New Blogulations

Hey kids and kats!

First off I want to apologize for typing "kats."

You just going to have to learn to live with it I am afraid.

Secondly, I have some new blogulations up at http://stuscmnsblog.blogspot.com/ which is a blog I am doing for my Mass Communications class. Hopefully you find it interesting, but more hopefully I hope you find it doesn't sound too much like Chuck Klosterman (who I have been reading a lot of lately).

Cheers,

Your friendly, neighbourhood Spider-Stu

My TED Talk

TED is a series of talks given each year by luminaries of various field of study. From Theoretical Physics to Environmental Science to the Entertainment Industry (one of my personal favourites being J.J. Abrams discussion of the "Mystery Box"). TED is held in California but they have begun a new initiative in which a series of talks will be held in cities across the globe, with talks given by the locals (or anyone with an interest really, it is the internet after all).

My point is this: TED is coming to Vancouver. I live in Vancouver. I want to give a TED talk.

Now, I'm clearly not a luminary in my field. Some days I'm not even particularly sure what my field is and I'm fairly certain that nobody is going to be interested in hearing the director responsible for Sick. and Boomer and the Beav speak about the fine art of filmmaking. However, all that isn't really important because what I am (or at least what I labour under the delusion that I am) is funny and any series of talks needs to open with a bit of comedy. It lightens the mood and relaxes people before they are mind-blasted by the awesome discussions of matters political and scientific. I know for a fact that TED agrees with me, because there is no way zeFranks talk was secretly about the Higgs-Boson and elementary particle physics.

So I want to be that guy. The one who spends 10 minutes talking about something only vaguely related to a real TED talk to warm everyone up. I want to be that guy and I want to be him in Vancouver at TEDxVancouver.

My topic?

Velociraptor Safety Awareness.

I'll see you at TED.

Prepare your mindscapes!

Adventures of a Part-Time Rogue: Rangers and Elves and Dragons oh my

Let's talk class.

In the Pen and Paper world it is common that various character archetypes are distilled down into classes. There do exist classless systems though we won't discuss them here because a) I've played these games maybe once or twice and b) It would distract from talking about todays subject. These classes in Dungeons and Dragons take the form of recognizable fantasy character types: The Fighter, The Wizard, The Rogue, The Barbarian, etc. Like a lot of D&D and other fantasy they also owe a lot to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series.

And speaking of Tolkien, let's get into my favourite class. The Ranger.


Ranger's are your wandering woodsman type. Usually seen firing a volley of arrows at the enemy before whipping out a double weapon combo on anyone stupid enough to get close. Think Aragorn or Legolas if you need a Tolkien allegory. Robin Hood is another good example. At later levels you get a badass wolf (or animal of your choice) to accompany you and a few spells to help you out along the way.

My first RPG character ever was an Elven Ranger, and to this day Rangers are my go-to class. I've come to favour Humans over Elves but nothing can beat the range-y goodness of taking out enemies from afar and confounding your allies by never getting hurt (It wasn't that my Rangers weren't brave but they knew the tactical advantages of climbing and hiding in trees at the start of a fight before raining arrow-y death upon the enemy).

I eventually perfected the Forest Sniper Ranger build and went on to test my creative boundaries by creating unique and interesting Ranger characters. Particular favourites of mine were the blind, Celtic Ranger who picked his shots by the sound of an enemies footfalls and the street urchin who fought with two knives and the help of his loyal half-wolf, half-dog animal companion.

And while all this experimentation continues, most recently with a half-elf, apple-eating samurai ranger, it all led me to discover (rather late in my D&D career), my second favourite class: The Rogue. More on these sneaky masters of stealing-from-other-party-members in the next Adventures of a Part-Time Rogue.

Lindsay Lohan Involved in a Pregnancy Scandal... In a Movie.

1:37 Pregnant lady... couldn't possibly be foreshadowing right guys?

1:42 Wow Lindsay looks super-pissed about giving up her seat on the bus to the pregnant lady... smooth moves Lohan.

3:00 I was about to make a "this movie has a token Asian" joke but then it turned out he was Lindsay boyfriend, way to make me feel like an asshole, Movie...you win this round.

4:00 SNL alums... that means the movie will be good right?

4:30 Nevermind recurring poop joke, oh and Lindsay is bad at her job, surprise!

8:00 And all the problems Lindsay will have to fix are laid out in one convenient business meeting

8:30 Dog vomit!

10:28 PLOT! She's (not actually) pregnant to save her job.

11:25 Pregnancies make you unfire-able. It's like being in a union...

12:15 who is this old man who keeps showing up?

13:22 She got the idea from Law & Order, guys

16:31 The nerdy antagonist suspects that the very skinny Lindsay is not, in fact, 4 months pregnant.

17:13 Something terrible is going to happen to that dog, it is like the go to gag for bad comedy writing since Anchorman.

18:49 CALLED IT! Eccentric writer guy just died on the dog. However will Lindsay solve this problem? Will it be at the end of the movie after she has been shamed for faking a pregnancy? Let's find out.

21:00 Yes, because people won't get suspicious if you go from Anorexic to giant preggers belly overnight.

23:01 And the bus joke comes full circle.

25:47 aaaand now we're exploiting the fake pregnancy for capitalism

29:45 The lies they are a-growing. She'll solve her problems by drinking aparently. The true Lindsay Lohan Method.

36:34 You mean the bumbling, attractive, white executive is going to be the love interest and displace the Nice-but-kind-of-immature Asian Guy? Hollywood... I wish I was surprised...

38:00 Fake orgasm joke! HILARIOUS! #sarcasm

39:00 Blandy McBland wants to be a writer? I bet Lohan inspires him to do it, except that would be a cliche...

40:00 And she wanted to be a musician, I see a musical number in this movies future.

43:10 New character lady has Sarah Jessica Parker face...

44:38 Exit Ex-boyfriend stage left

48:13 Nerdy antagonist is now on her side apparently, and there is a really awkward executive named Karl now.

51:42 Pregnancy belly THEFT! because nobody in the store will notice you growing several inches in the change room.

56:50 and now apparently Lindsay has gone crazy and believes she actually is pregnant.

1:09:46 I got bored there for a moment and played some Tetris on my phone. To recap Lindsay's sister went baby-psycho on her and tore up her belly. She replaced it with a balloon. There is no way that could go poorly... right guys?

1:10:13 Pop!

1:11:10 Blandy McBland isn't taking it well, how will LiLo fix this one, and what part will TV Personality Janean Garofallo play in the solution

1:12:40 "The Vista" instead of "The View"? clever movie...

1:14:27 The younger sister who wanted to be a cook but Lindsay wouldn't let be a cook is actually a good cook? shocker. I bet this talent helps solve all her problems.

1:15:48 Ah it ties in directly to the Garofallo conundrum

1:18:00 Pregnant Lady who is in labour is apparently going to be on the Gorafallo show. Oh, no, wait "Clever heartwarming solution" is in effect.

1:23:45 Two Years Later... I bet she's pregnant wouldn't that be hilarious? I should write movies.

1:28:00 Lindsay Lohan apparently needed a stunt double for this movie in which the most strenuous thing she did was slide into home in a softball game...Stay Classy Hollywood

1:29:08 The End. True to it's title this movie was in fact the cinematic equivalent of Labour Pains, I felt like I was peeing out a bowling ball for the last hour and a half...

In the words of a better man than I, "Goldblum ouuuutttttt..."

Guys, I have important news...

Lindsay Lohan + Pregnancy = Hilarity in crisp straight-to Blue Ray HD quality. Am I Right? Guys? Guys? I just wait here in the awkward silence until you answer...

So it seems the Lindsay Lohan Wheel of Terrible-ness has a new spoke. Am I going to watch it and attempt a live-blog along with it?

Survey Says....YES.

(I promise not to enjoy it.)

Interesting People I saw at the Bus Stop the night of the Folk Festival (Apparently)

-A be-dreaded, dutch girl who magically produced a didgeridoo from under her shawl for an impromptu performance.

-Her posse of slightly inebriated weekend hippies, with their tie-die and their hemp bracelets and neatly coiffed hair.

-A stout little man wearing cargo shorts and a tank top carrying a wizard's staff (complete with a magical crystal). I can only assume he was an actual Wizard and that those were his casual weekend clothes.

-An Gypsy chieftain complete with fanciful outfit and creepy dead eye (for looking badass while cursing me).

Adventures of a Part-Time Rogue: The Beginnening

I have a confession to make (though since I'm pretty sure only my friends read this, it won't be a particularly astonishing one): I roleplay.

DUN. DUN. DUNNNN!

And I don't mean in the "I'll be the strict Dean and you be the naughty school-girl" sort of way....well, not for this post anyways. I mean in the Dungeons and Dragons sort of way. Cue visual:
I've been at it since around grade 10, when I was pulled head-first into the world of pen-and-paper RPGs, by a group of friends. The first game was played during a Forty-Hour Famine event at our high school, as a way of killing time and forgetting our hunger. Now here is where most Dungeons and Dragon confessionals will tell you that their group doesn't fit in to the stereotype, but I'm not going to do that.

We did.

That is not to say that we haven't all grown up to be bright young men with exceptional social skills because we have, but at the time we were the geeks,. The nerds. We wore the terms proudly. Most of us are still geeks (we just got better at hiding it) and we have gone on to become writers, game designers, computer programmers, and political scientists.

So you won't hear any apologetic we-were-cool high school D&D stories from me. That isn't to say the stereotypes are wholly true or that I've yet to find "cool" people who play pen-and-paper games. In fact, since high school the stereotypes have been completely left behind and now I game with cinematographers, snowboarders, plumbers, rock stars, frat boys, and yes, the occasional video game producer. I write and direct films, but seeing as how that really is just a more expensive version of Dungeon Mastering (more on that later) I'll leave myself out of that line-up.

We first began playing, 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Weeks later Wizards of the Coast would release 3rd edition and we would switch to that, but my first game was AD&D complete with THACO (To Hit Armour Class zerO, I looked it up). Now I'm pretty good at math so THACO wasn't that hard for me to wrap my head around, but the logic behind wanting to have one score low when every other score was supposed to be high never made much sense to me. It was needlessly complicated and I am glad it is gone. I do miss rolling character sheets up on nothing but a chunk of loose-leaf though.

So with the Famine rapidly approaching High Schoo Stu had to roll up his first character. It was at this moment, lunch on a Friday in the Tech Support Students lounge, that I began a long career of perfecting the Elven Ranger build. Now I may tend towards roguish humans these days, but I still get a sense of home whenever I play something with pointy ears and a bow. He was pretty rough to start off with, but after all it was the first character I ever made. Later rangers would excel in the art of staying hidden and sniping from the trees, annoying fellow players by never getting hit, and perplexing Dungeon Master's who never did figure out that they should stop setting battles in forests where I was at a distinct advantage.

But old Leos, wasn't quite so magnificent of a build, none of his stats and ability choices really mixed all that well and he had the charisma of a particularly dull chunk of oak. I imagine him somewhere still hacking away at Kobolds with his longsword and rusty chainmail. Somehow I can't see him progressing too far past the early levels, but he's a survivor and my first so I can't allow myself to imagine him dead.

His career lasted all of one game, storming a dungeon alongside a mute, dwarven beastmaster, a talky Half-Elf Mage, and a human barbarian or fighter or something big with a sword that hit people a lot, but somewhere between brainstorming with the mage to set a flaming grease trap for a couple of Goblins behind a door and one-shoting both of the DM's big bad pet dire wolves, I was hooked. No amount of snowboarding and starting positions on the high school basketball team could save me from the nerdery to come.

Three Random Thoughts (and what they mean)

"We need more Steampunk."

This is exactly what it sounds like. I want to see more steampunk in today's pop culture, but mostly what it means is I want to see less vampires. Seriously, the 3 D's (Deep, Dark, and Different) weren't any fun the first time around and they are just plain annoying now. I'm looking at you Twilight 2: Werewolf Boogaloo.

"I really can't remember..."

I had a second thought when I started writing the last paragraph, but now it seems to have disappeared. I am taken aback by this because I remember it being pretty hilarious. I should probably start writing ideas down when I have them, but in the mean time if you promise to pretend that this was funny I'll promise not to start drinking before noon on a Saturday, you know, in a completely unrelated sort of way...

"Gonk, Gonk"

If the everyday average Internet personality is going to start making "my young padawan" and "It's a trap!" references then I think it is my duty as an Alice proclaimed "Star Wars Freakazoid" to start getting more and more obscure with my references to a Galaxy Far, Far Away. Also this t-shirt: Gonk, Gonk