackle tasks when it comes to heists.  The three perspective game play has me pumped, since I will admit that after a fairly short amount of time I find most GTA charaters to be kinda flat (Niko might be a little bit of an exception.), and  leads to just playing for mayhem rather than story.

Cool Beans Week 4/29

Light up your pipe weed kids because Willie the Grey is here.
(How did he not get cast as Radagast the Brown?!)


So I have mention that toys in Japan and generally very unsafe. This one takes the cake.
(I really just want to know when they will be making this in adult sizes.)


Help stop this immoral holiday, and May the 4th not be with you!


So many ninjas! I am not even that big of  a Mad Wolvie-Berserk styles, but NINJAS!
(I really just want a Wolverine Origin Comic movie.)

The World Wide Web turned 20...

Well that escalated quickly. 

Yesterday the internet turned twenty years old and it felt strange to think about.  At this point it has become a form of communication so ubiquitous that not many people really think about how quick of an adoption it's had.  Granted the real birth of the World Wide Web happened in 1989 before I was truly cognizant of the world around me, but its growth since then has remained every present like my own. 

In the mid 90's I remember the installing of modems into peoples homes and eventually the beeping dial up that would be connected to my own Macintosh Quadra. This was mind blowing stuff for me and my peers, from the onslaught of AOL sample disks, to the original trolling in chat rooms, and the slow blurry reveal of dirty pictures; which would get your computer privileges revoked for weeks if discovered by a parent.  Most of the time I took it for granted until my inquisitiveness took a hold of me sometime in middle school, and I decided to figure out how this all worked by studying HTML and making my own GeoCities webpage.  I felt really proud of it even to this day, despite being inconsequential to the digital landscape at large.  It took weeks of tweaking and adjusting to get just right, but creating something felt great and it still does; weather it's a piece of art, a performance on stage, or this very blog and podcast that I get to be part of on a daily basis.  

That might be the most significant aspect of the Web.  We all get a chance to make a mark, build something that might be silly or eloquent; enlightening or offensive.  The monument to self that the internet is astounds me.  Be it YouTube, Facebook, or the iTunes store all of it fueled by us, from genius programmer to layman LiveJournal-er alike.  Not every Instagram is a prolific work of art, but the desire to create and the access to a tool that makes it possible is.  In 2006 Time Magazine named the person of the year "You" and had a little computer screen on the cover with a mirror in it.  At the time I though them to be lazy shits, but thinking about it now, they were spot on.