My First Time LARPing (Live Action Role Playing): A Culture War Report

One of the things you may not know about me is that I have some of the coolest nieces and nephews out there. Recently one of these very cool nephews invited me and John to join him and his friends for some LARPing.

According to the Urban Dictionary, LARP, or Live Action Role Play, is

“a type of game where a group of people wear costumes representing a character they create to participate in an agreed fantasy world. [They] use foam sticks as swords, foam balls as magic and other props to create the games world.”

The first time John and I visited Dagger Deep, the massive Heavy Action Roll Playing arena here on Vancouver Island, we figured we’d just take a look around. That was when we realized that LARPing was one of those all-or-nothing sort of things; we were, of course, denied entrance at the gate. Apparently, jeans just don’t cut it in the medieval world.

This photo was borrowed from the Pictures of Medieval Chaos page on facebook. Check out this photo and more by clicking here, or on the photo itself.

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2 Broke Girls, S4E4 “And the Old Bike Yarn”: A TV Review

oldbikeyarn

I’m not going to lie to you [and honestly, I don’t think I never have in these reviews], but this episode was as shaky as Max’s first attempts to ride a bike for the first time ever. Luckily for you, and for me, if I’m being honest, I can see the silver thread of yarn in every horrific knitted street art installation. With those very appropriate references aside I actually think this marks a positive turn towards giving the secondary cast a little more of the spotlight.

Max and Caroline’s plot revolves around the latter trying to teach the former how to ride a bike, and like I said in the first sentence it is rough. Running with the idea that deliveries will help them add an additional surcharge to their $5 cupcakes [already pretty steep, if you ask me], Ms. Channing steals a bike from out front and puts her plan in action. It’s when she realizes that she is sweating-enough-to-smell-like-Greek-food-out-of-shape that she realizes she needs to instruct Max in an important life skill. Regardless of how I chose to describe it, it’s far from riveting stuff. Continue reading

Why I’m Not A Liberal

…and yeah, that’s from the point of me speaking as a rabid Marxist.

And speaking as a Marxist, this has always been a peeve of mine. With the way politics often gets portrayed, plenty of folks (both liberal and conservative alike) get the misconception that Socialism is just a ‘roided up version of Liberalism and Communism is just a ‘roided of up version of that, with the state getting more and more powerful, larger in size, and more invasive in scope as you progress along that line.

That’s absolutely not how it works, and while that picture’s wrong, I’m not really here today to correct that.

(Though just for the record, this’d be a more accurate picture of the political spectrum…)

I’ve been playing around with this post for a while now, and it’s coming from more than just a desire to clear up my own stance. I truly do think that of the two major forces in American politics and culture, Liberalism is actually the more insidious (I’m not saying that Conservatism is better, but it does seem a lot easier to confront). I’m writing not to just talk about why I’m not a liberal, but why I don’t think you should be one either.

That said, let’s bring up the obvious:

I’m not going to try to address all Liberalism- that’d be a tough task for a book, let alone some blog post. I’m not going to try to attack hypocrisy either, those accusations can always be dismissed with the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. Instead, I’m going to try to hit what I think are the core flaws and paradoxes that the ideology rests on. Continue reading

It’s My Birthday and I’ll Write What I Want To-

So as some of you may know Friday is my one day off of work, the morning of which I spend writing my weekly blog posts. As this particular Friday marks my 24th year of existence I will instead be spending that time doing, well, almost anything else.

Seeing as it’s another weekend, and people watch movies on the weekend, please feel more than free to check out my post last week on Big Hero 6. Again, I won’t fault you for enjoying it if you did, or want to, or will, I just want you to think about why the original all-Japanese cast needed to be diversified when countless all-White casts have been allowed to remain as is.

Baymax thinks he knows why-

As far as something new that I’ve written this week, I left a pretty lengthy message on Kat’s post yesterday, which was on Kendra Knightley’s untouched topless photo. It’s not terribly often that I disagree with something one of my co-writers has written [about once ever six months or so, really], but when I do I try to voice my contrasting opinions and creating a discussion on the topic. Friend of mine and general all-around-great-person presented a rebuttal, but I’d be more than happy for any other voices that want to chime in-

In case you have no idea that the title of this post is referencing, well, I’ve got that covered as well. Hope your day is as good as mine. Or that mine is as good as yours. Whoever has the better day, I hope that that is the day that the other person’s reaches in goodness.

I’m Sorry, but Keira Knightley’s Topless Photo Does Not Count as a Win in the War Against Photoshop

I consider myself a somewhat fit person. I try to do yoga at least once a week. I bike to school. I force-feed myself smoothies (I’ve almost convinced myself that I like them). I also think I’m a fairly confident person. The mental image I hold of myself is, if anything, a little too gracious.

Damn girl, you’re looking fine today!

That being said, after unwillingly encountering photo after photo of perfectly photoshopped women day after day, sometimes I start feeling pretty freaking ugly.

This feeling of inadequacy, directly linked to viewing altered images, makes a lot of people wish there was a wider representation of body types in the media. We want to see people who look like us on TV and in magazines. And we want to see those people presented as attractive, not merely as comic relief or as a foil to the attractive characters. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S4E3 “And the Childhood Not Included”: A TV Review

ITSTEDDYRUXPIN

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I’ve gotta admit, I’m sincerely impressed by just how much happens in this episode. Max and Caroline actually have two separate plots, and while one appears to exist for the sole reason of having Beth Behrs show off her legs [which are admittedly pretty great] while giving birth to a fish baby, the other appears to be propelling this season forward to actually introducing Max’s mother.

The Season 3 finale was a pretty big disappointment to me in that they built up to finally showing a character referenced in pretty much every other episode, only to have it be a total fake out that fell back on this whole “diner family” we’re supposed to love. In this episode, however, we return to Max’s earlier days with a Teddy Ruxpin doll named T-Rux, which now that I type it out realize might be a reference to the dinosaur and not some sort of gangster moniker. Having received it in the mail from her mother Max’s immediate reaction is to send it right back. This helps her to very easily fall back into waxing poetic about her horrific upbringing, but it’s not until a snobby little gay boy [and over half of this review could be dedicated to his character, I swear] wants to buy her stuffed animal that the real feelings come out. Continue reading